It was not uncommon for a Viking chieftain, after his days
of sea-roving had ended, to be buried in his ship, over which a grave chamber,
covered with earth, would be erected. The discovery of several of these burial
ships enables us to form a good idea of Viking vessels. The largest of them
might reach a length of seventy feet and hold as many as one hundred and twenty
men. A fleet of the Northmen, carrying several thousand warriors, mail-clad and
armed with spears, swords, and battle-axes, was indeed formidable. During this
period the Northmen were the masters of the sea, as far as western Europe was
concerned. This fact largely explains their successful campaigns.
THE SAGAS
A very important source of information for the Viking Age
consists of the writings called sagas. [5] These narratives are in prose, but
they were based, in many instances, on the songs which the minstrels (_skalds_)
sang to appreciative audiences assembled at the banqueting board of a Viking
chieftain. It was not until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that the sagas
were committed to writing. This was done chiefly in Iceland, and so it happens
that we must look to that distant island for the beginnings of Scandinavian
literature.
[5] The word is derived from old Norse segya,
"to say"; compare German sagen.
