Viking Death Traditions

Cultural Views On Death

• When someone dies, the vikings believe that they go to the underworld as their final resting place.
• They also believe that when they die they are reborn after they spend some time in the underworld.

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• On your journey to the underworld you can end up in three different underworlds which are Helheim, Valhalla, or Folkvang.
• Helheim is described as the home of the goddess Hel, Valhalla is said to be the hall of the fallen which could be the place where you would go if you weren't a "good person, and lastly is Folkvang meaning field of the people".

Helheim, valhalla, folkvang

• Helheim or Hel is the most common name for the underworld. The word "Hel" means beyond the grave.
• Odin is known as the leader of Valhalla with Valkyries as his creatures. To get in Odin and his valkyries have to choose you.
• The ruler of Folkvang is Freya, who is supposedly a valkyrie.

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• Folkvang and Vahalla are different from each other, but alike in several ways.
• Folkvang's leader is a Valkyrie, which are as you saw earlier Odin's creatures from Vahalla.

Burial rituals

• When someone dies they cremate the body and pour it on the ship and light it on fire.
• When they put the cremated body they put it on the ship and cover it in soil in a pyre.
• Pyres are the boats that are long, narrow, know as being shaped as a dragon's nose, and is made of wood.

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• They would send the pyre out to the sea.
• The fire is going to cremate the body and will be hot enough to burn flesh
• The fire may not be hot enough to completely burn everything, so the pyre helps keep the fire hot so that it is able to cremate the body enough.

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coming back to haunt

• Vikings interpeted the deceased as haunting them into killing them.
• Since they don't want to be killed (obviously) they spend a lot of money into the funeral and ship itself
• Vikings believed that if they didn't send off the dead properly, then they would come back to haunt them

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• In order to prevent the dead coming back to haunt the living, the vikings would cut off the dead person's head or drive a wooden stake through the body

trinkets to take with you

• Before the other vikings sent the dead off on the pyre, they put many of the deceased ones possesions in the pyre with them
• The possesions include a weapon, shield, sewing tools, and cloth.

celebrations

• After a loved one has died, they wait 7 days until they throw a funeral celebration
• On that day that the vikings celebrate by drinking ale, which meant the passing of any of the deceased one's property.
• Which that the heiress/heir got to recieve the items that were written in the deceased one's will.

citations

• "Viking Funeral." Viking Funeral. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2015. .
• "Viking Funerals Buriels and the Afterlife." Viking Funerals. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2015. .
• "Viking Funerals Buriels and the Afterlife." Viking Funerals. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2015. .
• "Viking Funerals Buriels and the Afterlife." Viking Funerals. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2015. .
• "Home." The Good Funeral Guide. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. .

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