Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/59

Rh slinger, seems never to have been in use) were so important an article in the sea fights of those times, that the ships of war, or long-ships, were always accompanied on the viking cruises by transports or ships of burden, to carry the plunder, clothes, and provisions, the ships of war being loaded with arms and stones. We find two transport vessels to ten ships of war in the Saga of Saint Olaf, as the number with him when he left his ships of war at the mouth of the Humber, after a long viking expedition, and returned to Norway, with 220 men, in his two transport ships. Earl Rognwald, the son of Kofi, invaded Earl Paul in Orkney with six ships of war, five boats of a size to cross the sea from Norway, and three ships of burden ; and in all their expeditions ships of burden were required in some proportion to the ships of war, owing to the great stowage necessary for their weapons. In the Færeyinga Saga, in which the exploits of a viking called Sigmund Brestisson are related minutely, we read of his walking across a small island on the Swedish coast, and discovering five ships of another viking at anchor on the opposite side, and he returned to his own ships, passed the whole night in landing his goods and plunder, and breaking up stones on shore, and loading his vessel with them, and at daylight he went to attack the other viking, and