Learnings: The Sail

One of the four sides of the Sparlösa stone, Sweden / c. 800

The Scandinavians first began to use sails on their ships in the 7th or 8th century. Where once they relied solely on oars to move their ships across water, they now introduced the famous squared sail depicted on this runestone.

There are several possible reasons for the addition of sails. Their introduction may be linked to an increase in wealth and land among Scandinavians. A person would need a lot of wadmal wool to make a sail; this meant they would need a lot of sheep and possibly land for grazing. Therefore, those who owned sails likely had access to a lot of wealth and land.