84 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



where they are now known as Northland boats. The long ships were 

 the war vessels of the Norse, but they were also used as pleasure 

 yachts on the viks, or bays, of Norway, by the kings, jar Is, and 

 other nobles, and by their ladies. The most famous of all was Olaf 

 Tryggvason's Long Serpent^ which was a hundred and forty-eight 

 feet long, had thirty-two pairs of oars, and carried three hundred 

 men. The ultimate of all long ships, however, was that built 

 by King Cnut in England which had sixty pairs of oars, carried 

 five hundred persons, and was a third the length of the Queen Eliza- 

 beth. 



Of more interest to us, however, are the round ships, for it was in 

 these that the Norse made their great voyages of exploration and 

 went a-whaling. They were also of various kinds and sizes but were 

 mostly built to the same plan. They relied more on sail and had 

 oars only fore and aft for use in entering ports or bucking river 

 currents. They were usually of about fifty tons' displacement and 

 carried up to fifteen tons of cargo. There was a forecastle for sleep- 

 ing and a small poop deck, and the two were connected by narrow 

 covered passages along either side of the central hold, which was 

 undecked but covered with a skin tarpaulin when filled with cargo. 

 There was accommodation of a cramped kind for a crew of from 

 fifty to sixty. Women often went along with their men, though in 

 lesser numbers, and many a Norseman was born upon the bosom 

 of the ocean in the narrow forecastles of these sturdy ships. Life 

 aboard the round ships was not gentle. Only two sparse meals were 

 eaten each day, usually consisting of porridge and dried fish but 

 sometimes supplemented by bread, butter, and cheese. Water was 

 often foul and was replaced by ale when it was available. The Norse 

 also had the wise habit of drinking the blood of freshly killed sea 

 birds. 



Round ships lacked keels and had a central mast, and they were 

 very much broader in the beam than the war vessels. They would 

 not at first sight appear to be very handy, and they could probably 

 only run free or sail, at most, one point into the wind, but they 

 seem to have been most excellent sea boats. They had much more 

 freeboard than the long ships and so were able to brave the ocean 

 at its worst. They were known as knorr or kaup-skipy which meant 

 ''trading ships," though the name byrding^ or "ship of burden," was 



