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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from the sea, the steady flourishing of the whole
country-side as long as the cruises are gainful; the
building of new vessels, the eagerness of the young
for the life of adventure, unchecked by the terrible
disasters that ever and anon mar the good fortune
of the fleet, disasters that may sweep away nearly all
the men folk of the place and check its growth for a
dozen years,–such phenomena are common to our
fishing life now-a-days, and to the old Northman’s
buccaneering life so long ago. And when crossing
the North Sea one steams through the Grimsby or
Lowestoft fleet, hundreds of big boats out for the
herring, one can form even a visible image of what a
wicking fleet must have looked like as the ships in
great groups sped out with a fair north-easter, eager
for the work before them, or hurried homewards with
a sou’-wester behind them, deeply laden with English
and Irish gold and silver, and raiment and jewels, and
slaves and wine and weapons.
The "Helge Lays," best of all the Eddic poems,
express the spirit of the wicking.
Messengers thence the king sent
over land and sea to call out the levy:
Gold in good store
they were to promise the warriors and their sons.[1]
"Do ye bid them get aboard forthwith,
and make ready to sail from Brandey [or Sword Island]."
There the prince waited until thither there came
warriors by hundreds from Hedinsey.
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