A Sea Queens Sailing

A Sea Queen's Sailing

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Title: A Sea Queen's Sailing
Author: Charles Whistler
Release Date: May 31, 2005 [EBook #15951]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SEA
QUEEN'S SAILING ***

Produced by Martin Robb

A Sea Queen's Sailing by Charles W. Whistler

CONTENTS
Preface.
Chapter 1
: The Old Chief And The Young.
Chapter 2
: Men Of Three Kingdoms.
Chapter 3
: The Ship Of Silence.

Chapter 4
: By Sea And Fire.
Chapter 5
: Vision And Pursuit.
Chapter 6
: A Sea Queen's Champions.
Chapter 7
: The Treasure Of The King.
Chapter 8
: Storm And Salvage.
Chapter 9
: The Isle Of Hermits.
Chapter 10
: Planning And Learning.
Chapter 11
: The Summons Of The Beacons.
Chapter 12
: With Sail And Oar.
Chapter 13
: Athelstane's Foster Son.
Chapter 14
: Dane And Irishman.
Chapter 15
: The Torque And Its Wearer.
Chapter 16
: In Old Norway.
Chapter 17
: Homeward Bound.
Chapter 18
: A Sea Queen's Welcome. Notes.

Preface.
Few words of introduction are needed for this story, excepting such as
may refer to the sources of the details involved.
The outfit of the funeral ship is practically that of the vessel found in

the mound at Goekstadt, and now in the museum at Christiania,
supplemented with a few details from the ship disinterred last year near
Toensberg, in the same district. In both these cases the treasure has
been taken from the mound by raiders, who must have broken into the
chamber shortly after the interment; but other finds have been fully
large enough to furnish details of what would be buried with a chief of
note.
With regard to the seamanship involved, there are incidents recorded in
the Sagas, as well as the use of a definite phrase for "beating to
windward," which prove that the handling of a Viking ship was
necessarily much the same as that of a square-rigged vessel of today.
The experience of the men who sailed the reconstructed duplicate of the
Goekstadt ship across the Atlantic to the Chicago Exhibition bears this
out entirely. The powers of the beautifully designed ship were by no
means limited to running before the wind.
The museum at Christiania has a good example of the full war gear of a
lady of the Viking times.
Hakon, the son of Harald Fairhair, and foster son of our Athelstane,
took the throne of Norway in A.D. 935, which is approximately the
date of the story therefore. The long warfare waged by Dane and
Norseman against the Irishman at that time, and the incidental troubles
of the numerous island hermits on the Irish coast, are written in the
Irish annals, and perhaps most fully in "the wars of the Gaedhil and the
Gaill."
Chas. W. Whistler.
Stockland, 1906.

Chapter 1
: The Old Chief And The Young.
The black smoke eddied and wavered as it rose over my father's
burning hall, and then the little sea breeze took it and swept it inland
over the heath-clad Caithness hills which I loved. Save for that black
cloud, the June sky was bright and blue overhead, and in the sunshine
one could not see the red tongues of flame that were licking up the last
timbers of the house where I was born. Round the walls, beyond reach
of smoke and heat, stood the foemen who had wrought the harm, and

nearer the great door lay those of our men who had fallen at the first.
There were foemen there also, for it had been a good fight.
At last the roof fell in with a mighty crash and uprush of smoke and
sparks, while out of the smother reeled and staggered half a dozen men
who had in some way escaped the falling timbers. I think they had been
those who still guarded the doorway, being unwounded. But among
them were not my father and brothers, and I knew that I was the last of
my line by that absence.
It was not my fault that I was not lying with them under our roof
yonder. I had headed a charge by a dozen of our best men, when it
seemed that a charge might at least give time for the escape of the few
women of the house to the glen. My father had bidden me, and we went,
and did our best. We