"Runic inscriptions and skaldic verse provide copious contemporary evidence documenting the activities of men and their uses of ships in the late Viking Age: this book is a systematic and comparative study of this evidence. The core is a critical survey of the vocabulary of ships and their crews, of fleets and sailing and battles at sea, based on the runic and skaldic evidence from c.950-1100. This nautical vocabulary is studied within the larger context of 'viking' activity in this period; thus the book also explores what that activity was and where it took place, its social and military aspects, and its impact on developments in the nature of kingship in Scandinavia."--Jacket.