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Updated: June 28, 2025
And before the tide served us, Halfden had said that he also would come to London, so that our ship should lead the way up the river. When we weighed anchor Thormod must needs, therefore, reef and double reef his sail, else our ship had been hull down astern before many hours had passed, so swift was the longship.
Eh, well, we shall know better next time." After that he was silent, watching the ship ahead. She was a great heavy trader, with higher sides than this swift longship. And presently, as I watched her, a thought came to me, and I was ashamed that I had not asked before if it was true that my cousin had not been hurt in the fighting. "He was not harmed," answered the old chief.
After that of course there was not much left to say; but all the same, Ulf looked more carefully into the strength of his longship that week than even he or Sigurd ever had before a voyage. Not an arrow went on board which he did not test with his own fingers, and send to the smithy if not perfect, and who was a better judge of ironwork than he?
"Seventy-five, master; the rest are up on the fells, on what errand I know not." "Seventy-five will do. Haste thee, carle, and lead them to my longship the Swan. Let every man be at his post, and quit not the shore till I come on board. Now fare away as swiftly as may be, and see that everything be done stealthily; above all, keep well out of sight of Ulfstede."
Urging his rowers to their fullest speed, Erik bore down with his ships upon the extreme of King Olaf's right wing. The heavy, iron bound bow of the Ram crashed into the broadside of Olaf's outermost longship, whose timber creaked and groaned under the impact. Vikings and berserks leapt down upon her decks, and now Norseman met Norseman in a terrible, deadly combat.
Oh, how one longs for it sometimes when life grows too artificial, and the old Viking blood begins to stir! Surely it must linger in all of us, for no man who dwells in an island but had an ancestor in longship or in coracle.
But no braver sight the vik ever saw than the one when out through the black wolf's-mouth of massive cliffs one morning a swift longship sped, with the early wind rounding the great sail and helping the rowers with their oars.
So we must after them, and once more we boarded a longship, and had the victory; and then we were off the haven mouth, and with the flood tide the wind was coming up in gusts from the southeast that seemed to bode angry weather. By that time no two Danish ships were in company, and the tide was setting them out to sea.
Naught of this I heeded, for I could think but of the stout sailor men with whom I had been brought up, and of whom I knew only too surely that I should see them not again. And for them I tried to pray, for it was all that I could do, and it seemed so little yet who knows what help may come therefrom? Now the longship fought alone with the storm.
Surprised, he glanced quickly through the open door, and saw that all the shore-folk had stopped their work to gaze at a longship flying swiftly onward; a stranger, evidently, for a man was on the mast watching out for hidden rocks and pointing out the channel to the steersman.
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