bold men who bad an interest in that business. Jernskiægge bad a daughter called Gudrun; and at last it was agreed upon between the parties that the king should take her in marriage. When the weddingday came King Olaf and Gudrun went to bed together. As soon as Gudrun, the first night they lay together, thought the king was asleep, she drew a knife, with which she intended to run him through; but the king saw it, took the knife from her, got out of bed, and went to his men, and told them what had happened. Gudrun also took her clothes, and went away along with all her men who had followed her thither. Gudrun never came into the king's bed again.
Chapter LXXIX.
Building of the ship Crane.
The same autumn King Olaf laid the keel of a great long-ship out on the strand at the river Nid. It was a snække[1]; and he employed many carpenters upon her, so that early hi winter the vessel was ready. It had thirty benches for rowers, was high in stem and stern, but was not broad. The king called this ship the Crane. After Jernskiasgge's death his body was carried to Yriar, and lies there in the Skisegge mound on Osteraad.
Chapter LXXX.
Thangbrand the priest goes to Iceland.
When King Olaf Tryggvesson had been two years lung of Norway, there was a Saxon priest in his house who was called Thangbrand, a passionate, ungovernable man, and a great man-slayer; but he was a good scholar, and a clever man. The king would not have him in his house upon account of his misdeeds; but gave him the errand to go to Iceland, and bring that land to the Christian faith. The king gave him a merchant vessel; and, as far as we know of this voyage
- ↑ A snække appears to have been a denomination of one class of long- ships or ships of war. The word snek is still used in the north of Scotland for quick, nimble; and the word snekka probably denoted the Qualities we understand by a cutter or fast vessel. A dragon appears to have been applied to a heavier class of ships of war. The ships of burden, last-ships, appear to have been built on a different model.
