62 Norivay and the Norwegians 



very well stand as specimens of the whole class. One 

 of them was found at Tune, which is the same as Tuns- 

 berg, so far as we can tell, the earliest of the towns of 

 Norway. The other boat, a beautifully preserved speci- 

 men, which stands in the house especially built for it 

 beside the Museum, was discovered at Gokstad in the 

 Christiania Fjord. It must be said that the latest use 

 to which this Gokstad ship has been placed has been 

 for the purposes of burial : that is to say, it has been 

 employed as an immense coffin. The custom long re- 

 mained among the Scandinavian people of interring 

 men, presumably great leaders, in ships ; and this was 

 done in the days when the bodies of men were burnt 

 as well as those in which they were buried. 



In the former time the pyre was lighted on the ship, 

 and the ship was pushed out to sea ; in the latter case 

 it was, like this Gokstad vessel, used as a huge coffin 

 and buried in the earth. It is because the Gokstad 

 ship has been buried in this fashion that it has been so 

 well preserved.^ 



This Christiania boat is sixty feet along her flat keel, 

 and seventy-five feet measured at her greatest length. 

 She is pointed at either end, and has high stem- and 

 stern-posts, like the boats represented in the Bohusliin 

 carvings. She is shallow, her depth at the broadest 

 part being little more than three and a half feet ; her 

 gunwale rises as she grows narrower towards either end. 

 She was not decked, but may have had a sort of sloping 



1 So far as regards the names of the Norse vessels, the general name 

 skip applied to all. Battle-ships are often called 'dragons,' because of the 

 custom of ornamenting their prows with dragons' heads. They are also 

 called long-ships (langskip). Tbe words sncJdja and sko.ta, which likewise 

 occur, denote small, swift-rowing boats. 



