ttles of the Vikings."

CHAPTER XXX

A GREAT VIKING SEA FIGHT.--SVEIN KING OF DENMARK, OLAF KING OF SWEDEN,
ERIK JARL OF NORWAY, AGAINST KING OLAF TRYGGVASSON OF NORWAY.--THEY
LIE IN AMBUSH.--MAGNIFICENT SHIPS.--THE _LONG SERPENT_.--READY FOR
THE FIGHT.--THE ATTACK.--THE _JARN BARDI_.--DEFEAT OF OLAF
TRYGGVASSON.

After we had clustered round Captain Larsen, he gave three or four big
puffs of his pipe and began:

The battle of Svold took place in the year one thousand. Olaf
Tryggvasson, King of Norway, had left Vindland in the Baltic and was on
his way back to Norway with his fleet. He was on his ship the _Ormrinn
Lange_ (the "Long Serpent"). Svein, the King of Denmark, Olaf King of
Sweden, and Erik Jarl of Norway, his enemies, lay in ambush for him
under the island of Svold with all their ships. The three chiefs landed
on the island. After a while they espied some ships of the fleet of
Olaf. Among them was a particularly large and splendid one. Both kings
said: "This is an exceedingly fine ship; it must be the _Long Serpent_."

Erik Jarl, who knew the _Long Serpent_, answered: "This is not the _Long
Serpent_, which is much larger and grander, though this is a fine
ship."

Ship after ship passed by and the two kings took each of them to be the
_Long Serpent_, but they received invariably the same answer from Erik
Jarl.

The three chiefs drew lots to know who should first attack Olaf
Tryggvasson's ship. Svein, King of Denmark, drew the lot to attack
first; then Olaf, King of Sweden, and Erik Jarl last, if it should be
found necessary. It was agreed between the three chiefs that each should
own the ships which he himself cleared of men and captured.

Erik Jarl's ship was called the _Jarn Bardi_, an iron-clad ram which had
the reputation of cleaving through every ship it attacked; there were
beaks on the top of both stem and stern, and below these were thick iron
plates which covered the whole of the stem and stern all the way down to
the water.

When the chiefs had arranged their plan, they saw three very large
ships, and following them a fourth; they all saw a dragon-head on the
stem, ornamented so that it seemed of pure gold, and it gleamed far and
wide over the sea as the sun shone on it. As they looked at the ship,
they wondered greatly at its length, for the stern did not appear till
long after they had seen the prow, as the ship glided past the point of
the island slowly; the