Vikings Vale Hal G.P. Colebatch More than women, the Norsemen loved longboats, craved the pregnant sail on the prow-ploughed sea. Safeguarded by fearsome spirit-scarer figureheads they followed lodestone and starlight to far lands. You, too, my life-long life-robbed brother, prized boats— skippered them round coves, out to islands, and past. And for all the wonder and vigour, you loved most the real-rules and fixed-facts of the guileless sea. The Vikings were violent vainglorious men, mean treasure-takers, keen voyagers of quest. Most of their own making, the foes they fought— and how valiant they were to violate the weak! But you…