A good many Viking houses were located in towns, which were most often built near the seashore or along rivers or fjords (long, bay-like inlets from the sea). But many other homes were erected on farms, which dotted the landscape wherever Viking groups settled. The kind of farming in which these groups engaged depended on the area in which they dwelled. In Norway and Sweden, where small pockets of arable land were widely separated by mountains, glaciers, and fjords, few crops were raised. The chief economic activity was livestock raising (or animal husbandry). Nearly everyone in these regions raised cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep. In Denmark, by contrast, farmers had these same animals, but in addition they had enough good land to grow large amounts of rye, barley, oats, peas, cabbage, and beans. Meanwhile, most Scandinavians continued to supplement their diets with hunting and fishing.
Although many Norse were farmers of one sort or another, making a living from farming alone was often difficult. With the exception of parts of Denmark, rich, arable land was scarce in Scandinavia, and the climate was frequently harsh for a large portion of the year. So it was common to supplement one's farming activities with other economic activiTies. Raiding was one option that some men took, of course. But far more chose to engage in some form of trade.
One such farmer-trader whose exploits have survived in written accounts was Ohthere (or Ottar), a local chief who dwelled in Halogaland, in northern Norway, in the late 800s. In an account he passed on to others, he explained that he had no more than twenty cows, twenty sheep, and twenty pigs. His soil, which he plowed using a horse, was poor, so he hunted reindeer and walrus and traded bear and otter skins to help make ends meet. Like the Vikings who went raiding, Ohthere was in large degree dependent on the sea because to exchange his goods he periodically had to sail to small trading centers scattered across Norway and Denmark. Describing some of these travels and the landmarks he looked for, he wrote:
There is a port to the south of this land, which is called Sciringes-heal. [A] man could not sail [there] in a month, if he watched into the night, and every day had a fair wind; and all the while he shall sail along the coast; and on his right hand first is Island, then the islands which are between Island and this land. Then this land continues quite to Sciringes-heal; and all the way on the left is Norway. To the south of Sciringes-heal a great sea runs up a vast way into the country, and is so wide that no man can see across it.41
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