Road To Hel - Rune Web Vitki

40
FUNERAL CUSTOMS
by the saga-tellers, they have no recollection of the beliefs that prompted it.
In Landnámabók (II, 20) a man called Germund is said to have been buried in his ship
in a wood, though no details are given. Elsewhere (II, 6) we have an example of shipburial
with human sacrifice; a certain Ásmundr is laid in his ship, with his thrall to
accompany him. According to lines found in some versions 1 the sacrifice in this case is
not appreciated, since Ásniundr is heard singing a song in which he complains of the lack
of room in his ship, and the thrall has to be removed. Here again we get the notion of the
dead man continuing to exist in his ship inside the howe. The same conception is present
in the tale of the breaking into the mound of Sóti, in Hárðar Saga (xv). The story of the
lowering of the hero into the mound and of the struggle with the draugr inside is a
familiar one; the idea that the dead man is sitting in a ship, however, is, as far as I know,
peculiar to this saga. The ship is placed in the side chamber of the howe, and there is
much treasure in it, while Sóti sits upright in the prow—a point that reminds us of the
dead chief in his ship in the Vendel graves. In Bárðar Saga (XV) the viking Raknar is
buried with a ship, but he is not in the ship himself, but sits on a chair on the ground
beside it. A large number of people— 500 men—are said to be laid in the ship itself.
There are other references to a number of people buried in one ship. In Svarfdæla Saga
Þorgerðr has Karl and the castmen laid in a ship, ‘and much wealth with them’ (XXVI).
Here there is a fleeting reference to a life elsewhere after death, though the connection
with a ship may be an accidental one; before Karl’s death his kinsman Klaufi, who
‘walks’ a good deal after death, appears to him driving a sledge in the air, and finally
leaves him with the remark: ‘I am expecting you home with me to-night, Karl my
kinsman’ (XXVII). The other episode comes from one of the Fornaldar Sögur (Áns Saga
Bogsveigis, VI), where An’s brother has been slain by the king, and in revenge he kills a
crew of the king’s men, and puts them all in their ship inside a howe, ‘with Þórir on deck,
and the king’s men on
1 Hauksbók has fuller account: ‘Ásmundr was laid in howe there in his ship, and with him his thrall, who
had slain himself, desiring not to survive Ásniundr. He was placed in the opposite end of the ship. A little
later Dora [his wife, from whom he had parted) dreamed that ‘Ásmundr had told her he was annoyed by
the thrall’ (c. 60). The verse in which ‘Ásmundr makes his complaint is badly preserved.