token of the Thing's assembling was going round through the land. The king demanded maintenance during the time this delay lasted. The bonders pre¬ ferred entertaining the king as a guest, by turns, as long as he required it; and the king accepted of the proposal to go about with some of his men as a guest from place to place in the land, while others of his men remained to guard the ships. When King Olaf's relations, Hyrning and Thorgeir, heard of this, they gathered men, fitted out ships, and went northwards to Viken. They came in the night with their men to a place at which King Gudrod was living as a guest, and attacked him with fire and weapons; and there King Gudrod fell, and most of his followers. Of those who were with his ships some were killed, some slipped away and fled to great distances; and now were all the sons of Eric and Gunhild dead.
Chapter XCV.
The building of the ship Long Serpent.
The winter after King Olaf came from Halogaland, he had a great vessel built at Ladehammer[1], which was larger than any ship in the country, and of which the beam-knees are still to be seen. The length of keel that rested upon the grass was seventy-four ells. Thorberg Shafting was the man's name who was the master-builder of the ship; but there were many others besides,—some to fell wood, some to shape it, some to make nails, some to carry timber[2]; and all that was used was of the best. The ship was both long and broad and high-sided, and strongly timbered. While they were planking the ship, it happened that Thorberg had to go home to his farm upon some urgent
- ↑ Ladehammar,—the knob or point of land below the house of Lade., still known by the same name. Lade is close to Drontheim.
- ↑ This division of labour and trades, and this building of a vessel equal in length to a frigate of forty guns, give a curious peep at the civilisation of these pagans in the 10th century, and of the state of the useful arts among them. We need not be surprised that a people who had master-carpenters among them had scalds—the useful and the fine arts keep some kind of pace together.
