Olaf called her the _Worm_--the _Little Worm_--“because when the sail was aloft then should that be as the wings of the dragon. The fairest of all Norway was that ship.” The Viking ships had no use for head winds. “But when they sought east into the Wick,” runs the narrative elsewhere, “they got foul winds and big, and lay-to in havens wide about, both in the out-isles and in up the firths.” Dr. Eirikr Magnusson[21] believes that the Halogalanders were in the art of navigation far ahead of the more southerly Norwegians about the year A.D. 1000; and interprets the following to indicate this much. For myself, I have a vague suspicion that it may signify not so much navigation as seamanship, and that it means that Raud understood the art of beating to windward. No doubt these squaresail craft would not haul any nearer to the wind than seven points, but these ships were in no great hurry to make quick passages. They could go about on the other tack and so have--to quote the Saga’s expression--the wind “at will.” This is the statement under discussion: “Raud rowed out to sea with his dragon, and so let hoist sail; for ever had he wind at will whithersoever he would sail, which thing came from his wizardry.” It seems to me that this is exactly explained by beating to windward when the breeze headed them. The squaresail was hoisted by the halyard, and the yard was kept to the mast by means of parrals (_rakki_). The sail when hoisted was said to be “topped,” while its straining at the halyard was poetically alluded to as “wrangling with the tackle.” “Topped sails with tackle wrangled,” is a sentence found among the Heimskringla. There is more than one illuminating reference to the sails of the Norsemen which can claim our attention. “But as they hauled up the sail the halliard broke asunder, and down came the sail athwart the ship, and a long while Thorir and his must needs tarry there, or ever they got up their sail a second time.” It is true that the Vikings relied considerably on their oars, but for long passages it is unquestionable that their large squaresail was their main means of propulsion. Thus, for example, a fleet might sail to the fjord under sail-power to meet their enemies, but the sail would be lowered before the fight. The oar was kept in position against the thole-pin, and prevented from slipping along the gunwale by means of a strap, and the sixty odd rowers, with their fine physical strength and healthy endurance, could make these easy-lined craft leap across the waves with a speed fully equal to that which their coloured sails could give to them. There is more than one reference, too, to the different hues of these sails then prevailing in Northern Europe, the “English king Knut” having blue sails on the yard of each of his ships.