The

originally called "steerboard" from this circumstance. rudder was like a large oar, with long blade and short handle, and was attached, not to the side of the boat, but to the end of a conical piece of wood which projected almost a foot from the side of the vessel, and almost two feet from the stern. This piece of wood was bored down its length, and no doubt a rope passing through it secured the rudder to the ship's side. It was steered by a tiller attached to the handle, and perhaps also by a rope fastened to the blade. As a whole, this disinterred vessel proved to be anything but the rude and primitive craft which might have been expected; it was neatly built and well preserved, constructed on what a sailor would call beautiful lines, and eminently fitted for sea service. Many such vessels may be found depicted on the celebrated Bayeux tapestry; and the peculiar position of the rudder explains the treaty mentioned in the Heimskringla, giving to Norway all lands lying west of Scotland between which and the mainland a vessel could pass with her rudder shipped.

The vessel thus described is preserved at Christiania, and is here represented from an engraving, for which I am indebted to Professor R. B. Anderson, of Madison, Wisconsin. A full account of it, with many illustrations, was published in a quarto volume by N. Nicolayson, at Christiania, in 1882. This was not one of the very largest ships, for some of them had thirty oars on each side, and vessels carrying from twenty to twenty-five were not uncommon. The largest of these were called Dragons, and other sizes were known as Serpents or Cranes. The ship itself was often so built as to represent the name it bore: the dragon, for instance, was a long low vessel, with the gilded head of a dragon at the bow, and the gilded tail at the stern; the moving oars at the side might represent the legs of the imaginary creature, the row of shining red and white shields that were hung over the gunwale.

oars.

looked like the monster's scales, and the sails striped with red and blue might suggest his wings. The ship preserved at Christiania is described as having had but a single mast, set into a block of wood so large that it is said no such block could now be cut in Norway. Probably the sail was much like those still carried by large open boats in that country-a single square sail on a mast forty feet long. These masts have no standing rigging, and are taken down when not in use; and this was probably the practice of the Vikings. In case of danger these sea-rovers trusted chiefly to their Once, when King Harald's fleet was on its way back to Norway with plunder from Denmark, the vessels lay all night at anchor in the fog, and when the sun pierced the fog in the morning it seemed as if many lights were burning in the sea. Then Harald said: "It is a fleet of Danish ships, and the sun strikes on the gilded dragon - heads: furl the sail, and take to the oars." The Norse ships were heavy with plunder, while the Danish ships were light. Harald first threw overboard light wood, and placed upon it clothing and goods of the Danes, that they might see it and pick it up; then he threw overboard his provisions, and lastly his prisoners. The Danes stopped for these, and the Norwegians got off with the rest. It was only the chance of war that saved the fugitives; had they risked a battle and lost it, they would have been captured, killed, or drowned. Yet it was not easy to drown them; they rarely went far from shore, and they were, moreover, swimmers from childhood, even in the icy waters of the North, and they had the art, in swimming, of hiding their heads beneath their floating shields, so that it was hard to find them. They were full of devices. It is recorded of one of them, for instance, that he always carried tinder in a walnut shell, enclosed in a ball of wax, so that, no matter how long submerged, he could make a fire on reaching shore.

How were these rovers armed and dressed? They fought with stones, arrows, and spears; they had grappling - irons on board, with which to draw other vessels to them; and the fighting men were posted on the high bows and sterns, which sometimes had scaffoldings or even castles on them, so that missiles could be thrown down on other vessels. As to their appearance on land, it is recorded that when Sweinke and his five hundred men came to a "thing," or council, in Norway, all were clad in iron, with their weapons bright, and they were so well armed that they looked like pieces of shining ice. Other men present were clad in leather cloaks, with halberds on their shoulders and steel caps on their heads. Sigurd, the king's messenger, wore a scarlet coat and a blue coat over it, and he rose and told Sweinke that unless he obeyed the king's orders he should be driven out of the country. Then Sweinke rose, threw off his steel helmet, and retorted on him:

"Thou useless fellow, with a coat without arms and a kirtle with skirts, wilt thou drive me out of the country? Formerly thou wast not so mighty, and thy pride was less when King Hakon, my foster-son, was in life. Then thou wast as frightened as a mouse in a mouse-trap, and hid thyself under a heap of clothes, like a dog on board of a ship. Thou wast thrust into a leather bag like corn into a sack, and driven from house to farm like a yearold colt; and dost thou dare to drive me from the land? Let us stand up and attack him!"

Then they attacked, and Sigurd escaped with great difficulty.

The leaders and kings wore often rich and costly gar-. ments. When King Magnus landed in Ireland, with his marshal Eyvind, to carry away cattle, he had a helmet on his head, a red shield in which was inlaid a gilded lion, and was girt with the sword "Legbiter," of which the hilt was of tooth (ivory), and the hand-grip wound about with gold thread, and the sword was extremely sharp. "In his hand he had a short spear, and a red silk short cloak over his coat, on which, both

before and behind, was embroidered a lion in yellow silk, and all men acknowledged that they had never seen a brisker, statelier man. Eyvind had also a red silk coat like the king's, and he also was a stout, handsome, warlike man." But the ascendency of the chief did not come from his garments; it consisted in personal power of mind and prowess of body, and when these decayed, the command was gone. Such were the fierce, frank men who, as is claimed, stretched their wanderings over the western sea, and at last reached Vinland-that is to say, the continent of North America.

What led the Northmen to this continent? A trivial circumstance first drew them westward, after they had already colonized Iceland and made it their home. Those who have visited the Smithsonian Institution at Washington will remember the great carved door-posts, ornamented with heads, which are used by the Indians of the north-west coasts. It is to a pair of posts somewhat like these, called by the Northmen setstokka, or seat-posts, that we owe the discovery of Greenland, and afterwards of Vinland. When the Northmen removed. from one place to another, they threw these seat-posts into the sea on approaching the shore, and wherever the posts went aground there they dwelt. Erik the Red, a wandering Norseman who was dwelling in Iceland, had lent his posts 'to a friend, and could not get them back. This led to a quarrel, and Erik was declared an outlaw. He went to sea, and discovered Greenland, which he thus called because, he said, "people will be attracted thither if the land has a good name.' There he took up his abode, leading a colony with him, about A.D. 986, fifteen years before Christianity was established by law in Iceland. The colony prospered, and there is much evidence that the climate of Greenland was then milder, and that it supported a far larger population than now. The ruined churches of Greenland still testify to a period of civilization quite beyond the present.

With Erik the Red went a man named Heriulf Bardson. Biorni, or Bjarni, this Heriulf's son, was absent from home. when they left; he was himself a rover, but had always spent his winters with his father, and resolved to follow him to Greenland, though he warned his men that the voyage was imprudent, since none of them had sailed in those seas. He

sailed westward, was lost in fogs, and at last came to a land with small hills covered with wood. This could not, he thought, be Greenland; so he turned about, and leaving this land to larboard, "let the foot of the sail look towards land," that is, sailed away from land. He came to another land, flat and still wooded. Then he sailed seaward with a south-west wind for two days, when they saw another land, but thought it could not be Greenland because there were no glaciers. The sailors wished to land for wood and water, but Bjarni would not-" but he got some hard speeches for that from his sailors," the saga, or legend, says. Then they sailed out to sea with a south-west wind for three days, and saw a third land, mountainous and with glaciers, and seeming to be an island; and after this they sailed four days more, and reached Greenland, where Bjarni found his father, and lived with him ever after.

But it seems that the adventurous countrymen of Bjarni were quite displeased with him for not exploring farther; and