The dragon-ship sailors
Seaward bound on a joyous journey.
Over breaking billows, with bellying sail And a foamy beak, like a
flying bird The ship sped on. .. .
These lines are from a poem written more than twelve hundred years ago.
They tell of the beginning of a Viking voyage.
The Vikings were daring, skillful seamen from what are now the countries
of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Indeed, Viking means \”one who goes
adventuring on the sea.”
From about twelve hundred to nine hundred years ago, the Vikings roamed
the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The ships they sailed were sleek and
fast. The front of a Viking ship was often carved into the shape of a
fierce dragon head. For this reason, the ships became known as dragon
ships.
A dragon ship was about eighty feet (24 meters) long and sixteen feet (5
m) wide. It could carry nearly a hundred men. About fifteen men sat on
each side, pulling at the long oars that drove the ship through the
water. A dragon ship also had a tall mast and a big sail that was
hoisted when the wind was right.
These ships really weren’t much more than long, light rowboats. But the
Vikings sailed them across the unknown waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
They discovered Iceland and Greenland.
They even reached the shores of North America hundreds of years before
Columbus was born.
