48 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



spells, and the faith in omens and dreams, are far from 

 being extinct in the Long Island even at the present day. 



In their lighter moments the Norsemen were boon 

 companions, but refining influences were present which 

 tempered the grossness of their physical appetites. The 

 skald recited his poems ; the sagaman told his stories ; 

 the musician played his harp or his fiddle. Athletic sports 

 had an important place in the community, the chief 

 exercises being wrestling, leaping, and swimming, games 

 of ball, hunting, and falconry. Chess-playing, riddles, 

 feats of jugglery, and horse fights, were favourite amuse- 

 ments. The splendid set of chessmen, chiefly made of 

 walrus-tusk, which were found in 1831 at Uig in Lewis, 

 and which are now in the British Museum, probably dates 

 from the Norse occupation. Two of the figures are repre- 

 sented in the act of biting their shields, a common practice 

 with Norse champions, when overtaken by a fit of berserk 

 rage. 



As a fighter, the Norseman was unexcelled, either on 

 land or sea. He loved his sword as his child, sometimes 

 retaining its genealogy, and giving it a distinctive name. 

 The axe, the bow, and the sling, were his other weapons 

 of offence ; the coat of mail, the shield, and the helmet, 

 constituted his means of defence. His ships varied in size 

 and shape as in use. The longships which were some- 

 times sheathed with iron above the sea level were the 

 most powerful ; the skutas (whence the sgoths of the Long 

 Island) were the swiftest of the war-vessels. The size of 

 a ship and her fighting strength were gauged by the number 

 of oars, or the number of benches, which she carried. 

 Kaupship was the generic name for trading vessels, one 

 kind of cargo ship being called byrding (burden), of which 

 name, the "birling" of the Hebrideans, during the clan 

 days, may be a corruption. The merchant-ships were dis- 

 tinguished from the war-vessels by the absence of war- 

 pennants, dragons at the stem and stern, and shields hung 

 over the side. As a rule, they enjoyed immunity from 

 the attentions of the Vikings, who considered it unmanly 



