The naval tactics of these men consisted in laying their craft alongside the enemy, boarding him, and then slashing away at the latter and hewing off the figurehead or the tail of his ship as trophies. As they approached, they threw grappling anchors into the other vessel, just as they were wont to fight in the Mediterranean. Thus there is a reference to the incident when “the forecastle men of the _Long Worm_ and the _Short Worm_ and the _Crane_ cast anchors and grapplings on to the ships of King Svein.” And this method survived in Northern Europe right through the Middle Ages. When they boarded a ship they did their best to “clear” the ship by cutting down the defenders, or driving them overboard or else into other ships. That was their main objective--to get the ship to themselves. “Now in those days,” says one of the Sagas, “the wont was when men fought a-shipboard, to bind the ships together and fight from the forecastle.” “Now the most defence on the _Worm_, and the most murderous to men was of those of the forehold and the forecastle, for in either place was the most chosen folk and the bulwark highest.” And again--“Erling Askew set upon the ship of King Hakon, and shoved his prow in betwixt it and Sigurd’s ship, and then befell the battle. But the ship of Gregory was swept aground, and heeled over much, so at first they gat them not into the onset.” [Illustration: VIKINGS BOARDING AN ENEMY.] The flagship of King Olaf at the battle of Nesiar, in the year 1016, had on the stem a carved head of the king which he himself had fashioned. “That head was long sithence in Norway used on ships which chieftains steered.” At this battle the king had a crew of a hundred in his ship, and most of them carried white shields “with the holy cross laid thereon in gold, while some were drawn with red stone or blue; a cross withal he had let draw in white on the brow of all helms. He had a white banner, and that was a worm. Thereafter he let blow the war-blast, and they set off out of the harbour, rowing in search of the earl.” ... “The king’s men caught the beaks of the [enemy’s] ships with grapnels, and thus held them fast. Then the earl cried out that the forecastlemen should hew off the beaks, and even so they did.”