Though the viking period is generally spoken of as ending about A.D. 1100, it went on, as a matter of fact, long after that. The last of the great vikings--that is, of those whose entire life was spent in marauding expeditions--was Sweyn of Orkney, called Sweyn, Asleif’s son, from his mother’s name, because his father had been burnt in his house when he was entertaining a party at Yule. He was a wise man, and far-seeing in many things, but so dreaded that when it was heard that he was in any part of the islands all the inhabitants would hide their movable property under the ground or cover it with heaps of loose stones. When he was an old man he used to keep eighty men in his house at his sole expense; and his drinking-hall was the largest in the Orkneys. His plan of life was this: In the spring he would stay at home and sow the most part of his property with seed, doing a great share of the work himself; and while the seed was springing up he would be off marauding in the Hebrides or in Ireland, returning home after midsummer. This he called his spring viking. Then he stayed at home awhile to reap his crops and get in the harvest, and as soon as this was finished he would be away again up to the middle of winter, when it became too cold. Then he would return again till spring. This he called his autumn viking. The most famous of his viking raids was that called the “Broad-cloth Voyage,” or in Norse “Skrud-viking.” Sweyn had been plundering with five rowing vessels, all of good size, in the Southern Hebrides, and thence he went south to the Isle of Man, but he had obtained very little booty, for the people had got wind of his coming and had concealed their goods. So he went across to Ireland, plundering on the north coast, and making his way down to Dublin. At the entrance to Dublin Bay they came across two English merchant ships going to Dublin with a cargo of English cloth and other merchandise. Sweyn made for the vessels and offered to fight them. Being merchantmen, they made little resistance, and Sweyn’s party took from them every penny’s-worth that was in the vessels, leaving the Englishmen only with the clothes they stood up in and enough provisions to give them a chance of getting home alive. They got away as quickly as they could, while Sweyn and his men set sail for the Sudreyar, or Hebrides, and landed there to divide their booty. As a piece of bravado, they sewed the cloth they had taken over their sails, so that they looked as if they were all made of the finest cloth, and so home to the Orkneys; and because of this the cruise was known as the “Broad-cloth Cruise.”