Beowulf - Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia

Figure 19. The Oelandic Iron Age village of Rosendal. The village is tentatively thought to
have spread from the original large farm in the south with its prominent grave to the
north, where we find smaller farms, fewer fields and more complicated fencing and
eventually households in the open grassland with no fields and no fencing at all (based on
Fallgren 1993a).
a general perspective the significance of the dominant grave, i.e., mound, has recently
been discussed by Müller-Wille (1992), and its affinity with Germanic royalty
in specific cases by Brulet (1991) and Arrhenius (1995).
When the pattern becomes specific, as in Rosendal on Öland, with the central
farm situated close to the largest grave we may expect the pattern most often to be
the result of a development of the whole settlement (Fallgren 1993a and 1993b). It
probably started with one farm and its grave in a general association which in due
course became a specific association when the settlement grew and smaller farms
were added as if they originated from the primary farm. In a similar way, new graves
were put next to the primary stone setting, but they were small compared to the
original monument, and no larger graves were constructed. Only in a few cases, such
as Valsgärde and perhaps Lejre, is there reason to believe that the juxtaposition of
the graves and the farm was the result of a preconceived and purposeful plan.
With the growing influence of the Church the association between grave and hall
became obsolete, and the early medieval farm Halkær, with its quite atypical position
in a swampy valley, more like that of a water mill than a main farm, is an example of
this separation (Fig. 21).
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