Viking Skip at Ckristiania 63 



roof of plunks over one end, possibly over the whole 

 length, except a little bit of deck fore and aft. As a 

 rule, in these boats, the men sat under awnings or tents, 

 which were struck before they came into action. On 

 the short piece of deck fore and aft there stood a group 

 of the foremost fighting men ; others, no doubt, stood 

 round the side and made some sort of protection for the 

 rowers. Very frequently there ran a gangway connect- 

 ing the fore and aft decks, the forecastle (in old Norse 

 nusii) and the poop {lii^tinfj). The Christiania boat 

 had sixteen rowers a-side. The sizes of the boats of which 

 we read descriptions in the Norse Sagas are always 

 reckoned by the number of seats or benches of rowers 

 they contained ; and this Christiania boat would be 

 called a boat of sixteen benches. These ben dies would 

 accommodate from four to eight men ; and it is probable 

 that, in most of the war- vessels, the number of people 

 they contained was almost six times as many as the 

 number of benches, so that the Christiania boat in 

 question would contain about a hundred men. This is, 

 if anything, an inside reckoning. This Christiania boat 

 is a fair average size for a boat of this period ; we read 

 of boats which had thirty and more 'benches,' but they 

 are always spoken of as something exceptional. 



A picturesque appearance was given to the Vikings' 

 ships by the coloured square sails — often they were 

 painted in stripes of colour ; and by the coloured round 

 shields, painted red, or black, or white, which hung 

 outside the gunwale ; and, finally, by the beautifully- 

 carved and painted figure-heads and stern-posts. 



The shallowness of these vessels made them very 

 useful in the Viking days for lying in small creeks, or 



