In a village, somewhere in northern Britain, a few men stood by the shore one morning, talking. No ships were expected, because everyone was at home, but, submitting to old habit, they frequently look out to sea.  

“Isn’t something out there?” one asks.  

“A sail, I think,” adds another.  

And a sail it was but a strange one. Never had they seen a sailboat like this before. They agreed this looked most like Viking sails, which they had seen in pictures.  

The sail grew near fast. A small boat, sitting lightly on the waves, the shape long and narrow. If the bow was tall and the boat much higher in front, it would have looked like a Viking ship, although much smaller than one.  

The boat arrives.

  “Where do you come from”  

“The Faroes,” comes the answer.

  During the war years, this is how Faroese men often arrived on shore in Iceland and Britain, when their fishing vessels had been sunk and they had escaped into the small boats.