Transcriber's Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
VIKING SHIP, USED FOR BURIAL (GOKSTAD, NORWAY).
(Length of keel, 60 feet; total length, 75 feet; broadest part, 15½ feet; depth from the upper part of bulwark to bottom of keel, 3½ feet.)
Judging from the number of holes seen, which were about 18 inches below the gunwale, it carried sixteen oars, and was consequently a sixteen-seater. Its preservation is due to the blue clay in which it was partly embedded, the upper part being eaten away owing to the clay being mixed with sand, thus allowing the rain and air to penetrate. It is entirely of oak, clinker built, calked with cows’ hair spun in a sort of cord.
THE VIKING AGE
THE EARLY HISTORY MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS OF THE ANCESTORS OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING NATIONS
ILLUSTRATED FROM
THE ANTIQUITIES DISCOVERED IN MOUNDS, CAIRNS, AND BOGS AS WELL AS FROM THE ANCIENT SAGAS AND EDDAS
To you, my dear Taylor, who, like myself, have travelled over manylands, and led the same adventurous life in days gone by, I dedicate“The Viking Age,” in remembrance of years of friendship, of themany pleasant days we have spent together, and especially of ourwanderings in the Land of the Midnight Sun, in the home of the oldVikings, while I was engaged on the present work.
PREFACE.
While studying the progress made in the colonisation ofdifferent parts of the world by European nations, I haveoften asked myself the following questions:—
How is it that over every region of the globe the spread ofthe English-speaking people and of their language far exceedsthat of all the other European nations co