PREHISTORIC NAVAL ARCHITECTURE. 589 



^ave liim great thanks for the iinproveiiieiit. Afterwards Thorberg 

 was the master bulkier of the ship until she was finished. The ship 

 was a dragon, built after the one the King had captured at Haloga- 

 land; but the ship was far larger and more carefully put together in 

 all her parts. The King named her Serpent the Long, and the other 

 Serpent the Short. The long Serpent had thirty-four benches for 

 rowers. The head and the arched tail were both gilt, and the bul- 

 warks were as high as in seagoing ships. The ship was the best and 

 most costly ship ever made in Norway." 



The long ships were subdivided into snekka {sneMja), skude {sMta), 

 dragon (drehi), skeid (.s7i"6'/5), and busse {huza). 



The descriptions of these varieties are somewhat indistinct and do 

 not permit of a definite opinion as to the real difference existing be- 

 tween a dragon, skeid, or buza. The ship that Harald Hardradi had 

 built at Kidaros, in IIGO, is called .s7.7'/5 and hussi, and it is farther told' 

 tliat after the king had placed a dragon's head upon its in-ow it might 

 be called a skeid or a dragon. 



The Sagas have preserved accounts of celebrated ships, of which we 

 mention : 



{(() Long ships. — Thorolf Kveldulfsson's ship built in 872-S73.2 



King Olaf's ship "Karlhdfdi"; on her prow was a king's head, which 

 he himself had carved. That head was for a long time afterwards used 

 on ships steered by chiefs.^ 



King Sverre's ship "Harknifrin" (the razor), of twenty-three divi- 

 sions,' and the ''OlafsuSe," wherein six men were placed in each divi- 

 sion.'' 



The " MariasuSe," built by King Svcrre in 118L'; she had thirty-two 

 divisions and was proportionately large; she was larger than any other 

 ship in Norway at that time.^ 



King Sverre's ship " Ogcarbrand," of thirty divisions, built in 1199, 

 and which had a high free board.' 



Ship "Gullbringen," belonging to Vidkunn Erlingsson, who died in 

 1183; she had twenty divisions and was proportionately large.^ 



In 1206 Urling Steinv;eg, Reiderthe Messenger, and Earl Philippus, 

 of Tunsberg, built a ship which was "much larger than any ship pre- 

 viously constructed in Norway." She had, what neither before nor 



'G. Strom: Snorre Stnrlason Historieskrivn, p. 252. 



-Egil's Saga, c. ix; Olaf Trygvason Saga, Heimskringla text, c. Ixxix. 



^St. Olaf Saga, c. xix. 



••A division, or nim, was the distauee between the rowers' benches; the inter- 

 vening gangway divided the nim into half rums, which were occupied by from 2 to 

 8 men. 



"' I'JonnngssiJgur, ed linger (cit. bv Nicolnysen), p. 66. 



'■'Ibid., p. 77; Norske bygn fra fortiden. 3 raekkje, pi. v. 



■Il>id.,p. 165. 



' Flateyarbok, ii, 600. 



