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Updated: June 21, 2025
But for a while, hot-headed young men who wanted to win great fame in a voyage, without waiting for it to come in many voyages, as most must do, thought that a viking trip to Sigurd's Vik was the speediest way of getting it.
Then the dark man strode sharply forward with a hearty greeting. "What, Ulf the Silent? So you too will help an old comrade? This is well indeed. But what are these fellows growling about, like so many white-toothed mastiffs?" "I've met their mates and them at Sigurd's Vik," quoth Ulf. "These few are what were left," and the other roared with laughter.
The fleet numbered forty sail, and each ship was manned by some two hundred warriors and seamen. When the men were landed to fight, one third of the company remained behind to guard the ships. Thus the forces that Olaf usually took ashore with him numbered between five and six thousand warriors. The first place at which the vikings landed was at the mouth of a wide vik, leading far inland.
His hair was a little gray, now, and thin in spots where the helmet pressed; but his brain was just as ready for wise, long-headed plans as ever; and by his side a tall, slender lad now held his shield and guarded him when shafts were flying, and Ulf's own bow was bent. He, too, was one of the silent; yet, when asked, said he was Wulf, the son of Ulf of Sigurd's Vik.
"The vikings," he informed her and his Library manner had settled upon him now to the very tips of his fingers "were pirates. The word is of Icelandic origin, from vik, the name applied to the small inlets along the coast in which they concealed their galleys. I may mention that Olaf was not a viking, but a Norwegian king, being the first Christian monarch to reign in Norway."
About the eighth century and probably earlier, immigrants from the southern shores of the Baltic pressed the Norse westwards in Norway, and later on over-population in the sterile lands which lie along Norway's western shores, drove its inhabitants forth from its western fjords north of Stavanger and from The Vik or great bay of the Christiania Fjord, whence they may have derived their name of Vikings, across the North Sea to the opposite coasts of Shetland, Orkney and Cat, where they found oxen and sheep to slaughter on the nesses or headlands, and stores of grain, and some silver and even gold in the shrines and on the persons of those whom they attacked, and in still later days they sought new lands over the sea and permanent settlements, where they would have no scat to pay to any overlord or feudal superior.
As already stated, over-population in the sterile lands of Norway, and famine probably increased by immigration from the east and south, drove its people "at times in piracy and at times in commerce" forth from the western fjords and The Vik across the North Sea to the opposite coasts of Scotland, and so to its western lochs and to Ireland, where they found cattle to slaughter on the nesses, stores of grain, and other booty.
Nothing can be wilder or more desolate than this scenery, especially at the junction of the two branches, where all signs of habitation are shut out of sight, and one is surrounded by mighty precipices of dark-red rock, vanishing away to the eastward in a gloomy defile. It was three hours and a half before we reached Vik, at the head of a bay on the southern side.
Now and then some young madcap would do more than think about it, and with cheers would sail away for Sigurd's Vik; but it is not recorded that many men thus won the fame they went for. So at last every one very sensibly decided that the Vik was an excellent place for fighting, but a still better place to leave alone, and then war died out, and slowly trade began again.
The viking cruises commenced, and for a long time the Norwegians continued to harry the coasts of Europe. At first the viking expeditions were nothing but piracy, carried on for a livelihood. The name Viking is supposed to be derived from the word vik, a cove or inlet on the coast, in which they would harbor their ships and lie in wait for merchants sailing by.
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