r own hand," and then he went
back to his post on the forecastle deck.

The allied fleet was now formed in line and bearing down on the Norwegians.
Sigvald Jarl, who had lured the King into this ambush, hung back with his
eleven ships, and Olaf with his sixty had to meet a threefold force. King
Svend, with the Danish fleet, formed the enemy's centre. To his right
Olaf's namesake, King Olaf Svensker, led the Swedish ships. On the left was
Erik, with the rebel heathen Jarls of Norway. Olaf watched the enemy's
approach and talked to Kolbiorn and the men of the Shield-burg. He did not
reckon that the Danes or the Swedes would give much trouble, he said; the
Danes were soft fellows, and the Swedes would be better "at home pickling
fish" than risking themselves in fight with Norsemen, but Erik's attack
would be dangerous. "These are Norwegians like ourselves. It will be hard
against hard."

Perhaps we have here a touch of flattery for his countrymen from the poet
of the "Saga," a Norseman telling the tale to men of his own race. However
this may be, the words put into Olaf's mouth were true so far as the rebel
Jarls were concerned, even if they did injustice to Dane and Swede.

Erik Jarl seems to have had some inventive talent and some idea of naval
tactics. His ship was called the "Iron Beard," because her bows bristled
with sharpened spikes of iron. She was to be herself a weapon, not merely a
means of bringing fighting men to close quarters for a hand-to-hand
struggle. It is remarkable that, though it proved useful at the battle of
Svold, the armed bow found no regular place in Viking warfare. The "Iron
Beard" also anticipated modern methods in another way. Her bulwarks were
covered with iron-plating. It cannot have been of any serious thickness,
for a Viking ship had not enough displacement to spare for carrying heavy
armour; but the thin plates were strong enough to be a defence against
arrows and spears, and as these would not penetrate a thick wooden bulwark
it seems likely that the plating was fixed on a rail running along each
side, thus giving a higher protection than the bulwark itself. Erik's ship
was thus a primitive ironclad ram.

Though Olaf had spoken lightly of the Danes, it was King Svend's squadron
that began the fight, rowing forward in advance of the rest and falling on
the right and right centre of Olaf's fleet. The Swedes at first hung back.
Svend himself on the left of the Danish attack steered strai