Fire-burial among our Germanic forefathers : a record of the poetry and history of Teutonic cremation / by Karl Blind.

  • Karl Blind
Date:
1875
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fire-burial among our Germanic forefathers : a record of the poetry and history of Teutonic cremation / by Karl Blind. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    weapons, golden trinkets, and other movable property belonging to Harald, were thrown into tbe fire. The ashes were collected and buried, with, the remnants of his weapons and his horse, on Seeland. Ships, it may be as well to remark here, were at that time rather small craft, so that we need be less astonished at their frequent de- struction for the purpose of obse- quies. In later times the dead kings were not seldom placed in their boats and buried with them in the earth. The dog of the Norse warrior was burnt witb him. It is much forgotten now what important part a ferocious kind of dogs once played in the more barbarous war- fare of our ancestors, down to a comparatively recent time. The Kimbrians, at the time of Marius, brought such dogs with them across the Alps. In Arnkiel's curious work^^ it is stated that Henry YIII. of England sent to the Emperor Karl v., together with four hun- dred soldiers, four hundred dogs, with iron collars. So far as it can be made out from historical sources, the custom of burning horses and dogs, at the funeral of chieftains, was more regularly observed in Scandinavia than in Germany. To this day, a custom prevails in many countries of placing the arms of an officer of high rank on his coffin, and of leading his horse after the hearse. This custom has come down from early times through, the Middle Ages. It is a symbolical remnant of an ancient sacrificial per* formance; its meaning being no longer understood by the many. Among the Northmen abroad, fire-burial was continued down, to the tenth century. Regino, refer- ring to the year 879, says:—'The Normans, having burnt the corpses of their men, fled during the night, and turned their steps towards their fleet.'37 In Orkney and Shetland, the heathen Northmen practised, for at least a century and a half, the fire- burial customs which they had brought with them from Norway.^^ The same was done in the tenth century, by the Warangian rulers of Russia, who had given the country a Norse dynasty and aris- tocracy, and probably even its name. A striking picture of those Germanic cremation rites in Russia has been handed down to us by Ahmed Ibn Fozlan, an Arab am- bassador from the Khalife Al Mok- tador, who, in 921, wrote a report of his journey.^^ His description is one of the most graphic; the mi- nutest details being given. 'You Arabs '—said one of the Northmen in Russia to Ahmed Ibn Fozlan—• * are fools! You take the man whom you must have loved and honoured, and put him down in the earth, where vermin and worms devour him. We, on the contrary, burn him up in a twinkling; and he goes straight to Paradise.' So also Sidonius speaks of fire- burial among tke Goths. An idea of Anglo-Saxon cremation may be gathered from Beowulf. I may, however, first mention that when the hoary-headed Skild, Beo-Wulf's father, dies, he is brought, according to his wish, fco the sea-shore, and placed in the hold of a vesselwith all his treasures, his weapons, and armour. It is not said that either he or his things were burnt. The ship was simply allowed to drift out Bk Cimhrische H&yden-Beligion (}.']O0j). Pertz, Monum. Germ. i. 591. ^8 Introduction, by Mr. Joseph Anderson, to the Orhieyingtt Saga. (Translated by Ion Andresson Hjaltalin and Gondie.) 1873. See Froceedirigs of the Society of Antiquarians of Scotland. Vol. ix; tiledou ]?a leofne J^eoclen, I beaga bryttan, on bearm scijpes ,j maerno be maste. j
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