L, luis, the mountain ash in the Ogham. Confers ... - Rodney Mackay

Following the Roman example the Picts and the
Britons came to favour carvel-constructed wooden ships, an
example of which was recently recovered from the Thames
River. A planked craft, she was 60 feet long, had a 16 foot
beam, and a mast 10 inches in diameter at the seat. Her
lines were that of an easy sea-going craft, not much
inferior to the schooners of Atlantic Canada which sailed to
the Grand Banks in this century. Both types of vessel were
square-masted, powered by oars in calm weather or where
it was necessary to get through a narrow passage.
By the sixth and seventh centuries Celtic and Pictish
mariners became even more common in the trade with
Norway and France, and it is during this time that the
voyages of St, Brendan were written down. That story
seems a collation of numerous individual voyages coloured
by folk-memory, nevertheless it is clear that there are
some underlying Atlantic trips remembered in it. By this
time the Picts were getting into the Baltic, and were firmly
established as residents on the islands north of Scotland.
In the last quarter of the sixth century the Picts of
the Orkneys became Christianized following their Irish and
Scottish cousins. All these peoples had semi-permanent
fishing stations and monasteries in Iceland, and all the
while the climate situation was improving. The fishing in
western waters was phenomenal but the Celts were never
lacking in natural resources at home, and they were not
subject to populations pressures great enough to cause
them to think of wide-spread resettlement. In all this time
the Scandinavian peoples were content to trade across their
inland seas and had no true ocean-going ships.
By the seventh century the still warming climate
encouraged agriculture, created a baby-boom and allowed
people the time to lust after luxuries. The sight of British
trade ships helped to increase the appetite for things, so
the northern men built craft based on Celtic models, and
made their first “expeditions” to Scotland, Ireland and the