The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sea Queen's Sailing, by Charles Whistler

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Title: A Sea Queen's Sailing

Author: Charles Whistler

Release Date: May 31, 2005 [EBook #15951]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SEA QUEEN'S SAILING ***

Produced by Martin Robb

A Sea Queen's Sailing
by Charles W. Whistler

CONTENTS

Preface.
Chapter 1: The Old Chief And The Young.
Chapter 2: Men Of Three Kingdoms.
Chapter 3: The Ship Of Silence.
Chapter 4: By Sea And Fire.
Chapter 5: Vision And Pursuit.
Chapter 6: A Sea Queen's Champions.
Chapter 7: The Treasure Of The King.
Chapter 8: Storm And Salvage.
Chapter 9: The Isle Of Hermits.
Chapter 10: Planning And Learning.
Chapter 11: The Summons Of The Beacons.
Chapter 12: With Sail And Oar.
Chapter 13: Athelstane's Foster Son.
Chapter 14: Dane And Irishman.
Chapter 15: The Torque And Its Wearer.
Chapter 16: In Old Norway.
Chapter 17: Homeward Bound.
Chapter 18: A Sea Queen's Welcome.
Notes.

Preface.

Few words of introduction are needed for this story, excepting such
as may refer to the sources of the details involved.

The outfit of the funeral ship is practically that of the vessel
found in the mound at Goekstadt, and now in the museum at
Christiania, supplemented with a few details from the ship
disinterred last year near Toensberg, in the same district. In both
these cases the treasure has been taken from the mound by raiders,
who must have broken into the chamber shortly after the interment;
but other finds have been fully large enough to furnish details of
what would be buried with a chief of note.

With regard to the seamanship involved, there are incidents
recorded in the Sagas, as well as the use of a definite phrase for
"beating to windward," which prove that the handling of a Viking
ship was necessarily much the same as that of a square-rigged
vessel of today. The experience of the men who sailed the
reconstructed duplicate of the Goekstadt ship across the Atlantic
to the Chicago Exhibition bears this out entirely. The powers of
the beautifully designed ship were by no means limi