64 Norway and the Norwegians 



passing up rivers far into the interior of a country ; 

 but they could not have been good seafaring vessels, 

 and doubtless many of them were lost. Among the 

 specimens of old Norse poetry which have come down 

 to us, and of which we shall speak in another chapter, 

 there is one beautiful piece in which the author laments 

 over the death by drowning of his favourite son. It 

 may stand to us for a symbol of many thousands of 

 laments which must have been uttered by fathers, 

 mothers, wives, children over the men who were lost in 

 in the same way. The boats had no regular tiller, but 

 were steered by an oar from the side, the right side 

 generally ; and it is from this custom that the right 

 side of a vessel has received the name steer-board — 

 starboard. 



We have spoken of the heavy square-sailed ships, 

 with high curving prows, which are still to be met with 

 all along the coast of Norway. These have generally 

 square sterns ; but in some places (off the Lofotens, 

 for instance, if the traveller should go so far north) 

 another sort of boat is used, almost exactly like these 

 in build, but pointed both stem and stern. This is 

 almost an exact copy of the Gokstad ship, that is to say, 

 of the old Viking ship. Something the same shape is 

 preserved in the smaller rowing-boats which are used 

 on the fjords or island lakes. But these are too small, 

 and too rarely hoist a sail to give the reader adequate 

 means for realising the appearance of a Viking ship. 

 We must then keep the high-prowed coasting or fishing 

 vessels in our mind's eye if we want to get a picture of 

 the sight which, towards the end of the eighth century, 

 began to strike at first with surprise and then with 



