withes or cords that bound the planks to the framework. The seams of the flooring and sides of the ship were calked with the hair of cattle, that had been spun into a threefold cord and with every plank went in the calking. King Olaf’s “Long Serpent” was a work of iron and oak that was a stout expression of the iron age. The port-holes pierced in the sides were of varying size, the largest amidships and the smallest at either end. The oars were also of different sizes, and the larger ones had each two oarsmen, who were seated as they rowed. When the oars were at rest, the port-holes were covered with wooden shutters. For the oarsmen of higher rank, the oar-holes were richly carved; for the others they were plain. The “Long Serpent,” in spite of its great length, was so slenderly pointed at both ends that it could be very rapidly turned in time of danger.
King Olaf’s ship, in its speed and symmetrical beauty, set a fashion in yachts that is followed to this day. The wooden shields of the “Long Serpent,” according to the old Gula laws on nautical matters handed. down from Haakon the Good, were crossed with iron bands and were painted a white ground with red and blue crosses. The designs on other vikings’ shields had been a yellow half-moon on a black ground. Up from the deck of the ship rose the tilt-boards, a richly painted and carved framework, upon which an awning, embroidered in glowing colors, was stretched at night. King Olaf had declared that when the “Long
