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eight marks Anglo-Saxon (= £4) "æt ælcere hamelan,"
a word which has puzzled English historians, but
represents the Icelandic hamla the oar-loop which holds
the oar to the thole (hár) in the Viking ship. In
Norway, a levy was counted, not by men, but by hömlur,
and the number of men was of course greater, for there
must have been relays of rowers on a long voyage, or
at least a considerable percentage of substitutes. In
fact the reckoning represented the size of the vessel,
its tonnage, so to say : and as Florence of Worcester
mentions a ship given by Godwine to Hördaknút with
80 rowers, the ships of Thorkel and Knút may have
been much larger than the Gokstad boat of the quite
early Viking time. This would raise the number of
Knút’s hirð to over 3000 "rowlocks."
From a Danish code of the twelfth century, as well as
from such descriptions as that of the Jómsviking settlement,
we gather that these professional soldiers had
a stringent set of customs of their own. The relations
of lord and man were strictly defined ; the dealings of
members of the crew with one another, and their
detachment from the world of civilians, were set forth.
That such laws, which in the Viðrlags-rétt (code of
penalties) are ascribed somewhat doubtfully to this
King Knút, did actually hold good in his days appears
to be proved from the story which tells how he once,
in a fit of anger, killed one of his men, and condemned
himself in the húskarls’ court to pay the accustomed
penalty nine times over. That such a standing force
should not be popular, and that there were tales of
their arrogance and oppression, is natural ; but when
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