Road To Hel - Rune Web Vitki

26
FUNERAL CUSTOMS
of Egypt, and seem to have travelled northward to reach Scandinavia during the Bronze
Age. In this ritual the ship evidently played an important part, for it is shown continually,
sometimes together with wheels and sun-discs, trees, snakes, horned animals, or men
dancing, leaping or worshipping; the human figures are sometimes in the ship itself,
sometimes forming a group with it, and occasionally seem to be carrying it in their hands.
Certain of the symbols found on the rock, and the ship among them, are found also on
the walls of tombs, on gravestones, and in the neighbourhood of graves; and the ship and
the axe in particular are found in Central Europe confined to graves alone. There has been
much controversy as to whether an early cult of the dead, connected with sun-worship
and with beliefs about fertility, developed until it became primarily a religion of the
living away from the grave; or whether the earliest cult was one of fertility and sun--
worship and later came to include beliefs and practices connected with the dead, passing
on from the principle of rebirth in the world of nature to that of man after death.
Almgren 1 supports the second view; he admits that the close connection of certain
symbols with graves is evidence in the other direction, but proves on the other hand that
rock-engravings in Sweden are not, as some have claimed, found oniy in the
neighbourhood of burial places. The evidence is insufficient for definite conclusions to be
established, but certainly the development of sun-worship in Egypt, where fuller records
of it have been left than anywhere else in the world, is a good argument on Almgren’s
side.
All that we can learn of Bronze Age ritual and religion is likely to be important for our
better understanding of ship-funeral; first because the ship symbol played so important a
part in it, and moreover in Central Europe is confined to graves alone; and secondly
because in Gotland there are rock-engravings near the ship-form graves, which may go
some way to explain their mysterious origin there. No doubt there is also a link with the
boat-offerings recovered from bogs, dating from the Iron Age, and recorded by Caesar as
thank offerings for victory. 2 If we knew definitely what was the significance
1 Op. cit. p. 28o f.
2 Ibid. p. 64; Caesar, De Bello Gallico, VI, 17. An example such a sacrifice is the discovery at Hjortspring
(Nordiske Fortidsminder, III, I, 1937), dated between the fourth and second centuries B.C. Many animal
bones and weapons were found lying about a large ship, clearly an offering of some kind.