[Illustration: VIKING SHIP, USED FOR BURIAL (GOKSTAD, NORWAY). (Length of keel, 60 feet; total length, 75 feet; broadest part, 15½ feet; depth from the upper part of bulwark to bottom of keel, 3½ feet.) Judging from the number of holes seen, which were about 18 inches below the gunwale, it carried sixteen oars, and was consequently a sixteen-seater. Its preservation is due to the blue clay in which it was partly embedded, the upper part being eaten away owing to the clay being mixed with sand, thus allowing the rain and air to penetrate. It is entirely of oak, clinker built, calked with cows’ hair spun in a sort of cord. ] THE VIKING AGE THE EARLY HISTORY MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS OF THE ANCESTORS OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING NATIONS ILLUSTRATED FROM _THE ANTIQUITIES DISCOVERED IN MOUNDS, CAIRNS, AND BOGS AS WELL AS FROM THE ANCIENT SAGAS AND EDDAS_ BY PAUL B. DU CHAILLU AUTHOR OF “EXPLORATIONS IN EQUATORIAL AFRICA,” “LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN,” ETC. WITH 1366 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. I NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS. 1889. COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY PAUL B. DU CHAILLU. Press of J. J. Little & Co., Astor Place, New York. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TO GEORGE C. TAYLOR, Esq., OF NEW YORK. _To you, my dear Taylor, who, like myself, have travelled over many lands, and led the same adventurous life in days gone by, I dedicate “The Viking Age,” in remembrance of years of friendship, of the many pleasant days we have spent together, and especially of our wanderings in the Land of the Midnight Sun, in the home of the old Vikings, while I was engaged on the present work._ _P. B. DU CHAILLU._ _NEW YORK, September, 1889_. PREFACE. While studying the progress made in the colonisation of different parts of the world by European nations, I have often asked myself the following questions:— How is it that over every region of the globe the spread of the English-speaking people and of their language far exceeds that of all the other European nations combined?