Bjarmaland
territory mentioned in Norse sagas
Bjarmaland (also spelled Bjarmland and Bjarmia) was a territory mentioned in sagas from the Viking Age and in geographical accounts until the 16th century. The term is usually understood to have referred to the southern shores of the White Sea and the basin of the Northern Dvina (Finnish: Vienanjoki) as well as, presumably, to some of the surrounding areas. Those territories comprise a part of the Arkhangelsk Oblast of Russia, as well as the Kola Peninsula (also known as the Russian North).
Norse voyagers in Bjarmaland
According to the Voyage of Ohthere (c. 890 AD), the Norwegian merchant Ottar (Ohthere) reported to king Alfred the Great that he had sailed for 15 days along the northern coast and then southwards, finally arriving at a great river, probably the Northern Dvina. At the estuary of the river dwelt the Beormas, who unlike the nomadic Sami peoples were sedentary, and their land was rich and populous. Ohthere did not know their language but he said that it resembled the language of the Sami people. The Bjarmians told Ohthere about their country and other countries that bordered it.
Later, several expeditions were undertaken from Norway to Bjarmaland. In 920, Eric Bloodaxe made a Viking expedition, as well as Harald II of Norway and Haakon Magnusson of Norway, in 1090.
The best known expedition was that of Tore Hund, who, together with some friends, arrived in Bjarmaland in 1026.
“Bjarmaland” enters the record as territory mentioned in Norse sagas. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bjarmaland, territory and mentioned can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q524769. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1090 and 1026.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bjarmaland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.