Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

by Neil Price

The first thing he noticed was that the funeral preparations were so elaborate as to require a full ten days following the man’s death. During that time his body was interred in a temporary grave—with temporary grave-goods, including food, drink, and a musical instrument; there is a strong suggestion that all this is intended for his entertainment pending the final funeral, and thus that the dead man is somehow aware. The same ten-day period sees continuous festivities in the Rus’ camp, involving music, sex, and heavy drinking; almost the entire band is perpetually drunk. Special burial clothes are also made for the dead chieftain, on which no less than a third of his wealth is spent (this has worrying implications for the archaeologist, in that these things are made for the grave). Another third of his wealth goes to the brewing of appropriate quantities of alcohol, while only the remaining third is inherited by his heirs. All these proceedings are presided over by a middle-aged woman, heavy set and angry, whose title (as ibn Fad.lān understood it through his interpreter) means the ‘Angel of Death’. This is interesting in that the term in the text is Malak al-Mawt, the Quranic angel whose purpose is to choose the dead and take them to their assigned places—it may not be coincidence that this is very close to what might be said or understood if someone was trying to translate ‘Valkyrie’ into Arabic. Around the ship, which has been propped up on shore using timbers carved l...