There was a plank at the back of the seat of the helmsman against which he could steady himself in handling the helm, just as many a steersman on small craft to-day get support for controlling the tiller in a seaway. This was known as the “staying board.” Thus “Einar shot at Earl Eric, and the arrow smote the tiller-head above the head of the earl, and went in up to the shaft binding. The earl looked thereon, and asked if they wist who shot; and even therewith came another arrow so nigh that it flew betwixt the earl’s side and his arm, and so on to the staying-board of the steersman, and the point stood far beyond.” We must picture in our minds the Norse steersman sitting with his face to the starboard side, his hand on the tiller. The _stjornbordi_--or steering side--was the starboard. The _bakbordi_ was the port side. Why _bakbordi_? Because it was the board at the back of the helmsman when he sat looking to starboard or steering side. And so to this day, although no longer a ship has her rudder at the side, yet the right-hand side of a ship is always the starboard. Notwithstanding the curious fact that in certain parts of Europe, at an extraordinarily early date, chain cables were actually in use, yet it is quite clear that those of the Viking ships were of rope. These cables were twisted round the beaks of the ships, the beaks consisting of pieces of timber placed upright in and about the prow of the ship. They were similar to the bitts such as you see in a modern lifeboat or yacht. So, whenever the Viking vessel was at anchor, or she was lashed alongside her enemy in pitched battle, the cable of the anchor or the grapnel was made fast to these timbers. In the account of the flight of Earl Svein, it is recorded that “when the earl saw to how hopeless a pass things were come, he called upon his forecastle men to cut the cables and let loose the ships, and even so they did. Then the king’s men caught the beaks of the 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.” And again: “Einar Thambarskelfir had laid his ship on the other board of that of the earl, and his men threw an anchor into the prow of the earl’s ship, and thus they all drifted together into the firth; and after that the whole host of the earl took to flight, and rowed out into the firth.”