38 Norzvay and the Norwegians 



these representations are concerned with ships ; we may 

 believe that some of them are representations of sea- 

 fights, like the sea-fights of the Vikiugs in the ninth or 

 tenth centuries of our era. And rude as the drawings 

 are, they do allow us to gather some notion of the kind 

 of vessels employed in that very remote age : which, it 

 may be said at once, correspond in the principal features 

 not only with what we gather were the kind of boats 

 used in Tacitus's day, but save in one point of great im- 

 portance, with what we know were the kind of vessels 

 used by the Vikings. That is to say, these ships of the 

 rock-carvings were row-boats with very high carved 

 prows or stern posts, and steered not by a rudder be- 

 hind but by an oar at the side. This last practice long 

 continued, and has given us our word starboard, i.e. 

 steerboard, to signify the right-hand side of the vessel. 

 But where the Viking ship differed from the vessels of 

 Tacitus's time, and those still earlier ones which are 

 displayed upon the rock-carvings of Tanum or Brestad 

 in Bohuslcin, is that they possessed sails, which the two 

 previous orders of vessels were quite without. They 

 were still rowing boats, but with the addition of a sail 

 which could be hoisted when required. This new 

 device, — new to them, — the northern people had learnt 

 more or less directly from the Eoniaus. For our word 

 sail, and its equivalents in other Teutonic languages, 

 segd, segl, seil, are all derived from the Latin word 

 saguhini.^ 



So much for the northern lands as they presented 

 themselves to the imaoination of a Koman of the first 



o 



1 A short cloak originally much worn liy the Gauls ; afterwards the 

 word was applied to a sail. 



