“Here fares the courageous seafarer”

This rune stick from Bryggen in Bergen dated to the mid-13th century bears the text “here fares the seafarer” and depicts a fleet of longships. They possibly represent King Håkon Håkonsson’s powerful leidang fleet. In 1263, he assembled the largest leidang in Norwegian history—120 ships in total—to defend the Suder Islands (modern-day Hebrides) against Scotland.

The medieval leidang ships were an evolution of the longships of the Viking Age, perfected over centuries of construction and use. They were fast and seaworthy in terms of both sails and oars. The sources attest that they usually had 20 or 25 seats—that is, 20 or 25 pairs of oars—with two men on each oar. The ships were clinker-built—i.e. with overlapping gangways held together by iron rivets. This technique is still used in traditional Nordic wooden boat building.