Odinist funerals

[celtictexan]

How would a person of the past and of this faith been dealt with at death? I've always loved this phrase from the thirteenth warrior and prussian blue but most likely from some more ancient text.

Lo, there do I see my Father
Lo, there do I see my Mother and my sisters
and my brothers.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people
back to the beginning.
Lo, they do call to me, they bid me take my
place amongst them, in the halls of
Valhalla, where the Brave, they live forever!

The trip to Vahalla I know but what of the remains? The movies always show cremation. Is that fact?

[Schwarzesonne]

This depends on the location & time period. Cremations did, in fact, take place as we see in Snorri’s account of Baldur’s (Paltar’s) funeral. But we also see burial mounds in some places, ship-shaped graves in others… I considering how much maritime our ancestors were known for I’m pretty sure that burial at sea was known as well. Check out HRE Davidon’s Road to Hel (http://www.runewebvitki.com/HR%20Davidson.htm) for some outstanding material on ancient funerals and beliefs about death.

[odinsbjorn]

How would a person of the past and of this faith been dealt with at death? I've always loved this phrase from the thirteenth warrior and prussian blue but most likely from some more ancient text.

Lo, there do I see my Father
Lo, there do I see my Mother and my sisters
and my brothers.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people
back to the beginning.
Lo, they do call to me, they bid me take my
place amongst them, in the halls of
Valhalla, where the Brave, they live forever!

The trip to Vahalla I know but what of the remains? The movies always show cremation. Is that fact?


Nope. Research is being done that suggests cremation was very uncommon among the norse. A theory I have been reading about points to the fact that the norse people belive that when one died his burial place became a focus for the luck he had in life, and if his descendents honered him his luck could be traded to them. So being cremated would be bad, if you were near your family you would want to be buried so that you could be available to help them after death. And Valhalla may not be a true pre-christian creation, it was added into one of the last Eddic poems written and I know of no other poem then Valuspa that refrences it. It may be a christian invention, there is not enough info other than in one poem to say one way or the other.

Oh, that poem is complete Hollywood fabrication. There is a similar one in Micheal Critons book The Eaters of the Dead, however he made up most of the "research" done to write the book, He says so him self in the end of the book.

[Yippy]

Oh, that poem is complete Hollywood fabrication. There is a similar one in Micheal Critons book The Eaters of the Dead, however he made up most of the "research" done to write the book, He says so him self in the end of the book.
Of course, 13th Warrior is based on Eaters of the Dead. The version in the movie was more poetic, I think.

Eaters of the Dead was a fictitious expansion of the historical document Ibn Fadlan's Account of the Rus:
http://www.geocities.com/sessrumnirkindred/risala.html

The passage where that speech takes place is this:

90. Friday afternoon they led the slave girl to a thing that they had made which resembled a doorframe. She placed her feet on the palms of the men and they raised her up to overlook this frame. She spoke some words and they lowered her again. A second time they raised her up and she did again what she had done; then they lowered her. They raised her a third time and she did as she had done the two times before. Then they brought her a hen; she cut off the head, which she threw away, and then they took the hen and put it in the ship. I asked the interpreter what she had done. He answered, "The first time they raised her she said, 'Behold, I see my father and mother.' The second time she said, 'I see all my dead relatives seated.' The third time she said, 'I see my master seated in Paradise and Paradise is beautiful and green; with him are men and boy servants. He calls me. Take me to him.' " Now they took her to the ship. She took off the two bracelets she was wearing and gave them both to the old woman called the Angel of Death, who was to kill her; then she took off the two finger rings which she was wearing and gave them to the two girls who had served her and were the daughters of the woman called the Angel of Death. Then they raised her onto the ship but they did not make her enter the pavilion.

[celtictexan]

Good comments and lots of info to absorb. I especially like the part about Vikings and the sea. I spent 23 years in the Navy and have seen many burials at sea. I saw in anouther thread someone talking about being buried then having a tree planted over them. I liked that also to become part of that tree seems a way to continue living. Probably illegal though knowing how things are these days. Anyway thanks for all the advice.

[Aella]

Probably illegal though knowing how things are these days. Anyway thanks for all the advice.

Allowed in UK - www.woodlandburial.com my plot is here :o (Though I do not plan to take up residence for a long time yet ;) )

[hailodin9]

i know for a fact that our forefathers were laid on a bed of wood and placed ontop of a pile of wood and burned so that the spirit would join our gods and our earthly body would be disposed of so loki could not use it but of course this is entirely illegal now a days but creamation is the same idea a burial at sea was for those whose families had the means to make it happen

[davidhuddleston1977]

In 2006 when my Grandmother passed and went to Asgard my kinsman Ogre Dan quoted this quote to the tee without a hitch.I will alway remember it even after the day that Iset at the table holding a horn of honon to the Gods and Goddesses with my grandparents sitting next to me.
Hail the High Gods and Goddesses of our folk.