Ships were lost during these dark voyages, and said to have had a devil on board, but this was merely a common sailor's way of talking. We can guess at how sailors believed their ships to be possessed, because many of the same superstitions were current in earlier centuries. It is certain that a wooden ship made out of the branches of the sacred rowan tree was reputed to be a sure protection against devils and storms, and in a storm at sea in 1733 a ship called the _Leda_ , of Liverpool, was saved by being made of rowan. We know from the Bible that Noah set up an altar to God when he was shipwrecked after the flood, and to the Norsemen, the most superstitious sailors of ancient times, the gods and spirits of water were often propitiated in this manner when sea-faring men were about to go out on the waves. In a Norse ship, the figure of a god of the sea was placed between the prows on every trip, and the skipper said an incantation, or uttered a charm. But they also tried other precautions against the Devil, who was believed to be quite active in the oceans. They were, indeed, well aware of his evil deeds. If he lay very long on a man's body, either out at sea, or on land, he caused scab, and if he lay on the body of a woman he caused an illegitimate child. If he took hold of the face of a man, he caused fever. Sailors were more superstitious than fishermen, or than those who made voyages by river, which we might expect, because their ships went far away into unknown countries, where there were no human beings to help them. Many of them were also convinced that the Devil could walk on land, and it is likely that they found him in the lonely places of their expeditions, and not infrequently in the shadow of their ships. They were afraid of the sea, and we can well imagine that they were more fearful in those stormy years than in our more peaceful time, when the winds and waves were less cruel to men. Even if they saw something strange in the distance, which they were never certain of, for the sea is not to be depended upon, even the ship's bell had to be rung. In our own times, at sea, ships do not always ring their bells, when something unaccountable appears in the distance, and perhaps this has something to do with the changing nature of the sea. It was especially in stormy weather that ships were feared, and there was much in this which might be attributed to the common imagination of people living in their own land, who were only once, at most twice a year, far from their friends, in an uncivilized state of sea life. The Devil could also be in the shape of a man, and to prove this, a ship had to be anchored at least twelve hours in the open sea, and while anchored, its crew had to sing the Lord's Prayer, three times for each vessel. The Devil could not rest under these conditions, for his own sins must not be left unavenged in the world. This prayer of the three times was of course often accompanied by a drinking binge. It had been believed for thousands of years that it was the Devil's blood which kept men from perishing in the waters of the sea. The first man who did not drink the Devil's blood was saved from shipwreck. The crew saw a small ship which was in trouble off the coast of the Icelands, and they tried to save him, but he would not come to shore, for his ship was bound for hell, and he was the Devil. In the stormy sea he had his boat torn from him, and he was drowned, but his crew went to his boat after the ship had sunk, and saw that the Devil had a large wound in his neck, and they said, 'Let the wind be in that Devil's bag of a bladder, and soon he will be drowned; or else let us chop off his head and hang it over the side of the ship, and he shall be dead.' And so the Devil's head was cut off, but the wind continued in his bladder and he began to swim, and the crew cut off a leg, and let him swim, until finally he sank with the wreck. The Devil carried out his evil intentions especially on sea voyages. The crew believed in the Devil, and believed that he went about his business. When they had been a year on their long journey, the Devil was often feared, and he attacked them in many ways. He came on land, where it was said, he could fly up into a tree and come down again. On the water, he could change himself into a seal. When sailors had been so long at sea that they really thought they had reached land, their joy was great, and they knew they were close to what they were to leave behind. In their eagerness to get there, they saw only a low horizon, the sea was no longer deep to them, but the ocean was to them like the sea in inland waters, and they believed the Devil came to them, because they could hear no breakers over the ocean, but only sighing of the winds. The sailors saw, perhaps, not more than a day or two later, that there were no mountains visible behind them, and they were, as it were, disappointed. As well as fearing the Devil's evil intentions, they began to see that the Devil was to have the last word, because when they came to the land of which they had heard the legends, they found what the ocean had been to them in the beginning of the voyage. So they sailed across the northern and eastern coasts of Scandinavia, where the coasts are mostly low and sandy, and they saw no signs of human settlement. They saw, instead, barren cliffs, and rocky headlands with low hills of beach, where they saw that neither man nor beast nor human habitation was found. The sailors were dismayed, and it was a long way back to Denmark, if their ships were lost, and they did not know whether they should even be given a port to leave in. They were discouraged by the absence of human beings, and said it was because the country was not used by men, because it was so far away from the places of the gods of the water, that it had been placed under the control of the Devils and their king. The Vikings were the first who sailed south from Scandinavia, and the last who sailed north. They followed the southern winds, which came out of the south, to the sea. They followed them because they saw that their course would be smooth, for the wind can be stronger than the water, and that they would not have the wind to fight against in their long voyages. If they were driven against the wind by storms, they knew that this could be fatal. The Vikings sailed long and well to the south, to Greenland and Newfoundland, where they found wood and stone and fire, because the earth was not so cold at that time. If the wind changed a little, it was no problem to sail against it, so they could arrive safely in other lands, and in the south of France, and in Spain, which were later to be called the countries of their enemies. So the country of Denmark has a long coastline to the south, and was therefore well suited to becoming a sea-faring country, for the sea in the north could not bring them much profit. They could in this way find their way to southern lands in the course of centuries. The Vikings had no fear of the sea, in any season of the year. They had a saying, that no man could hold him in good stead who was afraid of the sea. In the summer they had to sail in the cold wind, but it was easy to be content with it. In winter they were exposed to cold and storm and ice, but they could get home, and there was no enemy against which to fight in that severe country. These men lived in good health for hundreds of years, and they lived to be old men. The Vikings also followed the south winds, which they found in their own country. They were often at war with the kings, who held their castles in the south, and who sometimes also ventured south with their fleets. The Viking leader, for instance, Hakon, sailed for the Holy Land, but on his way he took by force as many land ships as he could catch in his arms, for he knew that the Christian sailors had no long-lasting weapons, and that many of the Vikings died in their winter, where many did not have a fair wind home again. They followed the south wind, which they loved in every season. If the wind were against them, they went before it, and were often blown so far out to sea that it was necessary to fight for their lives. They were also killed and eaten by the sea when it was not willing to give them the means of their salvation, and had made the sea rough with the waves. The ships of the Vikings were fast and well-made, and it is said that there were often forty in a line before a battle. They were mostly made of oak, or were of wood of the driftwood forests, and they had a small cabin in the stern, and sometimes another cabin with a door at the stern of the ship. They had a mast as high as the mainsail, which they could bend down, and they were rigged in this way when they