Since King Alfred, as has been said, must have written between 880 and 901, Ottar may have made his voyage about 870 to 890. This remarkable man, who according to his own statement undertook his expedition principally from desire of knowledge, is the second northern explorer of whom we have definite information in history. The first was the Greek Pytheas, who went about as far as the Arctic Circle. Some twelve hundred years later the Norwegian Ottar continues the exploration farther north along the coasts of Norway and sails right into the White Sea. He thereby determined the extent of Scandinavia on the north, and is the first known discoverer of the North Cape, the Polar Sea (or Barents Sea), and the White Sea; but he did not know whether the latter was a bay of the ocean or not. It is unlikely that Ottar was the first Norwegian to _discover_ the coasts along which he sailed. It is true that the expressions "that he wished to find out how far the land extended due north, or whether any man dwelt to the north of the uninhabited tracts," might be taken to mean that this was hitherto unknown to the Norwegians; but it should doubtless rather be understood as a general indication of the object of the voyage: this was of interest to King Alfred, but not whether it was absolutely the first voyage of discovery in those regions. The names Terfinnas and Beormas are given as something already known, and when Ottar reaches the latter he understands at once that he ought not to proceed farther, for fear of trouble; it may be supposed that he knew them by report as a warlike people. A. Bugge [1908, p. 409] quotes K. Rygh to the effect that the names of fjords in Finmark must be very ancient, e.g., those that end in "-angr." This termination is not found in Iceland, and would consequently be older than the Norwegian colonisation of that country; nor does "angr" (== fjord) as an appellative occur in the Old Norse literary language. It may therefore be possible that these names are older than Ottar. Bugge also, from information given by Mr. Qvigstad, calls attention to the fact that the Lapps call Magarö "Makaravjo," and a place on Kvalö (near Hammerfest) "Rahkkeravjo." The latter part of these names must be the primary Germanic word "awjô" for island or land near the shore. According to this the Norsemen must have been as far north as this and have given names to these places, while this form of the word was still in use, and the Finns or Lapps have taken it from them.