Horizons and herring made us Vikings

No estuary beyond our sixteen oars and shallow-drafts.

Silver arm-rings we wore, bound by allegiance,

Chained thralls shared our graves

Ninety miles a day in a fair wind

Sea-sick abaft oak prows and reeling sails.

Monks in towers prayed for stormy seas but

Stiff with salt it was nuns not gold we wanted

After conquest we traded ...

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