Road To Hel - Rune Web Vitki

6
INTRODUCTION
material they contain is composed from genuine traditions, albeit imperfectly
remembered, from heathen times.
There are two additional ways in which a check may be kept on the reliability of
literary records. The first is by comparing them with archaeological evidence, which can
sometimes supply us with information about early history when other sources fail, and
which provides a record of funeral customs in the heathen period particularly significant
for any study connected with beliefs about the dead; of this, as already stated, full use
will be made. The other method, to be used with caution, is that of comparison with
heathen practices outside the region under discussion. Occasionally the records of
modern anthropologists give us information about non-Christian practices in other parts
of the world which afford a striking comparison with those described or alluded to in Old
Norse literature, and thus offer additional justification for regarding certain features in the
literary evidence as valuable. Both the archaeological and anthropological material may
be dangerous if applied too freely and uncritically, but I believe that neither up till now
has been sufficiently taken into consideration in approaching the subject of Norse heathen
thought. Unquestionably however it is literature alone which can reveal to us something
of what passed through the minds of the men of a former faith and of a different age, and
particularly the work of the poets. I would echo with conviction the words with which
Snorri Sturlason, the first to attempt a systematic record of the heathen religion of his
people, closes the preface to his Ynglinga Saga:
‘The poems, as it seems to me, can least of all be set aside, provided that they are well
and truly rendered and are interpreted with wisdom.’