Very poetic, too, are the phrases in which we find, from the Sagas, the Norsemen referred to their sail. Thus such happy expressions as “The Cloak of the Wind,” “The Tapestry of the Masthead,” “The Sheet spun by Women,” “The Cloth of the Wind,” “The Beard of the Yard,” “The Fine Shirt of the Tree,” are found. With a shipload of thirty or fifty lusty Norsemen singing and swinging to their oars, with a sail above bellowing out its purple and gold over their flaxen heads, with their red and white striped hull, and their standards and gay weather-vanes waving at her extremities—what a feast of colour, what a sight for mortals she must have made as she came sliding down the billows towards the unprotected yellow shore! There were three distinct classes of ships possessed by these Northerners. Firstly, the warships, including the Dragon type, so called from the figurehead at her stem; the _Snekkja_, named after the Long Serpent or Snake ship; the _Skuta_ or swift, “shooting” ship, to which the Gogstad and the Nydam craft belong, the _Buza_ resembling the _Skuta_; and finally the longship, or, to give her the native word, _langskip_. But far and away the largest of this class was the Dragon, whilst the most celebrated for beauty of design was the not inaptly named “Long Serpent.” Indeed, right until the twelfth century this vessel dominated the design of most other ships built around the North Sea and English Channel. Secondly there were the ships of burthen, modifications of the warships: and finally the small boats, also fitted with mast and sail, which were carried on board the bigger craft. In almost every case there was but a single row of oarsmen on each side, protected by the overlapping wooden shields from both arrows and waves, whilst the name given to the rope surrounding the ship so as to guard against the shock of ramming was the _viggyrdil_. Whilst the dragon’s head was on the stem-post and the tail of the dragon ornamented the stern, the tiller, and, as we know from the Gogstad ship, the handles of the oars were also decorated. We have a relic of this custom in the beautifully carved dogs’ heads so often found on yachts and other craft before iron helms came so much into practice. With regard to the nomenclatures of these old vessels we find such figurative terms as “Deer of the Surf,” “Snake of the Sea,” “Lion of the Waves,” applied to them: but it is not without interest to remark that not until about the time of the introduction of Christianity is frequent mention made of the naming of a ship at launching. They carried with them, on board somewhere, rollers wherewith to beach and launch their ships. These are referred to in the early accounts of the Viking burials and launchings.