Editing Longship (section)

===Dreki===
[[File:Bergens Byvåpen 1299.jpg|thumb|The city seal of [[Bergen]] depicts a Viking longship — possibly a dreki.]]

''Dreki'' (singular, meaning 'dragon'),<ref name="Jesch2001">{{cite book |last1=Jesch |first1=Judith |title=Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse |year=2001 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-0-85115-826-6 |pages=127–128 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p8ZK3v0hrk4C&pg=PA127}}</ref> was used for ships with thirty rowing benches and upwards<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=RODGER|first=N. A. M.|date=1995|title=Cnut's Geld and the Size of Danish Ships|journal=The English Historical Review|volume=CX|issue=436|pages=392–403|doi=10.1093/ehr/cx.436.392|issn=0013-8266}}</ref> that are only known from historical sources, such as the 13th-century ''[[Göngu-Hrólfs saga]]''. Here, the ships are described as most unusual, elegant, ornately decorated, and used by those who went raiding and plundering. These ships were likely skeids that differed only in the carvings of menacing beasts, such as dragons and snakes, carried on the prow of the ship.<ref name="Magnússon1906">{{cite book|author=E. Magnússon|title=Notes on shipbuilding & nautical terms of old in the North |year=1906|publisher=Magnússon|page=45}}</ref> [[Judith Jesch]], an expert in runic inscriptions, says, "The word ''dreki'' for a ship derives from this practice of placing carved dragonheads on ships... but there is no evidence that it was a technical term for any particular kind of ship."<ref name="Jesch2001"/>

The earliest mentioned dreki was the ship of unstated size owned by Harald Fairhair in the tenth century. The first dreki ship whose size was mentioned in the source was Olav Tryggvason's thirty-room Tranin, built at Nidaros circa 995.{{Unreliable source?|date=July 2024}} By far the most famous in this period was his later ship the Ormrinn Langi ('Long Serpent') of thirty-four rooms, built over the winter of 999 to 1000.<ref name=":0" /> No true dragon ship, as described in the sagas, has been found by archaeological excavation.

The city seal of [[Bergen|Bergen, Norway]], created in 1299,<ref name="Jesch2001"/> depicts a ship with a dragon's head at either end, which might<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sciencenorway.no/forskningno-history-norway/norwegian-viking-treasures-tour-europe/1397825|title=Norwegian Viking treasures tour Europe|first=Ida|last=Kvittingen|date=6 March 2014|website=Sciencenorway.no|access-date=14 December 2021|archive-date=3 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211203080322/https://sciencenorway.no/forskningno-history-norway/norwegian-viking-treasures-tour-europe/1397825|url-status=live}}</ref> be intended to represent a dreki ship.