When the warriors had spent some time in the cities along the coast and restocked their ships with all the valuables they could carry, they left and continued to the next town. Most certainly they were prepared to lose at least some men in battle, which would further lighten the load and increase the carrying capacity of the ship. The load was also quickly lightened since the men wanted to eat and drink as often as possible. Fresh food was generally readily available in the coastal communities and needed for the party’s extended journey, and plenty of mead was important for keeping the morale up among the rowers. One could eat almost anything when food was scarce so long as there was good beer to wash it down. The norm was to lay the ships in the bay, drink bravely, and drown whatever fright they had in the mead bowl.

The Norsemen were known for being heavy drinkers, and there was great delight in drinking in the company of many. Erling Skjalgson, the brother-in-law of the Norwegian king Olaf Trygvason, is said to have had an entourage of ninety men who both winter and summer drank according to a measure (until a silver stud appeared above the liquor in the drinking horn or cup) at the mid-day meal, and without restriction at the evening meal. He even instituted a law forcing people to drink beer on the summer solstice.[1] Thorar, a lagman (lawman, one who speaks the law) and person in high estimation, spent with his brother-in-law the Yule (winter solstice celebration) in 1027 in one drinking feast after another, challenging the peasants to a contest until all men were dumb and remembered nothing of what they had said. When Vladimir, a prince of the Rus dynasty (the Vikings in Russia) attempted to find a suitable religion for his pagan kingdom, he rejected Islam since it demanded abstinence and exclaimed that, “Drink is the joy of the Rus. We cannot exist without that pleasure.”[2] King Sigurd the Crusader, however, saw a different part of the problem. He accused his son Magnus of knowing nothing of the customs of foreign people: “Dost thou not know that men in other countries exercise themselves in other feats than in filling themselves with ale, and making themselves mad, and so unfit for everything that they scarcely know each other?”[3]