Book excerpt: Machine generated contents note: 1 Introduction: Rocks and Rhymes ' -- The Karlevi stone -- Runic inscriptions, skaldic verse and the late Viking Age -- Literacy and orality -- The runic corpus -- The skaldic corpus -- Verse in prose contexts -- Reconstructing viking verse -- The manuscript transmission -- Viking verse as a historical source -- Semantic study of skaldic verse and runic inscriptions -- Skaldic vocabulary in context -- Runes and semantics -- Comparative angles -- Sources and conventions -- Ships and men in the late Viking Age -- 2 Viking Activities -- Vikings -- vikingr -- viking -- Death and war -- 'He died' -- Battles and raids -- The fall of warriors -- Trade -- Pilgrimage -- 3 Viking Destinations -- 'East' and 'west' -- The western route -- 'West' -- England -- Britain and Ireland -- Further west -- The European continent and further south -- Saxony and Frisia -- Brittany and points south -- Normandy and southern Italy -- Africa -- The eastern route -- 'rast' -- The Baltic area -- Russia -- Byzantium and Jerusalem -- Ingvarr's expedition -- Serkland -- Scandinavia -- Hedeby -- Denmark to Sweden -- Two more towns -- 4 Ships and Sailing -- Words for 'ship' -- skip -- skeid -- snekkja -- dreki -- knQrr -- Oak and pine -- Miscellaneous words -- Summary -- Names of ships -- The ship and its parts -- The hull -- The stems -- Inside the hull -- Rudders, oars and shields -- Masts, sails and rigging -- In harbour and on land -- The vocabulary of sailing -- Description and metaphor -- Preparing and launching -- The ship in the sea -- Shipwreck and landing -- 5 The Crew, the Fleet and Battles at Sea -- Manning a ship -- The owner -- The captain -- The crew -- The fleet and the troop -- lid -- Compounds with -lid -- fioti -- leidangr -- The troop -- Units of the fleet -- Summary -- Battles at sea -- Maritime warfare -- Place and time -- Preliminaries to battle -- Bringing the ships together -- Attack and defence -- Victory and booty -- Not like leeks and ale -- 6 Group and Ethos in War and Trade -- The group and its vocabulary -- drengr -- fdlagi -- heimpegi -- huskarl -- gildi -- The ideology of battle -- 'He fled not' -- 'He fed eagles, ravens and wolves' -- The symbolism of battle: ravens and banners -- Murder and betrayal -- Kinds of killing -- Treachery -- Loyalty -- Treachery and politics -- 7 Epilogue: Kings and Ships -- From vikings to kings -- Royal and other ships in the eleventh century -- After the Viking Age -- Conclusion -- Works cited -- Appendix I: The runic corpus -- Appendix II: The skaldic corpus -- Index of words and names -- General index