Road To Hel - Rune Web Vitki

32
FUNERAL CUSTOMS
the religion which he established in the North the chief setting throughout is Sweden.
There, at fornu Sigtúnir, Othin after his wanderings through Asia, Russia, Germany and
Denmark finally settled; and the very choice of the name fornu instead of merely Sigtúnir
implies, as Lindqvist points out, 1 a Swedish source and a fairly late one. Moreover the
practices which he describes as characteristic of the followers of Othin are such as seem,
from archaeological records, to belong to South-East Sweden in particular. We are told
that Othin taught his followers to burn their dead, promising that
every man should enter Valhöll with as much wealth as he had on his pyre, and should
also enjoy everything which he himself had buried in the earth; and the ashes should be
borne out to sea or buried in the earth; but over men of renown a howe should be raised
as memorial, and over all men who acquitted themselves manfully memorial stones
should be raised; and this continued for a long time afterwards.
The practice of burying treasure was known in Scandinavia in the Migration period,
but was nowhere as popular as in South—East Sweden; this is confirmed by the fact that
later on, although Anglo-Saxon money must have been just as plentiful farther west, it is
only in this region that hoards of it are found, together with quantities of Arabic coins and
all kinds of silver. It is in Uppland too that we find the largest number of memorial
stones, and these sometimes in sets of two or three, bearing out the use of the plural in
Snorri’s description. 2
Evidently then it is to Sweden that we must look for the source of the traditions about
Othin and cremation and Othin and magic; about the second there will be much to say
later, and it is perhaps significant that the two are here introduced side by side as new
institutions which came into Sweden with the worship of the god. This Swedish Othin,
unlike the leader of the gods who perished at Ragnarrökr, dies in his bed; he is marked
with a spear—point before death, since by means of weapons only can entry be gained
into the world of the gods; and he is burned on a funeral pyre, in accordance with his
teaching:
The burning was carried out in very splendid wise. It was then believed that the higher
the smoke rose in the air, the loftier would his position be in heaven whose burning it
was; and the more possessions were burned with him, the richer he would be (Ynglinga
Saga, IX).
1 Lindqvist, op. cit. p. 104.
2 Ibid. p. 761.