In the The Mam­moth Book of Eye-Witness His­tory by Jon E. Lewis, the Arab trav­eler Ibn Fad­lan describes what he saw of a Swedish Viking’s funeral in the tenth century:

One day I learnt that one of their chief­tains had died. He was placed apart in a grave which was cov­ered over for ten days until cloth­ing for him had been cut out and stitched. If the dead man were poor, a small boat was made, in which the corpse was placed and then burnt. But if he were wealthy, his prop­erty and goods were divided into three por­tions: one for his fam­ily, another to meet the cost of his cloth­ing, the third to make nabid (funeral beer) which was drunk on the day when the dead man’s slave was burnt with him…

When one of their chiefs died, his fam­ily demanded of his men and women slaves: ‘Which among you wish to die with him?’ Then, one of them would say, ‘I will’, and who­ever said that would be forced to undergo it, it was not pos­si­ble to with­draw. If she wished to do so, it would not be allowed. Those who vol­un­teered were nearly always female slaves.

So it was that when this man died, the slaves were asked: ‘Which among you wishes to die with him?’ One of the female slaves replied: ‘I will’. From that moment she would be under con­stant guard by two other ser­vants who took care of her to the extent of wash­ing her feet with their own hands. Prepa­ra­tions were made for the dead man, his cloth­ing made etc., while every day the con­demned girl would drink and sing, as though in prepa­ra­tion for a joy­ous event. When the day arrived for the chief and his slave to be burnt, I went to the river where his boat was moored. It had been hoisted up on to the bank. Then there were placed around it some­thing which looked like a great scaf­fold­ing of wood…

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Peo­ple began to walk around it speak­ing in a tongue unknown to me, but the corpse was lying all the time in his grave; they never dis­turbed it again. They then brought a bier, placed it on the boat, and cov­ered it over with car­pets and cush­ions of dibag (bro­caded silk) from Byzan­tium. Then there arrived an old woman whom they called the ‘Angel of Death’, and she it was who spread the cush­ions on the bier. She, too, was in charge of the whole cer­e­mony, from the dress­ing of the cadaver to the exe­cu­tion of the slave.

I noticed that the Angel of Death was a strap­ping woman, mas­sively built and aus­tere of coun­te­nance. When they arrived at the grave the earth was removed from the wooden lid and then the wood itself was taken away. Next the corpse was stripped of the gar­ments in which he had died. I noticed that his body had turned black from the intense cold.

When they had placed the body in the grave, they had also put there beer, fruit and a lute, all things which they now took away. Most sur­pris­ingly, the corpse has not changed at all save for the colour of his flesh. They took a pride in their duty of cloth­ing him in draw­ers, trousers, boots, a tunic and cloak of dibag embell­ished with gold but­tons: the corpse was then given a cap of dibag and sable; then he was car­ried to a tent set over the boat Nabid, fruits and aro­matic herbs were then brought and placed all around his body; they also brought bread, meat and onions which they threw down before him.

That done, they took a dog and, after cut­ting it in two, they threw the pieces into the ship. After­wards they brought all his weapons and laid them by his side. Then they took two horses, drove them until they sweated, and then cut them in pieces with swords and threw their flesh into the boat; the same was done with two cows. Next they killed a cock and a hen and threw them in too.

Mean­while, the slave who had vol­un­teered to be killed went hither and thither, enter­ing each tent in turn, and the mas­ter of each house­hold had sex­ual inter­course with her, say­ing, ‘Tell your mas­ter that I do this thing for the love of him.’ [My bold-facing.]

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When Fri­day after­noon came, they led the slave girl to some­thing they had made which resem­bled a door frame. Then she mounted onto the palms of men’s hands high enough to look down over the frame­work, and when they low­ered her again she said some­thing in a strange tongue. They lifted her up again and she behaved exactly as before. They low­ered her again, then once more raised her up and she repeated what she had done the first and sec­ond times. Then they gave her a hen; she cut off its head and threw it away; they took the hen and threw it into the boat.

I asked my inter­preter what she had said. He replied: ‘The first time she was lifted up, she said: “look, I see my father and mother!” The sec­ond time: “Behold, I see my dead rel­a­tives seated around.” The third time, she had said: “Behold! I see my mas­ter in Par­adise, and Par­adise is green and fair, and with him are men and young boys. He is call­ing me. Let me go to him!”

Then they led her towards the ship. Next she took off two bracelets she was wear­ing and gave them to the old woman, the Angel of Death, who was going to kill her. She then took off the two finger-rings she was wear­ing and gave them to the daugh­ters of the Angel of Death.

Then they raised her on to the ship, but they did not let her enter the tent. After that many men came with wooden shields and she was given a beaker of nabid. She sand as she drank it. My inter­preter told me then: ‘It is thus that she bids farewell to her friends.’ Then she was given a sec­ond cup. She took it and sang for a long time: but the old woman told her to make haste, to drink up and go into the tent where she would find her mas­ter. I looked at her at that moment and she seemed com­pletely bewil­dered. She wanted to enter the tent but only man­aged to put her head between it and the ship. The old woman took hold of her head and made her enter the tent, fol­low­ing her in.

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Then it was that the men began to beat their shields with wooden sticks, to sti­fle the cries of the slave girl, so that other girls would not take fright and refuse to die with their mas­ters. Six men then entered the tent and all had sex­ual inter­course with her. Then they made her lie at the side of her dead mas­ter. Two held her hands and two her feet, and the Angel of Death wound a noose round her neck end­ing in a knot at both ends which she placed in the hands of two men, for them to pull. She then advanced with a broad-bladed dag­ger which she plunged repeat­edly between the ribs of the girl while the men stran­gled her until she was dead.

Then the clos­est rel­a­tive of the dead man came. He seized a piece of wood and started a fire. In this fash­ion was set alight the wood which had been piled under the ship after the dead slave girl had been placed beside her mas­ter. Finally, peo­ple came with kin­dling and fire­wood; each man car­ried a fire­brand which he threw upon the wood-pile, so that the wood was engulfed in flames, then the ship, the tent and the man, the slave and every­thing in it.

The Mam­moth Book of Eye-Witness His­tory, edited by Jon E. Lewis

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Tags: death, Eye Witness History, Jon E. Lewis, religion, ritual, sacrifice, The Mammoth Book of Eye-Witness History, travel