219 The present writer has found that the statements of another mediaeval source, the book of king Waldemar II of Denmark, written in 1231 or 1232, bears out his supposition that the ships of the Danish ledung, the skipes, were held together in groups of four and that such a group of four ships was the equivalent of one Danish herred. That theory would give a total figure of 212 1/2 mediaeval herreds in Denmark, each herred with an assessment at 60 bols or 480 ottings. The number of ottings of mediaeval Denmark, mentioned above, 102.000, is almost exactly twice the figure given for Norway, i.e. 51.200. This close accordance would not in fact have been coincidental but would indicate that the original assessment of Danish acreage would have been 102.400 or double the figure of Norwegian assessment. The author has put forward the supposition that the latter number was the original Danish territory assessment figure and that the difference in figures is accounted for by the assessment of the Swedish härad of Askim, bordering upon the Göta river in the north and on Halland in the south. The härad of Askim would originally have been a part of the then Danish territory of Halland and would have been made over to Sweden in about 1050 by the Danish King, Sven Estridson, not very long after the time when the Göta river had been fixed as the borderline between Denmark and Norway. The figure of 102.000 ottings, mentioned above as the assessment of Denmark, would thus show Denmark after having lost parts of its original territory to Norway and Sweden: statements in the Frankish annals in fact indicate that at the beginning of the 9th century Denmark included the whole litteral fromSkåne in Sweden of today to Vestfold in Norway. These suppositions would indicate that the corresponding assessments of Danish and Norwegian territories were established simultaneously and fixed at a rough and ready estimate of the acreage of both countries. Putting this together with the estimated assessment of Sweden at 76.800 attungs —identical with 3/4 of the Danish figure —the total assessment of acreage in the Scandinavian countries would have amounted to the following figures: Assessments Ottings, attungs 6-såldings Ploughlands Shares Denmark Sweden Norway 4/9 102.400 76.800 51.200 12.800 9.600 6.400 3/9 2/9 9/9 230.400 28.800 It may be mentioned that this figure of 28.800 ploughlands for Scandinavia would have represented about 40 ®/o of the comparative English
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