Creating something new, day 8

The ship

After breakfast, Iselin desired to just crawl down in my bed again and listen to music with me. A desire I happily fulfilled, and it's so cute to have her lying there and listening to one song after another. She surprises me when she wants to hear more Rammstein - and her pronunciation of that group is so cute with her norse dialect - but I warn her that many have a faster pace or harder sound. She takes it better than I thought. When I feel her feet and shoulders weakly move in time with the beat in 'Du Hast', and she after a while starts singing along to 'Du. Du Hast.', I begin to suspect that she's starting to like some modern harder metal music, and 'Ich Will' wasn't a coincidence.

Iselin, Kari and Gunhild help me ask around for a ship thats for sale, that would suit my wishes. I need something large and fast that can use beating well, which I believe is the technical term for the zig-zag course by tacking against the wind, and with preferably two masts. The ship should have cabins, and preferably only need a small crew. There are quite a few ships for sale, but mostly Knarrs and Longships. We find a ship with two masts that just looks funny and what must be a stupid design that I immediately become hesitant about and move on from, but also a large single-masted Cog with cabins that can be sailed with only 4-5 people. This type of Cog feels quite standardized among the larger ships, because both Danr and the Masterbuilder Pedr's ships are of that type and very similar to each other. I begin to realize that there probably isn't many alternatives, and I'm just spoiled thinking about all the different kinds of ships the world have had over a couple of millenniums. At least a Cog is better than an open Knarr, although the Knarr is apparently much faster and better at handling winds. Not suprised as its a big sail on a shallow draft boat that glide over the water, instead of a Cog plowing through it, with worse sailarea vs water cross section.

But we might as well continue, and we manage to find another Cog in slightly better condition. After a couple of references, and a half joke comment about an impossible goal, we're given directions to a laid up ship with what seems to have a really huge lateen sail if I go by the boom and the masts stay lines. It even has two masts where the rear is smaller and above the stern castle, and it has a keel and isn't flat-bottomed like the Cogs. I wonder if its called a Caravel, or was it the Carac that was smaller? I really should have studied boats and boat history more. My knowledge comes from documentaries, tv series, and computor games. Its patchy and weirdly specific.

Whatever that design is called, it doesn't feel like its from here, and I mean the North in Alfheimr. When we manage to locate the owner he confirms. The owner is an older merchant who owns two ships, and the laid up one is a completely new type thats inspired from far away seas in the southwest. They're rare there too. He sail on one, and studied another carefully when it was built, but this is a little fatter proportioned to be able to take more cargo. The laid up ship was newly built by hired craftsmen with himself, his son, a boat builder friend and a boat builder slave from southwest as designers and engineers. They included all the most advanced shipbuilding knowledge they knew or learned on their travels. It was built for his son Arn, so they could sail together before Arn was suppose to take over his buisness. But at the end of the construction, Arn fell from the mast and hit his head. He never woke up from his sleep, and eventually died. Arn never saw the ship he was suppose to own be completed. The merchant completed the ship, saw it sail wonderfully, but had lost all desire to sail. He didn't want to be reminded. The ship was dragged ashore last autumn and has been laid up there ever since. The merchant have stayed ashore in Borgarsandr, while his Cog is sailed by his crew. They do all his trading for him. Several people have asked to buy his ship, but he has refused to sell the ship that was suppose to be his sons life, and instead took it.

I tell him that if he sells the ship to me, it will be used by me and my Academy, and that its name will be known far across the seas. The ship will have a glorious reputation, and a beautiful ship like that deserve to glide through water instead of rotting away on the shore. The ship will mainly be used to transport people and goods to and from my Academy, but it will also be used to map the world. It will be used to train the next generation of navigators and try new equipment and solutions for sailing my Academy will develop, and its name will live in people's memory long after the both of us are dead. I show him a Northarrow, and explain about my future ships compass, and combined with what I plan to name it, it appeals to him enough to sell me the ship. It appeals to him that the ship he built for his son will have such a noble future, and it would be a shame if it slowly rotted away on shore.

I couldn't resist naming the ship 'Millennium Eagle' in Norse, for Arn means Eagle in Norse, and hopefully the ship will technologically be a thousand years ahead of others ships here. It has absolutely no connection to the fact that I as a nerd like a certain SciFi trilogy.

I never really thought about the fact that my own last name Arnesson is a modern spelling of the old Norse 'Eagle's son'. We have plenty of people named after animals in some way, like Björn (bear), and Ulf (wolf), and most never think about their names meaning or history. Names ending in 'son' is so common in the Nordic countries, and it was common with name ending in the different languages version of 'daughter' too, but the tradition of being named after your father stopped a couple of hundred years ago. Its all family names now, but the tradition still live on in Iceland. I wish that the rest of the Nordic countries had kept it too, but it makes it really hard to keep track of a large population, and who is related to whom. Iceland still have only about 360 thousand inhabitants, but their church books and lists of their population is next to none and go way back.

My new ship needs a thorough scrubbing as it has been collecting dirt and bird droppings for the last year. It also needs to be ventilated, given a new waterproof coat, checked for leaks, the rudder is lubricated, and that all the ropes and sail is good and so on.

I own that ship. Feels so good. I hope they don't find any huge problems with it, but I can't help to wonder how long it will be until I try to have a new ship built. Something more modern from 1870-1950s. I need to find competent good shipbuilders.

I was advised to create a written notice about my wish to employ seafarers to my ship, and put up notices on the bulletin boards outside of three perticular taverns, and to hire a Town Crier to travel around and shout it out. There are people that do that as their work, and it does work in a society where few can read and write. They go around, blow their horn to get peoples attention, and yell out whatever someone payed them to yell. The local ruler pays them to spread news, rulings of Tings and so on.

So seafarers will come to us instead of us asking around for a willing crew. They are to gather at the laid up ship in tomorrow morning. Short notice, but I don't want to spend too much time waiting, and the crew will have a day to get the ship in order and in the water, unless they need more. It needs to be seaworthy.

Kari writes the notices, as she is by far the best at writing and have a beautiful style. Its runes, so not cursive and hard to read, but skill still matter. One win for runes, although they're slower to write. She also knows how to hire two Town Criers, and they will ride around and shout it out in the closes villages during the day.

I need to get the parts made for my future mansions security doors etc. So many parts, but many isn't very critical in the tolerances - atleast what I consider critical - but they need to be in thick iron, because the iron here is bad. It just feels wrong to try to make the internals of the doors in crucible steel when it is unnecessary. I followed Olafr's recommendation for blacksmiths, and the blacksmith I gave the order for the doors and all its parts liked the idea. He looks forward to building them and not unexpectedly the payment he will receive, and he guess that the job will take 3-4 weeks as he needs to do all the iron work and get everything working, and then he need to deliver them to a carpenter to do the wooden surfaces.

I'm still slightly giddy that I own a large ship, that isn't a Cog, and I can't help thinking about upgrades. So many upgrades. I will probably need to build a new ship just to incorporate them all. That will be expensive and take time. Urgh.

Digraldi has done a nice job, and we're just standing there, looking at the parts and molds for shipscompasses and sundials. We're just two men appreciating the craftsmanship of well-made things in good material. Two men with the same interest and attitude. With a little filing and polishing the parts will fit into each other as they should. Pay for what he has done so far, and say I look forward to the other parts that I will pick up in a couple of days, the morning when we set sail for Skiringsalr. I wonder if its okay to pick up some more parts tomorrow afternoon instead, as I'm going on a trip and will probably be away for a week, so he can take his time with the rest.

We discuss fiting parts together and I realize that I need lubricant, and wonder if he has any suggestions for an oil that lubricates brass, that can be out in the sun and winter, and preferably doesn't dissolve iron gall ink. Apparently a simple answer as he just smiles and gets a big clay jug with oil in it. It smells weird, like something petrolium based more than plant or animal based. Well, petrolium is plants, just far far older and compressed since the dinosaur age. Its very dark, so I can forget to use this inside the shipscompass to dampen the disc. I guess its more than half a liter, and he say he use less than he expected, and he still have another unopen jug left, which is more than enough for his own need for several years. For now, this is more than enough for me, and even if the oil is quite expensive, I should expect that if its imported from far away, and I suspects it may actually be petroleum based. Which probably means its form somewhere in the middle east. This jug has traveled far, and I should try to buy more from merchants, and refine it for different purposes. Another future project.

I also buy some paint that will adhere well to metal especially thin copper, and not crack, so I can try to make coils and magnets for the wind turbine. Since I don't care about its color and prefer something thin, its quite easy, although it will crack if its hit with something hard. He only have four good colors, so I end up buying a jar of each. I will probably need it.

It would be best if I could finish a shipcompass and a sextant before the trip. It's my ship so I plan to work on the trip unless the weather gets too bad. One thing I have learned is that boat trips are boring if I have nothing to do, and I will introduce more board games. But boardgames doesn't work well if the ship is rocking to much. Its also annoying that there isn't any weather service I can easily access via mobile. Man, I miss all those small things.

I make my girlfriends stay outside when I visit the jeweler, and he's done with his part of the jobs and show me the pair of plugs, where one has a really nice surface in rose gold, but both have been polished so I can see my distorted reflection in them. Looks like excellent work. The rings for Ciaras breasts matches nicely. Ciara's new necklace should be finished by tomorrow night, atleast thats what the seamstress told him. They didn't have anything matching in color or style, and have been making it. I buy a ten really small rubies, just a few millimeters in diameter and cheap. I hope they're rubies. I need something hard and durable, and hope it will work well as a bearing for the ship compass needle. I would have worked with sapphire, emerald and a few other precious stones, but he have plenty of these, and I do mean plenty, and gemstones are really weirdly valued here, and as we leave I talk with my girlfriends about it.

Large is good, and cut, carved and polish is good, but among the larger there's everything from amber, emeralds, just polished rocks, rubies and on and on, and there isn't a really big difference between amber, rocks and rubies. Sure, gemstones are 'stones' but very different and far less common. A lot of smaller gemstones seems to be undervalued as hell, but that applies to the bigger too. It seems to be tradition to value silver and gold and how decorated and intricate the metalwork is, more than gemstones, and considering thats their economy and payment it makes sense. Few will actually know if a gemstone is valuable or just a piece of rock or glass, but everyone understands silver and gold, especially if its intricate work. A big gemstone is nice, but the same size and more intricate piece in gold would be more impressive, and give more status. Gemstones are the parts for intricate decorations in silver and gold, instead of viewing gold and silver as something that holds and display the gemstone. It seems to be linked to the fact that Northmen historically raided and brought back looted goods, and the gemstones were sold of cheaply, because they didn't really know what it was. And they still don't if go by how the jeweler price and present his goods.

Then again, I bought rubies because they're aluminiumoxide and very hard, not because they're gemstones. I couldn't care less about their cut, clarity and color. I wanted something hard, small, with a good surface, and easy to mount.

I wonder how they value jewelry down south? According to Kari they value gemstones by their 'light'; how they shine and different colors. Gemstones also have different 'powers' and purposes, like warding of evil, increasing health, cure deceases and so on. Gemstones are mostly domed or grinded flat, and I guess I shouldn't be suprised considering what the jeweler showed me. They probably don't know about how faceted surfaces can redirect light and sparkle more. Kari doesn't really know much more than that, and they all needle me, more or less, to give my view about their purpose. Well. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I just say that if someone can scientifically prove an effect, I will believe them, otherwise its all in their minds, but you shouldn't ignore the power of the mind over your own body. Really believe that a cure will work, and it have a bigger chance of succeeding, if its something that the body might do. If you lost a leg, its gone. If you really believe that the wearing a special ring will make you healthier, you might feel healthier even if you're becomming sicker. Same as wearing something for good luck. If something good happens, obviously it works. If something bad happens, it might have been worse if you didn't have your lucky charm. Elves and humans seem to be the same in a lot of things, and there have been plenty of research of the mind in Midgard.

I give them this to think about: I claim that Dragons are afraid of sejd users, so they're not where I am. You might respond with: I'm not a sejduser, and I've never seen a Dragon. To which I reply: See! Its working, because there's always a sejduser nearby that scares the Dragons away, and they're really afraid of sejdusers.

That claim is obviously wrong, and not proven just because I say so. Lack of evidence against something, doesn't prove its correct. To actually scientifically prove my claim, I have to find Dragons and prove they're scared of sejdusers in a blind test, where the Dragons wouldn't know if the person is a normal Elf or Human, or a sejduser, and that the Dragon isn't scared for any other reason, like that its being tested. Unless I can prove this and remove all other factors to a reasonable degree, I can't claim its correct.

If you make an extraordinary claim, you have to prove its correct. Its not for everyone else to prove that its false. So, gemstones are just pretty, or useful for perticular purposes.

That opened up a can of worms. So many questions, from all of them. And no, I don't believe in a lot of things, including Dragons. Especilly not flying Dragons. When I have proof of Dragons existences, then I will belive in them. And someone telling me they've seen one doesn't count. People believe they've seen all kinds of things, and people also lie. The mind is easy to fool, and we generally see what we expect and interpret things wrong. Thats why witnesses to things is a tricky subject, and its usually not that hard to discredit a witness or make them believe they saw something else. Midgard have whole professions ment to do that, or trained to avoid it, or just trying to fool people for entertainment.

We get sidetracked a bit, as we come in to other discussions and questions, and Kari whispers to me asking if that doesn't apply to the Gods too? I just smile and wink at her. Its called 'belief' for a reason.

I managed to stop their questions as we reach the wheelwright/wainwright, and I can focus on his attempts to make a better wheel. His first attempt is skewed, but he is impressed with its durability, and he is working on a new one where he is more careful and precise. I suggests that he can otherwise try to make a wider hub where the struts go alternately to one or the other side, so the wheel becomes stronger for forces in both side directions, and the alternating struts might keep the wheel straight.

We buy more linen and other things, and when we walk around and talk, I realize how surprisingly many craftsmen there are here, but Borgarsandr has many thousands of inhabitants, probably more than ten thousand accordning to Kari. Neither Kari nor Gunhild know for sure. I should probably ask the taxman. He, if anyone, should know.

But there are no large factories here that mass produce things, and no Ikea to buy everything the common home needs and more. Many people make everyday things for themselves, but its quite natural that cities have a large concentration of craftsmen and craftswomen. Cities have customers, merchants, travelers and raw materials arriving in the same place, compared to out in nowhere in the countryside, where goods have to be transported long distances to markets, or there's limited amount of customers. Then there is the fact that not everyone owns enough land to grow all the food they need and raise animals on, so they invest in making handcrafts or doing a service and buying their food, or trading for stuff they can't make themselfs. Except in the city center itself, most seem to have some form of garden for vegetables, chickens and a couple of pigs, and as you travel further away from the city center, the houses become fewer and meadows, fields and groups of trees becomes larger, and small villages appear.