There was a craft named the _Crane_, which was a long-ship of the snekkja type. She was high in the stem, not beamy, carried thirty benches for her rowers, and had been constructed for the use of King Olaf Tryggvison during the autumn of 998. But the ship which became a prototype and was the envy of all that beheld her, was a vessel presently to be named the _Long Worm_. Let me tell the story thus: One winter King Olaf gave the order for her to be constructed, and there, under the Ladir cliffs in the cold, bracing air, the shipmen set to work. “Much greater it was than other ships,” records the Saga, “that were then in the land, and yet are the slips whereon it was built left there for a token[19]; seventy-and-four ells of grass-lying keel was it.[20] Thorberg Shavehewer was the master-smith of that ship, but there were many others at work: some to join, some to chip, some to smite rivets, some to fit timbers.... Long was that ship, and broad of beam, high of bulwark, and great in the scantling. But now when they were gotten to the freeboard Thorberg had some needful errand that took him home to his house, and he tarried there very long, and when he came back the bulwark was all done. Now the king went in the eventide, and Thorberg with him to look on the ship, and see how the ship showed, and every man said that never yet had they seen a long-ship so great or so goodly: and so the king went back to the town.” But early next morning, when the king and Thorberg returned to the ship, and the smiths were already there, the latter stood doing nothing. They exclaimed that the ship was spoilt, for some man had evidently gone round from stem to stern cutting notches with an axe along the gunwale. The king was exceedingly angry, and promised punishment if the offender should be found out. Thereupon, to the surprise of all, Thorberg instantly owned up as being himself the culprit, and he set about planing all the notches out of the gunwale. He went round the side which had been notched with his pattern, but when he had done so, it was generally agreed that the notching, far from being a disfigurement, was in fact an ornament. The king decided that Thorberg’s pattern was an improvement, so his anger ceased, and he bade him to do the same ornamentation along the other side.