Othere, the old sea-captain, Who dwelt in Helgoland, To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth, Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth, Which he held in his brown right hand.
His figure was tall and stately, Like a boy's his eye appeared; His hair was yellow as hay, But threads of a silvery grey Gleamed in his tawny beard.
Hearty and hale was Othere, His cheek had the colour of oak; With a kind of laugh in his speech, Like the sea-tide on a beach, As unto the king he spoke.
And Alfred, King of the Saxons, Had a book upon his knees, And wrote down the wondrous tale Of him who was first to sail Into the Arctic seas.
‘So far I live to the northward, No man lives north of me; To the east are wild mountain-chains, And beyond them meres and plains; To the westward all is sea.
So far I live to the northward, From the harbour of Skeringes-hale, If you only sailed by day With a fair wind all the way, More than a month would you sail.
I own six hundred reindeer, With sheep and swine beside; I have tribute from the Finns, Whalebone and reindeer-skins, And ropes of walrus-hide.
I ploughed the land with horses, But my heart was ill at ease, For the old seafaring men Came to me now and then, With their sagas of the seas;—
Of Iceland and of Greenland, And the stormy Hebrides, And the undiscovered deep;— I could not eat nor sleep For thinking of those seas.
To the northward stretched the desert, How far I fain would know; So at last I sallied forth, And three days sailed due north, As far as the whale-ships go.