Vikings Burial

Furthermore another piece about the burial of the Viking chief from Ibn Fadhlan’s Risala provides us with very detailed death ceremony of the Vikings. The event was in the responsibility of an old woman called ‘Angel of Death’. The dead chief was buried with all his arms, alcoholic drinks, food, aromatic herbs, a dog, two horses, to cows, a cock, a hen and one of his slaves on the ship (Blockmans, pp. 94). These rituals submitted by Ibn Fadhlan were approved during the ship burial excavations in Scandinavia (Blockmans, pp. 95). The interesting thing was about the slave girl who voluntarily or by force had sexual intercourse with all the owners of the tents and every man said: “Tell your lord and master I do this out of affection for him” (Blockmans, pp. 94). The problem is that Ibn Fadhlan stated in the beginning of his

In Viking society honor of the warrior and oath keeping were substantial moral entities of him. They had a saying of ‘death before dishonor’. However, their understanding of protecting honor was different, too. If a man’s honor was damaged he had a right to kill the one who was guilty. Honor and dishonor were both labeled to individual and his family (French, pp. 93-114). The Vikings’ believe of honor and fate pushed them to adventures and battles. They believed that their date of death was predetermined thus regardless of the place one was going to die when his time came.

Therefore to fight and dying with the sword in your hand and going to Valhalla (paradise) is better than dying at home (Short, pp.41). In the final analysis, the Vikings could be considered as destructive and violent due to the circumstances they caused. Having said that, their historical and geographical condition, lifestyle, culture, societal norms were different and the motive was definitely not their brutal or devastating nature but the requirement of their time and