No Wool, No Sails, No Viking

From the article: "Viking life must have been like this—frigid, wild days in an open boat, constantly watching the waves and clouds to avoid disaster. Wool was as much a part of that life as the sea and the ships. The Vikings were great sailors and fearsome warriors, but they couldn’t have left port without wool. It provided the raw material for their clothes, their blankets, even the sails that harnessed the wind for their ships." And women were key to the Viking explorations and raids. The ship could have been built by two skilled boat builders in weeks but two women worked for a year to make the sails.

"Researchers at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, calculated that by the mid-11th century, the Viking fleet—fishing boats, coastal traders, cargo ships, and longships—carried roughly one million square meters of sail, requiring the equivalent of all the wool produced in one year by about two million sheep."
Fascinating article!

https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/no-wool-no-vikings