A ship is heavier care than a wife or cattle . '' ` He leaped down among the rowers , chiding them for their little strength and their great stomachs . Yet Witta was a wolf in fight , and a very fox in cunning . ` We were driven South by a storm , and for three days and three nights he took the stern-oar , and threddled the longship through the sea . When it rose beyond measure he brake a pot of whale 's oil upon the water , which wonderfully smoothed it , and in that anointed patch he turned her head to the wind and threw out oars at the end of a rope , to make , he said , an anchor at which we lay rolling sorely , but dry . This craft his father Guthrum had shown him . He knew , too , all the Leech-Book of Bald , who was a wise doctor , and he knew the Ship-Book of Hlaf the Woman , who robbed Egypt . He knew all the care of a ship . ` After the storm we saw a mountain whose top was covered with snow and pierced the clouds . The grasses under this mountain , boiled and eaten , are a good cure for soreness of the gums and swelled ankles . We lay there eight days , till men in skins threw stones at us . When the heat increased Witta spread a cloth on bent sticks above the rowers , for the wind failed between the Island of the Mountain and the shore of Africa , which is east of it . That shore is sandy , and we rowed along it within three bowshots . Here we saw whales , and fish in the shape of shields , but longer than our ship . Some slept , some opened their mouths at us , and some danced on the hot waters . The water was hot to the hand , and the sky was hidden by hot , grey mists , out of which blew a fine dust that whitened our hair and beards of a morning . Here , too , were fish that flew in the air like birds . They would fall on the laps of the rowers , and when we went ashore we would roast and eat them . ' The knight paused to see if the children doubted him , but they only nodded and said , ` Go on . ' ` The yellow land lay on our left , the grey sea on our right .
Knight though I was , I pulled my oar amongst the XXXXX .
Africa Guthrum Mountain Woman left longship morning oars rowers whales