The Long Ships

...Orm always afterwards used to say that, after good luck, strength, and skill at arms, nothing was so useful to a man who found himself among foreigners as the ability to learn a language.

A wise man, once he is past fifty, does not befuddle his senses with strong drink, nor make violent love in the cool spring night, nor dance on his hands.

Mulled ale for the frozen man, And mulled ale for the weary: For mulled ale is the body's friend And makes the sick heart merry.

I heard word Of bellied sailcloth, Creak of oars, And gold in Eastland. Then I smelled A smell remembered: Salt of spray And black-pitched boat's keel.

for there is no cure for love save love itself. That is the verdict of all the wise doctors who have ever practiced since the earliest times.

Man is always so,” said Father Willibald, “be he heathen or baptized; content with his lot only as long as he meets no neighbor who possesses more.

His bed needed all the good craftsmanship that had gone into its making to keep it from splitting asunder as he would grip one of its beams to heave at the oar of his sleep; and he often said that there was no happiness in the world to compare with that of awakening from such a dream and finding it to be only a dream. Three