scimitar. Such was the life led by Harald, till one day he had a message
from his father, through a new recruit, calling him home to join an
expedition to the western seas. "I hear, my son," the message said, "that
your good emperor, whom may the gods preserve, is sorely ill and may die
any day. When he is dead, be prompt in getting your share of the plunder
of the palace and come back to me."

The emperor died, and the order was fulfilled. It was the custom of the
Varangians to reward themselves in this way for their faithful services of
protection; and the result is that, to this day, Greek and Arabic gold
crosses and chains are to be found in the houses of Norwegian peasants and
may be seen in the museums of Christiania and Copenhagen. No one was
esteemed the less for this love of spoil, if he was only generous in
giving. The Norsemen spoke contemptuously of gold as "the serpent's bed,"
and called a generous man "a hater of the serpent's bed," because such a
man parts with gold as with a thing he hates.

When the youth came to his father, he found Erik the Red directing the
building of one of the great Norse galleys, nearly eighty feet long and
seventeen wide and only six feet deep. The boat had twenty ribs, and the
frame was fastened together by withes made of roots, while the oaken
planks were held by iron rivets. The oars were twenty feet long, and were
put through oar holes, and the rudder, shaped like a large oar, was not at
the end, but was attached to a projecting beam on the starboard
(originally steer-board) side. The ship was to be called a Dragon, and was
to be painted so as to look like one, having a gilded dragon's head at the
bow and a gilded tail on the stern; while the moving oars would look like
legs, and the row of red and white shields, hung along the side of the
boat, would resemble the scales of a dragon, and the great square sails,
red and blue, would look like wings. This was the vessel which young