Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Introductory Chapters By the late Professor York Powell - III. The Wicking Fleets
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skill (being expert carpenters and shipwrights) in
making palisades, shelter-works, wooden towers for
assailing tall walls, and the like, and good knowledge
in throwing up earthen lines and dykes, digging
trenches, and making portages to haul their ships over
difficult ground, in those cases where the use of fire, or
fair words, or a sudden and bold attack was impossible.
The numbers of the hosts varied greatly, but
reckoning the average crew as forty men and upwards,
we hear of fleets of hundreds of ships. These large
fleets were made up of lesser fleets, two or three
sailing together on some enterprise too weighty for
one sea-king’s command to deal with. There were
seldom less than two leaders, each a king or king’s
son, to a fleet, and usually two captains to each vessel,
one to each watch, no doubt. This had its use in
lessening the chance of a commander’s death breaking
up the expedition, or leading to disaster in battle.
It may be noted that Earl is used for the first time,
it seems, as a technical term for a leader of less rank
than king, in these wicking voyages, and in the ninth
century. It is especially used by the North-men;[1]
the Danes are led by sea-kings.
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