The question must necessarily occur (as in the case of the circumnavigation of Africa by the Phœnicians) as to the means of provisioning these Viking ships for such lengthy cruises. If Captain Andersen and his men in 1893 were able to last out, there is no reason why the ancient Norsemen should not, even if we make some allowance for the modern advantages of preserved foods. We know very little as to the methods adopted to ensure adequate food-supplies, but we do know that bronze cooking vessels have been found which belonged to these craft. They used salt meat and salt fish, and these they could obtain by hunting and fishing in the neighbourhood of Iceland, Scotland, Greenland, and so on. Nansen asserts that they certainly took cattle with them on some voyages; and they could also catch seals to keep the pot from running empty. In sheltered waters, such as the Norwegian fjords, when at anchor, the crew erected a triangular awning over the ship and turned-in in leather sleeping bags. But it is by making a careful study of the Sagas that we are able to get a true idea of the life and methods of these magnificent seamen, and from this source I propose to extract the following interesting data. In these heroic narratives there is much to interest the lover of the sea and ships. There is a continual clashing of shield and sword, a slatting of canvas and a splashing of oars, as the long-ships leap over the cold, silvery seas. The air is full of the deep-throated shouts of the sea-kings; the horizon is bright with the coloured sails and the gilded prows. Every man is a picked fighter and seaman; every craft a thing of beauty and of strength. There are the dark, cruel rocks, and the crimson blood of the vanquished, the sound of the waterfalls coming down from the cliffs, the fluttering of pennants, the hammering of the shipwrights’ men ashore, the cries of the women-folk as they behold the distant battles. There is nothing subtle in the picture; the colours are laid thickly, and the tones are crude as a modern poster. But there is bravery and seamanship, and above all the sweet sea smell which pervades these accounts and stirs the enthusiasm of the reader to its full extent. You feel as you read them that ships and men both seem to have been of the right stuff, that in those days there was a grandeur about the sea which not easily can be forgotten.