What Did The Vikings Do With Their Dead?

The world of Viking death rituals and their beliefs surrounding the afterlife is truly fascinating... What happened when a Viking died? What ceremonies and practices did they partake in? And what awaited the spirits of the dead when they departed the world of the living? Today we welcome our returning guest and go-to expert on all things Viking Eleanor Baraclough! Eleanor is a historian and author of books including Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age. This episode was edited by Hannah Feodorov. The producer was Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click to place your vote on the Spotify mobile app: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 1:36Speaker 01

  For the Vikings, death was a ritual. A funeral was an elaborate ceremony, blazing hot cremations to help the smoke carry their souls to the afterlife. Some were entombed in enormous ships, buried underground, along with lavish treasure, slaughtered animals, and even human sacrifices to accompany the deceased on their journey to Valhalla. Today, we are exploring the fascinating world of Viking death rituals and their beliefs surrounding the afterlife. What happened when a Viking died? What ceremonies and practices did they partake in? And what awaited the spirits of the dead when they departed the world of the living? In this episode, we'll be uncovering what the Vikings believed about death,

• 2:20Speaker 01

  memory, and their journey into the beyond. Welcome to After Dark.

• 2:31Speaker 00

  Hello, everyone, and welcome to After Dark. I'm Maddie.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  And I'm Antony.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  Now, this is the last recording of today. We're a little bit tired. It's really hot outside. There's like the fifth heatwave of the year happening. We've got some cokes.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Not sponsored, though.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  Visible drinks. Other visible drinks are available.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Other visible drinks are available.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  We're really tired.

• 2:52Speaker 00

  We're going to be delving into the world of the Vikings. We have an amazing guest. But first of all, let's ASMR these little cans, shall we, guys?

• 3:03Speaker 00

  Oh, mine's gone everywhere.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Oh, shit, is it actually?

• 3:06Speaker 00

  Ruining the new studio.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  I did it.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  That is refreshing.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Just so you know, Dr Eleanor Pericloss here. We're doing things very formally today. She's got a hidden packet of crisps somewhere. We have Coke Zeros. She's been in the sun all day at a sports day. It's an absolute disaster all round, but she also wrote a very good book called Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  It's good crack.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  And it is very, and with lovely covers. But various lovely covers, by the way.

• 3:35Speaker 00

  Isn't your book, Eleanor, the one that has a hidden penis in it?

• 3:38Speaker 03

  It does have a hidden erect penis. Oh, no, don't, because that's what you're going to clear.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  We are. There's no point in saying that. Crisps all down your front.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  In my pyjamas. Hidden erect penis. It does, but it's Freyr, who's like the fertility god, probably. And he's just in a corner.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  Because you and I have the same editor and the same publisher. And I think we've both...

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Same of the...

• 4:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think we've both had strange conversations with our editor about inappropriate things on covers. I've had to cover up a dog's bottom before. And you've had to cover up an erect wee, or you didn't cover it up.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  I didn't cover it, but she did say, this fabulous, very long-suffering editor of ours, she did say she woke up 3am quite a lot thinking, I can't put an erect penis, or indeed, a dog's bottom on the front cover, and yet...

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Turns out.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  And yet, there we go.

• 4:28Speaker 03

  Turns out, yeah.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  We're going to be talking about Viking funeral rites today.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Not penises.

• 4:35Speaker 00

  Not penises or erect, otherwise.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Could we do an episode on Viking penises at another point?

• 4:38Speaker 03

  You might have to, I'm trying to think, how many penises could we get in there?

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Sure, listen. It depends on day of the week.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  That is the end of this episode. Goodbye.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  We could expect Roman penis. There's a lot we could say. Shall we move on? I seriously, yeah.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  Roman penises would be great.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Now, one of the things that I like about...

• 4:59Speaker 00

  Absolutely, keeping us on track.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Yes, someone has to be professional. It's very rarely me, so I might as well do it.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  One of the things that I took from the last time that we spoke, Eleanor, was that Viking as a concept of a group of people, as an identifying marker for a group of people, is a little bit anachronistic.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  And so they wouldn't have known themselves as Vikings.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  No, although some people actually called their children Viking, or Vikinger. So they would have definitely, but that doesn't mean they were necessarily Vikings in the sense of raiders or pirates or anything like that.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  As a name, they called, as in a first name?

• 5:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, like, I try to think of them.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  So the Vikings called Viking?

• 5:39Speaker 01

  And is there a Viking, was a Viking a raid in itself?

• 5:43Speaker 03

  Yes, we'll say that. So it's, we will go, we're going on a Viking, which is sort of like a summer raid.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  Can one do Viking? Like, one could do Viking?

• 5:52Speaker 03

  You can be a Viking, or you can sort of, there's an anachronist, anachronist, and that's a hard word.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  It is, I know. I have to practise.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  There's an old word. You could say, you could say, he went on, he went a Vikinging. There's a lot of, that's hard. Yeah. Anyway, you can go on a Viking, you can be a Viking.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  But you can't Viking.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  You can't.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  But you can be called Viking.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Don't identify as a Viking.

• 6:16Speaker 03

  You might, you might say he was a great Viking, but that means like he was a great raider. And there's always, which we also may have talked about last time, there's a point where you're a bit too old to be doing it. It's like, mate, not cool anymore.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  Oh, so too old to be a Viking, or to go Viking.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was like he was still out there Vikinging when everyone else had sort of, was enjoying their cocoa and getting their slippers on. A little bit cringe, yeah.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  We've established nothing. The language is complicated.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  Let's, let's talk about the time period of the Vikings then. And if that is any clearer, I mean, I think one of the dates that everyone, certainly in Britain, will have in their mind is AD 793. The raid on Lindisfarne, very famous, supposedly the first big moment the Vikings arrived on the British shores. That's, I guess, debatable, but where, around that date do the Vikings fit in? Or are they at the height of their powers at that moment?

• 7:11Speaker 03

  I think it's quite a useful date. I think it's important not to throw that one out because it's the first definite date we've got for a big Viking attack on the shore. Now, having said that, there's, it's from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a few years earlier, but it's maybe sort of 787 or something like that, 789. There is three ships of the Danes turn up on the south coast, on the island of Portland, and they kill a Reeve who comes down, basically is like, what are you doing here, lads? So there's definitely a bit of that, but that one, we know they killed one person, but it's not that idea of that classic Viking raid idea. So 793 is still quite useful.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  It's also useful because of sort of how people react to that. So you have Alquien writing from the court of Charlemagne, he's like, oh, never before has such a terror appeared on the shores. Behold the church of Lindisfarne, splattered with the blood of the saints and everything.

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  All right, calm down.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  There's a lot. It's drama.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Living biblical, right?

• 8:12Speaker 03

  And that's it. It's very much that sense of evil comes from the north. Very much within that biblical context.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  Can I just say, I feel so sorry for that Reeve before the raid on Lindisfarne happens and that's put out there, like, was he just walking up to them going, hello, welcome, what's happening? Run, run!

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Lovely furs, guys.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  I love those big swords you have. Oh, dear.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm done.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. So it's, and the thing is, it's around that time that we're seeing those raids around the coastline of British Isles and Ireland. And then what you see there is this sort of, it's kind of, it's increasing activity, but it's not like they come out of nowhere. It's even, even, I think it's, I want to say it's Alquien writing these letters. You have to understand, there may be a lot of inaccuracies. I feel I should cover my arse here. I've been very hot and out in the sun all morning.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  We did warn you all, it was chaos.

• 9:05Speaker 03

  Haven't had any lunch, got a packet of crisps here, yeah, so.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  She's demanded exclusively pink food to go with the outfit.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  Only pink food, Percy pigs.

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  She has literally bought a bag of Percy pigs.

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  All the product placement we're doing.

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  You're welcome, Emma.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  Please enjoy this scholarly debate. Right, so, I think it's Alquien. Anyway, there's a point where he says, look, you've all, you monks all up there, everyone up there in Northumberland, you've been sort of like dressing a bit like these sexy Scandinavians and you've been, you know, he's basically, it's very much the sense from the letters that he's writing back to the victim communities, that there has been contact before. And there's this sort of cultural awareness of these people from over the North Sea. So it's not out of nowhere. It's not that sense of boom, who are they? But it's big and it's nasty and it's dramatic. And that gives us that rough date. And so that, coming back to that word Viking, is then why the Viking Age, it's the age in which this stuff starts happening.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  It's the age when shit goes down, basically.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  So it's not necessarily, the Viking Age is not necessarily the description of when the people of Scandinavia sort of come into existence because they've been around for a long time. But this idea of raiding and these encounters with other communities around Europe.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  That's the start of it, exactly. And then that also then, the question is, well, when does it come to an end? Because it's not like they just wake up one morning and go, that's the Viking Age.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  Do you know what? Raiding, overrated. Can't be arsed. I'm going to stay home in my pyjamas. That would be me. So one, one thing the Vikings do do, other than raiding and murdering monks, is they bring their practices and their beliefs with them. And there is a kind of overwriting and an integration as well within these encounters. But they do bring these, a lot of beliefs from Scandinavia. Just thinking specifically for this episode, Eleanor, we're talking about burial rites, funeral rites, and the Viking relationship to death. Do we have any primary sources, any written accounts of what Viking or Norse burials looked like, what their funerals were like? What are we going off here other than the archaeological record?

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Okay, so leaving the archaeological record aside, what we, so there's a couple of things. One is, we've, we've talked about their relationship with sort of British Isles, Ireland, that sort of, but the fact is that period of cultural contact and assimilation, that comes later. That's when they start to settle instead. And it's not just the British Isles and Ireland, it's also much further afield. And so we have to, you know, all the way down to sort of that they're out in Byzantium, they're out near the Black Sea, they're out obviously across the North Atlantic, you know, all, all these different areas. And that means that when we're thinking about burial practices and texts for burial practices, often we have to think within that context. It's not just one sort of cultural node, there's all sorts of influences that can be coming in.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  So that's the first thing. The second thing is, when we are thinking about sources that come from the Norse, you know, that kind of Nordic world itself, they don't start to write things down until quite a lot later. Like the Icelandic sagas written in the 13th century, really good example of that. So we have texts that describe burials, but we've got that distance. Doesn't mean they're not useful, but they're complicated. For burials that are sort of really in the, in the heart of the Viking Age itself, the most famous text comes from Ibn of Adlan, who is from Baghdad, he's a diplomat.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  And he's, oh my God, my brain, I know this date so well, sort of like the first, like very, very early 10th century. He is on this mission, going up the river Volga as part of a diplomatic group that's sent to, I think it's like to convert the king of the Volga Bulgars. I just really enjoy saying the Volga Bulgars.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  And he's been shopping around, from what I remember. So he, there's, so, so, so there's, there's different religions he's, he's thinking he might be interested in. And basically they're there to sort of put their case forward. What's interesting is that on their way north, he comes across this group, it's, they're, they're, he calls them the Rusia, so the Rus, basically. And they're on the banks of the river Itil, which comes off the Volga. And this, the Rus, and this is where it gets complicated. Probably more than it should, because like I say, I'm not entirely in sound mind, but let's give it a go. So the Rus are of Scandinavian or Nordic extraction.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  And they are traders who are sort of going up and down the, the, the waterways of sort of the Eurasian steppes, that region. But of course, there are lots of other different cultural groups, that, that the Norse are sort of masters of cultural assimilation. And so we are dealing with people who do seem to have Nordic sort of roots. But that doesn't mean that the description of what Ibn of Adlan tells us is, oh, this is a Viking funeral tradition.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  So that's, that's the most, so it's, it's more complicated. And of course, he is there with a translator, without any cultural context, without any understanding of what's going on inherently, because he comes from a very different cultural tradition, which makes it complicated, but also makes it absolutely fascinating to read about. Because we're seeing there an outsider looking at this incredible funeral description, which is unlike anything else we've got for the period, for this sort of cultural area.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  And what does this funeral look like?

• 14:41Speaker 03

  Okay, so, so again, this, this would be so much easier if I, if I'd had, had lunch. It's like looking at them longingly.

• 14:51Speaker 00

  Do eat the crisps while you talk to us.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Can you imagine the complaints you'd get if I'm, so Ibn of Adlan.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  What did she say? What?

• 15:01Speaker 03

  And that was the end of After Dark. Right, so Ibn of Adlan, he, he talks, for a start, he's got this description of the Rus. And they are traders, they're, from his point of view, very rough and ready. But we've got to think he's coming from an Islamic tradition. So some of the things that he is horrified by, I always quite enjoy, so he describes their bathing habits and he's like, they are the filthiest of God's creatures, they wander around like asses.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  See, that's so fascinating, because of course, famously, the Anglo-Saxon account of the Vikings is like, all the Anglo-Saxon ladies fancy the Viking men because they're clean and they pluck their hair and they put things in it and they're so hot.

• 15:40Speaker 03

  Exactly. So I always, I would love, I just love imagining the fanfic I'd write where Ibn of Adlan visits England and the Anglo-Saxon, and he's like, oh good.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  He would take it my stuff. Anglo-Saxon women flocking towards him. Oh my God, this man has washed more than once a week.

• 15:58Speaker 03

  And he's just sitting there gagging every time.

• 15:59Speaker 00

  He would do so well. Yeah, well, he would hate it, but he would do so well.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Oh, he would hate it so much. So what he describes, I mean, it is pretty icky. So again, not, not a time to be eating crisps, to warn you. So when he describes, so he says for a start, they're very, they're sexy specimens, the men, they're very tall, they're ruddy like palm trees, they're tall like palm trees, they're ruddy, they're, they've got these sort of like green, I want to say tattoos, but we don't know, he doesn't use that word. But like, they're covered in these sort of like patterns all over their bodies. The women have a lot of bling, which, which sort of depend on how rich their trader husbands are, all this sort of stuff. But then he describes them washing. And he's like, oh, they basically, you can just like hear him gagging. He's like, they've just got one bowl and it's full of water. And they just pass it around and they're like spitting into the bowl.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  And then they're like, like cleaning their teeth, they're spitting back in, they're doing their nose. And he's just like, this is.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  Now I want to gag.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Fair enough.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, not, not a time to be eating crisps, right? So, so, and then there's other things. And this is where, so it's not a nice description, and this is definitely sort of trigger warning territory, you might say, because there's a lot of sexual violence and this human sacrifice, right?

• 17:07Speaker 01

  That he's describing.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  He's describing, so exactly. So what he says is, so before we get on to the actual funeral, because this is significant. He says, for example, the traders, there's a lot, lot of young enslaved girls, right? And he says they, they just have sex with them out in the open. And so it's like, it's, it's not a nice society. And there's this line where he says, sort of, if someone comes to buy one of the girls, but their owner is busy having sex with them, he just has to stand by and wait until this. So it's like, it's not great, but it gets worse, right? So, so he said, I was really interested to know what, how they bury their deads, or how they, what, what, what if, what a funeral looks like for these people. And for a start, socially, obviously it's different. So he says, if, if it's an enslaved person, they're just left out for the dogs.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  If it's a person who isn't very rich, they might be put in a little boat or something like that. So he goes through the different ones. But he says, and this is the famous one, he's there for one of the very sort of powerful traders, one of the very rich traders, he's just died. And so their, his funeral is happening. And so he describes how the trader's boat is pulled ashore and it's sort of set up with all these wooden planks on it. And then they put, they, the, the trader has sort of been, he's taken out, he's been buried while they get everything ready. And he's sort of turned blue-black, like kind of corpse coloured, because he's been in the ground for a long time.

• 18:35Speaker 03

  And he's set up in his ship on this sort of sumptuous golden sort of bed. And they, they sacrifice lots of animals to join him. And unfortunately, this is, this is as good as it gets. So there's sort of, I think there's a dog, there's a couple of oxen, they, I'm trying to remember, they, they, they make two horses run around until they're sweating and then they kill them. Put them on the, yeah, it gets worse. Yeah, it's like there, there's chickens, all sorts, together with the food and drink that he'll need for the next world. So it's bread, it's alcohol, it's fruit, it's that sort of stuff. So that's all there. But unfortunately, meanwhile, they have said, and this is really tricky, because the way he writes it,

• 19:19Speaker 03

  it very much is someone volunteers, but this sense of. Yeah, exactly. How, how voluntary is this? So he says, the, the, the, the, the assemble people, you know, and, you know, the people he owns, essentially, they're asked, who wants to join their master in paradise? And he says, usually it's one of the, as he calls them slave girls, who volunteer. And once they volunteered, they can't turn back. And they spend the next few days having a lovely time, lots of whining and dining. And it's wonderful until it comes to the funeral. And again, it's, it's not nice stuff. So she is then, I can't remember quite the order it happens, but she's taken around to the tents of the other leading men.

• 20:01Speaker 03

  And they each have sex with her. And they say something like to her, they say, tell your master, I did this for the love of him, or something like that. Then she has all sorts, it's, it's a, it's so, the, the detail is, is extraordinary, but it's really hard to know what to do with it. So they then lift her above a door frame. And the first time they lift her, she says, I can see my parents, my dead parents in paradise. The second time she says, I can see all my other dead relatives, they're waiting. And then the third time she says, I can see my master, he's waiting for me too. Then she's given a lot of alcohol and there's this, and she's taken up onto the boat that he's, that he's, he's up on.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  And there's this really horrible character and he describes her as the angel of death. And she's there, she's this sort of.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  And how does he describe her? It's sort of like she's, she's, she's neither old nor young. She's quite stocky. She's quite, she's got quite a nasty expression on her and like Angel of Death is not, you know, yeah, it's, and she's got her two daughters with who are her, their, um, her assistants. And so she then, she starts the process of

• 21:18Speaker 03

  uh, like, like the, the slave girl joining her master essentially. And so there is a tent that has been set up on the ship and she is taken into the tent and again, six men then come into the tents and they all have sex with her. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's, it's horri, it's such a horrible description. And then it gets worse. They, they start to all sort of bang their shields so that the other slaves or the other girls can't hear the screams of what's going to happen. Um, in case they then don't want to join their dead masters later on. It's like, yeah, no shit. There's also a really horrible bit, which is incredibly personal where she's obviously had been, been given stuff to drink.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  And Ibn of Adlan says, I could see that she couldn't work out how to get into the tent. You know, she was sort of like, she's, she's obviously drunk. It's, you know, and so the Angel of Death sort of has grabbed her to take her into the tent. And then they put a rope around her neck and the men, oh, and then she, then she gives her bracelets to the Angel of Death. She gives her anklets to the Angel of Death's daughters. The men, uh, I think this is where they ran, pull on the, the rope to kill her while the Angel of Death stabs her. It's, it's, it's horrible and it's incredibly, um, it, there, there's a reason this is such a well-known descrip, there's nothing like it. There's absolutely nothing like it.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  You can't forget it once you've heard it.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  No. And I remember having to sort of give lectures with this. I'm like, I'm really sure this is not going to be a fun lecture. This is horrible. So then what happens is they, they, so she's there with the master with all these, like, all the food, all the dead animals. You just imagine, uh, what that would have been like, literally viscerally, you know, and then they, the, the, the, I'm trying to remember the order, the, the closest relative of the dead man, who is naked, by the way, obviously, because, yeah, he then,

• 23:16Speaker 03

  so it's not penises, but it's like not far off. So he then has this flaming torch and he's going to set fire to the, the structure surrounding this ship. Um, but he has to do it with his neck, his to the, so it's almost like he doesn't want the spirits or something. I don't know what it is to enter his.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  Oh, so he has to look away.

• 23:34Speaker 03

  So he's looking away. So he's goes back to the ship. He's going around lighting it while covering his anus with one hand.

• 23:39Speaker 00

  In case the spirit goes in that way?

• 23:42Speaker 03

  Your guess is, yeah, I mean, why not that? Yeah. And, and then everyone else comes in and they're, they're all lighting. And then there's this bit where the translator, Ibn of Adlan's translator is talking to one of the Rus and Ibn of Adlan says, what were you saying?

• 23:54Speaker 00

  This poor translator, I mean, having to explain what's happening.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  I know. Just, just stick with me. And Ibn of Adlan, you just imagine the, yeah. So he says, what, what did he just say to you? He said, oh, well, you, you, um, you know, not Baghdadi's, I can't remember, but you, you're, you're fools because you bury your dead in the ground where the worms can get at them. But we light ours on fire. We, so their souls can rise straight to paradise. And that's the end of the, uh, it's, it's, it's a lot to digest. It's a lot to process.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Well, let's just leave that there for a second. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk through this process in a little bit more detail. Terry Cottle died by suicide, but his heart lived on, transplanted into Sonny Graham. Years later, Sonny died the exact same way, same heart, same fate. But that wasn't the strangest connection between them. Sonny also married Terry's widow. Hosted by Karen Kilgariff, this is Heart, an Apple original podcast produced by Plan B and Blanchard House. New episodes are available Mondays and Apple TV subscribers get special early access to the entire season. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Blood donation is now more inclusive. More LGBTQ plus individuals are able to donate blood with the American Red Cross due to FDA guidelines that eliminate eligibility questions based on sexual orientation. The Red Cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood. There's a place for everyone in the mission of the Red Cross, including you. The Red Cross is committed to achieving a blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply. Join us and help save lives. To learn more and make your appointment to donate blood, visit redcrossblood.org/lgbtq. That's redcrossblood.org/lgbtq.

• 25:56Speaker 04

  Hi there. I'm Dan, host of Dan Snow's History Podcast. And I can imagine on these dark winter nights, all you're going to do is curl up with a cup of tea and get lost in an amazing story. Well, I can help you with that. Twice a week, I tell you the most dramatic and extraordinary stories from history with details I can guarantee you've never heard before. Feel the frostbite of that grisly failed American invasion of Canada in the dead of winter. Imagine every clash and blow at the Battle of Bosworth. Follow Eleanor of Accretaine, one of the most powerful women in the medieval world, as she goes on crusade to the Holy Land with 300 handmaidens in tow.

• 26:35Speaker 05

  She leads her own army. Everyone goes gaga for Eleanor.

• 26:38Speaker 04

  And trace the voyage of the first Vikings as they arrive on Iceland's lonely shores. For the best historical stories to get lost in, check out Dan Snow's History.

• 26:55Speaker 00

  Okay, Eleanor. Oh, that's a lot. Um, one of the things that is striking me about that, I mean, it's a lot, but is the sort of the perceived power of the body. Right? And obviously what you described, there is a lot of sexual violence.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:12Speaker 00

  Um, and, you know, that is very much how we would read it from a modern perspective. And indeed, how presumably some of the people watching would have understood it at the time as well.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, presume, yeah.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  But there's, is there something else going on in terms of sex there? And, and thinking about the naked man covering his anus as well, not a sentence I thought I'd be saying today. Um, the, the process is that the, the human body is subjected to, and obviously we have a dead body in the midst of this.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  Is there something about sort of liveliness and, and living and sort of vitality?

• 27:42Speaker 03

  Yes. So I think possible, I don't want to go back to the bit where like everyone's like going into the tent. But yeah, I, I think it's that sense, you know, almost like she becomes this conduit, this living conduit into the afterlife, you know, so where, you know, she's, she's been lifted up over the door frame and she can see them. And then, yeah, yeah, it's sort of like this, like, there's no nice way of putting it, sort of all this seminal fluids and some, yeah, it's, it, yeah. I mean, it's, it's really, but what's interesting, well, what many things that are interesting about it is this becomes the standard, almost like this is what a Viking funeral looks like, right? And specifically a burning ship. But there's only one other textual reference to anything remotely like

• 28:27Speaker 03

  this.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  Oh, why?

• 28:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, which is entirely mythological. And it's when Balder, who's Odin's son, is killed and he's there. And then, um, this is again 13th century texts describing the mythology. So sort of from much later on when they're Christianized, but, um, he's put on the, in the boat, the boat is pushed out into the water. His wife then dies of grief and so is put on there with, but there's not a sense of a sacrifice. And then they set the, the boat on fire. So it's like purely mythological. There's nothing like that. If we think about, say, the archaeology or other textual evidence, it's not that ships, absolutely, burials, yes, cremations, yes. But that particular.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Sequence.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, the sort of the Venn diagram in a way almost doesn't match up. I'm not then suggesting that what Ibn of Adlan saw isn't what he reported, but then we just have to think, yeah, okay, so this is out on the vulgar. This isn't, how, how representative, another hard word, how representative is this funeral of what we might think of as sort of Norse funeral culture? Um, given that we don't really know an awful lot about these people or the context in which they are sort of living their lives, relatively speaking.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Okay. One of the things that I'm thinking here is when we talk about the Aztec, for instance, we interrogate that source material that's coming from white Europeans by going, you know, in terms of the display of savagery that those texts will often contain and go, well, actually, there was an agenda here from the white Europeans, blah, blah, blah. And given what you've just said there, and I really like that nuance of going, well, yes, but we're we're in a particular space in time, so we don't know what's going on there, it could be that, but I presume we've all, we're also considering the fact that there is a, an agenda in this source material.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's always an, there's always an agenda, but it's, I, there's, there's no, it's tricky because again, archaeologically, if we're looking at that violence, for example, it's not constantly there in the archaeological record, but there's absolutely cases where there seem to be probably for the most part enslaved people who have been killed, sacrificed to join their masters in the next world. And that absolutely is a thing. And there's one from the Isle of Man, very famously, it's, it's, there's some really horrible ones. There's, there's one where it's like two men seem to have been sacrificed. It's not just a female thing, but definitely there is enough of that to tell us that he's not, this isn't some like mad fever dream. No, no, no. I think, I think he's on to some.

• 31:08Speaker 03

  And again, there, there are elements, like I say, of what Ibn al-Fadlan describes that are absolutely there. So ship burials, have to be very careful how you say that, burials, right, are very much a thing, particularly high status ones. The Auserberg ship burial is a really good example of that. Um, that's from, I think it's eight, three, four, it's from Norway.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  The two women.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  It's the two women. This is the wonderful thing.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  I am obsessed with this. I think you told us about this on a previous episode, very, very briefly. And I have, this has been in my mind since our last conversation.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  So good. This is my favorite. This is, because again, if you think of a Viking ship burial, you think of a male warrior, basically, because again, it sort of plays into that image, it plays into what Ibn al-Fadlan, it even plays into that mythological idea of it's balder who's on there. But absolutely the most famous, the most exciting and mysterious of these burials, very high status, and it's two women, and it's two older women as well. So one of them, she might be in her seventies or eighties. She seems to have had a lot of physical, sort of, uh, you know, hea- health problems, shall we say. Um, the other one, and this is really interesting, it's a woman who's possibly in her fifties.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  She may have DNA that connects her back to somewhere around, I think maybe the Black Sea or something. So maybe, it's not that she would have come from there, but maybe her ancestors did. There's not an awful lot of her body that remains. She seems to have had, um, a broken collarbone a few weeks before death. But again, that starts to have healed. There's no sense of that's what's, I can really hear my tummy going here. But so there's this, there's this question, again, okay, has she been, has she been killed to join the older woman? Or is that not, we just can't tell.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  We don't know.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  Not enough of her body survives. There are definitely, as I say, there are archaeological cases where it's a very nasty blow to the head that's killed, you know, perimortem, but that's not what you've got here.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  And they're side by side, right?

• 33:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, as, as far as, I mean, it, it, yeah, but yeah, exactly. And they're both, and what's really interesting is then the grave goods that surround them, which are sort of bling beyond bling. It's, there's, there's wagons, there's sledges, they're all intricately carved, there's cat heads, there's human heads, sort of like carvings of, not actual ones. Um, there's this Buddha bucket that's got, that has this image. It looks like a Buddha. Uh, he, he's sort of on the edge of the bucket and it may well have come from.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 33:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, really, because there were definitely these connections. You see other places where you see, you know, these, these trade connections. Um, my favorite, there's two things that, that I love about this. Well, there's so many things I love about this burial. Not least, it's just like two women and there may be a magical connection there because of some of the, so were they magical practitioners? There's a lot going on. Um, one thing I love is that there's a bucket of red crab apples. So that tells us, so remember from Ibn al-Fadlan's description, there are, um, there's food that's put there. That's very common. That's, that's, that's not a strange thing. But here it's red crab apples, which tells us that the burial is probably sort of late summer, early autumn.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  Oh, that we can literally.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So it's like, oh, so you're already seeing this sense of that the, the, the kind of the world building out from the ship itself and the women in it.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  Moments where you can pinpoint something through archaeology and history. It reminds me of, we had Dr. Jess Vener on talking about Pompeii and she talks about some of the, I think it's the seeds that had fallen from trees or plants that dates the eruption at Pompeii to slightly later in the year than people thought. And that blows my mind.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  Love that. I love, I'm totally sort of, I'm looking at the moment at a, a, a Roman army latrine from near Glasgow. And the stuff, again, it's like, as you do, as you do, that's, you know, how I, how I while away in my life, you know, like, but again, it's, it's like, oh, right, they were going out there. There's raspberries in there. There's, you know, you can tell exactly the time of year. There's, I mean, poo is very, archaeological poo is the most amazing thing, but also when you see it. But with the Auserberg ship burial, the really lovely thing about that is there are other details which we can then very tentatively connect to other sorts of beliefs about sort of funerals, about the afterlife, what happens to the body.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  And one of these is, so there are horses that have been sacrificed there as well. Again, animal sacrifice, absolutely a thing. But these horses have got, um, sort of, I don't know what you'd say, sort of like ice crampons attached. So that they, they, they're to stop them slipping.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 35:45Speaker 03

  But of course it's late summer, early autumn. So they've not been, they've, they've, they've not got these spikes because they needed them to get to where the funeral was happening. And so then.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Where they're going next.

• 35:57Speaker 03

  It's where they're going next, potentially.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  So interesting. Let's take a little break and in a minute, we're going to come back and we're going to talk a little bit more about these beliefs in the afterlife.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Blood donation is now more inclusive. More LGBTQ plus individuals are able to donate blood with the American Red Cross due to FDA guidelines that eliminate eligibility questions based on sexual orientation. The Red Cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood. There's a place for everyone in the mission of the Red Cross, including you. The Red Cross is committed to achieving a blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply. Join us and help save lives. To learn more and make your appointment to donate blood, visit redcrossblood.org/lgbtq. That's redcrossblood.org/lgbtq.

• 36:51Speaker 06

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• 37:09Speaker 04

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• 37:24Speaker 00

  So Eleanor, ice skating horses, we have. Um, do we, do we know, I mean, I think I can predict the answer to this. Is there a kind of unifying belief that the Norse peoples have about the afterlife? Or is it, you know, there's sort of magpies in their beliefs, there're magpies in their material culture and a lot of their sort of aesthetic um, languages. Is that the case when it comes to the afterlife as well? Are they borrowing from the other people that are encountering around the world?

• 37:55Speaker 03

  So definitely that, it's really tricky because it's more a question of what's our source material for it. And if we are looking at, as I say, sort of textual sources from within the Norse world, they, well, there are runes, but runes are only, and there are things we can talk about with runes and picture stones, which maybe give us clues. Um, but in terms of sort of full written descriptions of things, a sort of credo idea of this is what we believe, we're not, we don't get anything like that. And it's only when people start to write down the mythological stories and poems in the 13th century that you're seeing, yes, okay, the sort of more formalized narratives where you're like, all right, yeah,

• 38:38Speaker 03

  these are, these are the characters and this is what they did and this is what people believe. But of course, they're written down hundreds of years later. They're written down in Iceland, which again is very specific. It's not, you can't say that speaks for the whole of the Norse world. And, you know, it's always that problem with belief. There's, I mean, I was brought up Catholic, but I don't think there was any point where I could have said, yes, personally, I believe that, you know, wine turns into blood. However, if you looked at my biography from a historical perspective, you might well think, you know, I said, there's a difference between religion and ritual and belief and, you know, it's, it's.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  And we always talk on this podcast, you're obsessed with this idea of like not believing as well, aren't you, that, that.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  I think we take it too literal.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  In, in all faith aspects or belief aspects where we're like, well, that's what the credo says. And so therefore that's what one must believe.

• 39:32Speaker 03

  Exactly that. And so that's really tricky because you're, it's really hard to to sort of work your way into what that looks like. Um, having said that. You can also say, okay, no, but this is a cultural sphere. They do have shared ideas about, for example, gods and ideas of, yeah, cosmography and what happens, you know, after death. It's not like it's just a random free for all. So there are ideas that we can sort of connect through. And one of those, we talked about the ice skating horses, but these are these sort of like ice crampons that the horses are wearing.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  What the hell's a crampon?

• 40:10Speaker 03

  It's like a spiky thing.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  Like if you're walking in the snow, like if you're going to the North Pole and it's like spiky things that you put on the front of your feet.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  The horses are wearing them.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  The horses are wearing them, but this wouldn't make sense because, and again, we have to sort of connect up different sorts of source material. And there's a saga, Gisla saga, about this outlaw. And there's a point where someone has died and they're preparing him for the funeral. And one of them says something like, right, I'm, I'm putting on these hell shoes. And we can talk hell with one L. And if I don't, if, if these come off, then I don't know how to bind hell shoes. And so it's this idea, but remember this is being, it's got an oral, the, the, the story doesn't sort of originate in the 13th century. It's got longer an oral tradition behind it, but the text comes from later. So it's like, all right, what do you mean by that?

• 40:58Speaker 03

  There's one, that, that then you have another textual, so this is Snorri Stödluson, again, writing a lot of the mythology and the poetry in the 13th century in Iceland. And he talks, he says, the road to hell is downwards and northwards. And it's this idea of it's cold and slippery. And when hell itself is described, which makes sense because etymologically, hell isn't sort of like demons and pitchforks and fire. It's this idea of a covering over, something that's sort of the underneath, the, almost the underworld, but something that is concealed. It's this very, very ancient word that goes way, way back.

• 41:36Speaker 00

  And why wouldn't it be cold down there?

• 41:37Speaker 03

  Well, exactly. And if it's north, and so maybe the idea here is that hell shoes are put on horses or sort of humans to stop them slipping when they're on the path to hell. And again, we know there is a path to hell and like there's, there's Brynhildur, you know, like of sort of later Wagner fame, Brynhildur's like hell ride. And she's like riding down the path to hell. And in one of the poems, there's very much that sense that it's a place that you get to. Having said that, then archaeologically, it's quite frustrating. I remember trying to find good evidence of burials with these spiky crampon shoes. It's like, okay, if this is a thing, you'd expect to find it. Hopefully someone will now write in and say, oh, I think you'll find this like 27. I'm like, please, yes.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  I'd find one, one example.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  If you have excavated, write it.

• 42:26Speaker 03

  Please, I, I've, I've been looking for these. I've spent way too much time looking for it. But there's, I think there's one, maybe in a double burial in Sweden where you could say like, okay, yeah, that might be. But given sort of the, the, the fact that this idea seems to be sort of circulating, we don't have that much archaeological evidence. And so once again, it's where does this Venn diagram, it's a bit like the ship burials. We know there are ship burials, but we don't really have anything about them being on fire. And yet we do have cremations. And it's like, so where, where does it all match up? Probably it doesn't. You know, there's, there's always going to be this sense of we can only tell so much because our source material is just so random. Anything that survives, like thank God for that. But there's so much that doesn't.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  At the same time, you do see these sorts of ideas that are circling, that do seem to have some connections. We just can't always see what those connections are.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Now, can I ask a question before I ask my real question? Are you a historian or archaeologist?

• 43:25Speaker 03

  Definitely not archaeologist. I'm married an archaeologist. I could get all the like juicy, I'm like, can you just explain this?

• 43:30Speaker 00

  You can enjoy the best bits.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  I just think archaeologists are so cool. Not that I don't think you're cool.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  I wanted to be an archaeologist and I, it's the biggest regret of my life.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Well, no, if it helps, if you have an intact back, I have a spouse without an intact back because of all the digs in Ireland in the bogs. Basically, that was how he spent his misspent youth and has been.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  In a bog.

• 43:48Speaker 03

  In, in, in the bogs.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Also, I don't like, I don't like being outside. So I don't know why I'm saying that. But like, the dream, the dream is nice, but the reality is not a dream.

• 43:56Speaker 03

  But this is, no, because the nice thing is you can then enjoy all the nice shiny stuff that the archaeologists find without having to.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  And do a little bit of typey, typey, ready, ready about it.

• 44:04Speaker 03

  There you go, in the warm, in the dry.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Now, I'll tell you what this is about.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  With a good, with a good back, without your damaged back.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Now, okay, so one of the places you're talking about there is hell with one L.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  And I'm going to say upfront, before we get into talking about some of these halls more generally, is that I would want to go to hell in this, in this iteration of afterlife. Yes.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  Right, go on. Tell me, yeah.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  But the, the afterlife that probably most people know about in terms of Vikings is Valhalla.

• 44:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  But it's not the only one.

• 44:33Speaker 03

  No, it is not the only one.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Talk us through every single one of them. No, I'm joking. Talk us through some of them. It's Valhalla to begin with, let's begin with Valhalla.

• 44:40Speaker 03

  A goodly number of them, right. Valhalla is the one that everyone knows. It's like the hall of the slain Valhurt, right? Which is, again, we are talking about predominantly, but don't forget to talk about the Gotland picture stones because they're very cool.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  How could I ever?

• 44:53Speaker 03

  I'm just saying.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  I'm more willing, Jesus.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  I, I would never have picked that up. For years I looked at them, I didn't see any phallic shape. And then now I've, don't put that in.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  No, I'm gonna put it in.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  So, right, right.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  You talk away, I'm gonna Google them while you talk.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  Gotland picture stones. Have a look at the shape, you tell me.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Gotland picture stones.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  Gotland picture stones.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Go on.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  So, right, from our 13th century predominantly.

• 45:15Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 45:16Speaker 03

  Sources where everything is sort of put into a nice framework, a nice narrative framework. Valhalla, yes, exactly, is one of the halls where if warriors die in battle, they get to go, they feast with Odin every night, they then have big fights, they kill each other, they wake up the next morning, they do the same. Basically, they are in training for Ragnarok, the end of the world. And so they're there and at the final battle, they are going to, they're going to help defend sort of the gods, you know, as they fight against the forces of evil. Lovely little detail, which again, this is Snorri Stödluson, this 13th century Icelandic writer, poet, politician, all sorts, who actually had a very exciting, very sort of

• 46:00Speaker 03

  dramatic death himself, himself, which I can tell. But there's a point where he says, he's talking about Ragnarok and the end of the world and sort of, you know, this preparation for it. And he says, and this is why you must cut, you must trim the nails of the dead before you give them a funeral, because there is a ship which is going to come out of hell at the end of times, when Ragnarok comes captained possibly by Loki, that sort of trickster god, not quite god. The ship is called Naglfar and it's made from the nails of the dead.

• 46:30Speaker 00

  No, thank you, no.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  No, no, that's too much, that's too.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Made from the nails of people on the tube cutting their nails.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  I saw a woman doing this recently.

• 46:40Speaker 03

  On the tube.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Oh my God, have you never seen this?

• 46:42Speaker 03

  No.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  It's disgusting.

• 46:44Speaker 00

  Maybe is it just the same woman who goes up and down?

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's like clipity, clip, clip, clip.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  Oh my God, yes. Anyway, so the point is, she's actually doing us a favour because her nails are not good. Because basically the longer your nails are, the faster Ragnarok's going to come about because the faster the ship's going to go.

• 46:59Speaker 00

  Okay, so she's actually some kind of like mythic Norse woman who's travelling the tube in London, staving off Ragnarok.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 47:07Speaker 00

  Thank you for your service.

• 47:08Speaker 03

  There you go, exactly. So next time, go up to her and thank her rather than gagging and then moving to the next carriage. Yeah, exactly. So, so there's very much, so Snorri, just to, so his death, because he was also this international politician. Iceland, this horrible civil war is going on in the 13th century. Basically, so Snorri partly responsible for this. The Norwegian king is trying to essentially work with all the political kind of crap and that's going on in Iceland to get control of Iceland. But Snorri ends up on the wrong side of the king. And so he sends assassins to kill Snorri. Snorri gets down to his own basement. The assassins arrive and Snorri's last words famously are something like ekki høgvar, so don't strike. The response to that is høgvar, like strike.

• 47:53Speaker 03

  And thus Snorri ends his days. So which I think, so, so this is the other thing, it's not just about funerals, it's about the matter, the, the manner of Viking deaths, that is quite a big thing itself.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  And that has an impact on where you're going.

• 48:06Speaker 03

  Exactly. So Snorri, technically, he was a Christian, you know, we're, we're very much Christianised Iceland, but he technically is killed in, if not battle, but certainly sort of violently. And so Valhalla, that's where you go if that happens. However, justice for Freya because half the dead also go to her, right? Half, yeah, so Fólkvangur is her hall. And that's just as important as Valhurt, except it gets forgotten about.

• 48:34Speaker 00

  So what are the criteria for entering Freya's hall?

• 48:37Speaker 03

  Not clear. It just basically says she chooses half the dead and then the other half of the slain.

• 48:42Speaker 00

  I'm not gonna lie on it, it's not as cool as dying in battle and getting to fight every evening.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  But you could be a battler, I think.

• 48:47Speaker 03

  It's, it's from, it's, it's like she, the slain, that those killed in battle, she chooses half.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  Wait, what?

• 48:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. Freya is so much cooler, she's not like, oh, the goddess of love, no, she's balanced.

• 48:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay, but so if you, if we were to have a battle now.

• 49:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:01Speaker 00

  And you killed me, would I get to, I'm not debating in my head who would win.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Do a pay-per-view on that if we want to.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  That's, that's for subscribers only.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  It's not my gig, but I'll, I'll compare.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  I don't think I'd win, I'm an awful coward.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  I think neither of you would win if that's possible.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  I think they'd be, okay, fine, no violence in the studio. But okay, if you die, if one dies in battle, do you get to choose?

• 49:28Speaker 03

  Freya gets to choose.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  Oh, Freya's choosing.

• 49:30Speaker 03

  This is the, the textual reference says she chooses half the dead. It's just one textual reference.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  Is she picking the better half?

• 49:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know.

• 49:37Speaker 00

  Is she cherry picking the people she wants to spend time with or actually interesting?

• 49:40Speaker 03

  See, basically, my feeling is that's where the cool kids go.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right. And not being a cool kid, I would still like to hang out there with the cool kids.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  You're a cool kid. You can just smash a Viking king.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  That's why I asked you if you're an archaeologist, because it's like, you're cool, you're, you're a bit of an archaeologist.

• 49:53Speaker 03

  I, I would debate cool, I mean, look, let's not, we're all sitting here in the studio.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:59Speaker 03

  That ship sells on it.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Talking about crisps.

• 50:02Speaker 03

  Talking about crisps. But yeah, but that's it. But then of course not everyone dies in battle.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 50:07Speaker 03

  So hell is where most of the, if you die in your beds. Why?

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Because, okay, this is, okay. This is basic knowledge, you can fill me in, right?

• 50:14Speaker 03

  Go on.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  From what I understand of why I want to go to hell, cold, damp,

• 50:18Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  dark.

• 50:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  And like-

• 50:20Speaker 03

  You don't have to die in battle.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  And it's kind of a comfy death.

• 50:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can die in your bed, you die of old age, sickness.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  I want it to be cold, I want it to be damp, I want it to be dark.

• 50:28Speaker 03

  I mean-

• 50:28Speaker 00

  Tell me this though, Eleanor.

• 50:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:31Speaker 00

  Does the type of death you have then dictate the type of funeral you have?

• 50:38Speaker 03

  That's a good question. I, I don't know is one answer, but no, I think it's more about status. And so you, for example, you are more likely to die in battle, right? So Ossenberg ship burial, we talked about, there's also the Gokstad ship burial, which was always, so they were little siblings hanging out in the Viking ship museum in Oslo, which is now being sort of reworked and funkified, but-

• 51:01Speaker 00

  That's a technical term, very technical term, archaeological technical term, yep.

• 51:04Speaker 03

  The, the guy buried in that very much sort of warrior in his prime, killed violently, what you'd expect from a ship burial, essentially. And so, yeah, he's gonna get that burial because he's a, most likely he's a big sort of war leader, right? But then the two women, and it was sort of like, call me cynical, but I suspect that the 80-year-old woman probably did not die in battle, you know? And she also gets this sumptuous, if not more sumptuous Viking ship burial, yeah.

• 51:35Speaker 00

  So, would a ship burial then, you know, you're talking about putting grave goods in-

• 51:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:42Speaker 00

  With the body, so we've got food for the afterlife, we've got horses with the ice skating equipment on.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 51:48Speaker 00

  Is that trying to persuade Freya of where they're going to go? Or is there a sense that that's already predetermined? And if they're wealthy enough, they can take some stuff with them wherever they are going?

• 51:58Speaker 03

  I think it's more about, let's equip you for the afterlife. What that afterlife looks like.

• 52:03Speaker 00

  But you're not picking it.

• 52:05Speaker 03

  No, I, and also, I mean, I think, I think sort of, I, it's tricky, isn't it? Because again, our source material doesn't necessarily reflect the time in which the burial happens, or not, not in the way that we think it might. So, for example, that's why the Gokstad picture stones are so useful.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Oh, quite penis-y.

• 52:24Speaker 03

  They are quite penis-y.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  I have Googled, yes.

• 52:25Speaker 03

  I just, it never occurred to me. I was busy looking at the pictures. I'm just, I'm just too innocent, clearly, it's-

• 52:32Speaker 00

  You're too busy looking at Roman toilets in Glasgow to be, to be thinking about this.

• 52:37Speaker 03

  Right, so, um, ba ba ba, right, yes, Gokstad picture stones, the interesting, Gokstad, the Gottland picture stones from this island off the coast of Sweden. The interesting thing about them is that they are pictorial depictions of possibly the sort of funeral thing and the afterlife thing that we see reflected in the archaeology, and we see reflected in later textual sources, but they are telling a narrative. And so there's some where, and again, it's, the problem is interpretation, but it looks like there is a woman with a drinking horn handing it to what might be a warrior who might have died and who might be coming to Valhalla, you know? It's, but the thing is that to interpret those, we're also then using the textual sources.

• 53:21Speaker 03

  So it's, are we putting the right interpretation on them? But certainly, a lot of elements on some of those picture stones back up what's the textual sources and what may be some of the archaeological sources. It's the same way you, you, you often see sort of burials with weapons. It's the same thing, it's like, yeah, it's, it's about your status, it's about who you are seen to be in life, but also possibly about who you are thought to sort of be in the afterlife and therefore what you might need. Hence also why you end up with, um, sort of, you know, tools of people's trade. You end up with, there's a wonderful one from Orkney, the Skaar burial. It's a boat burial, it has a man who's about, and this is, I want to say sort of late 10th century?

• 54:07Speaker 03

  Possibly, I think so.

• 54:09Speaker 00

  We'll believe you.

• 54:11Speaker 03

  That's always a problem.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  But it's got three bodies in, and it's got an older woman, it's got a child, maybe 10 or 11, who sex is sort of indeterminate, and then it's got a man who's about 30. And it looks, so you can sort of see, and they've put goods in with them. And the very famous one is the Skaar pluck. It's, I think it's whalebone, and it's this sort of flat piece of white bone that's got these incredible sort of dragon heads coming out the top. It's got cut marks on it, and it seems to be associated with the woman. And the suggestion is, okay, maybe it's a textile, it's something for textiles, it's like smoothing out the fabric, cutting the fabric, maybe it's for food, cut marks again, not sure.

• 54:58Speaker 03

  But again, the items that they're then buried with might reflect something about what they did in life and sort of the, the person that they are. There's one more thing I want to tell you about.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Go on.

• 55:08Speaker 00

  Please do.

• 55:08Speaker 03

  Zombies.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Why?

• 55:10Speaker 03

  Because I was thinking this on the way in, I was thinking, we can't not talk about them, you can cut them out. But have you heard the Druiger, right?

• 55:17Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 55:17Speaker 03

  The undead, this is a big thing in Norse mythology, I mean, it's a big thing in the sagas, this idea that if you're not very nice in life, or you get attacked by something else that's a bit spooky and supernatural and undead, you might turn into a Druiger. It's like the restless undead who comes back to haunt and sometimes sort of maim or kill the living. And they're, they're absolutely terrifying, they sort of-

• 55:41Speaker 00

  Like a revenant.

• 55:42Speaker 03

  Like a revenant.

• 55:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:43Speaker 03

  Except the way you, this, why does it always come back to anuses?

• 55:47Speaker 01

  Ah, here, what?

• 55:48Speaker 03

  Right, here we go.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  How on earth is this, yes, go on.

• 55:51Speaker 03

  Right, so if anyone has watched, now what's Robert Eggers' film?

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Yes, we have both, we're big fans.

• 55:57Speaker 03

  Norse, the Norse myth.

• 55:58Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 55:59Speaker 03

  Do you remember this scene?

• 56:00Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 56:01Speaker 03

  I swear to God, I came in here today thinking, don't talk about genitals, don't talk about just like-

• 56:05Speaker 01

  You failed in that regard.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  You, you see it, it comes up on your social media and you're like, oh no, I talked about it. Right, but, you know, there's the scene where he's down in the burial mound?

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:16Speaker 03

  Fighting the undead.

• 56:17Speaker 00

  Incredible scene, one of my favourite cinema scenes.

• 56:19Speaker 03

  So good, right, so I remember watching that with said archaeologist's spouse and saying, right, if he cuts off that dead Druiger's, the dead king's head, and sticks its nose up its bottom, I will know that Robert Eggers has been reading his source material. Next thing that happens, chops off the head, sticks it straight out the bottom, I'm like-

• 56:37Speaker 00

  Robert Eggers is nothing if not historically attentive.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  I think we should want to be in Old English.

• 56:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  The next-

• 56:42Speaker 03

  Really?

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, whole movie.

• 56:43Speaker 00

  They've got experts on it, it's a whole, it's a whole, this is the best news.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Werewolf, yeah.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, it's all gonna be in Old English.

• 56:50Speaker 00

  We've done a lot of product placement in this.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  This is, right, so Werewolf, when is it out?

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Uh, no, it's not.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  Not, not out yet, right.

• 56:56Speaker 00

  Christmas Day, this year, I think.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Oh, Christmas Day.

• 56:58Speaker 00

  Merry Christmas to us all.

• 57:00Speaker 03

  What was it, Rey, the werewolf, I need to kill your monster. Which I love, but also hate. But anyway, anyway, the point is, because in the saga sources, this is one way that you kill a revenant. And honestly, I'm now gonna feel really smug because I'm bringing it back to Ibn al-Fadlan.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  Well done.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  And you remember, thank you very much, and you remember the flaming torch, the closest relative covering up his anus? Right, there's something about that, that act of sort of penetration or being able, there's something really powerful, comes back to what you were saying about sort of bodily controlled autonomy.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Stuffering yourself.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  Right, exact, but also a little bit embarrassing. And it's this sense that if you basically have been killed by having your undead head chopped off and then shoved up its, your own bottom, I mean, honestly, are you gonna feel too embarrassed to come back and haunt after that? I would just be like, cannot show my face when I'm here again.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Oh, that's so funny.

• 57:51Speaker 00

  Well, you literally won't be able to show your face because it's in your bottom.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  Maybe that's, maybe it was just practical, it's like, you're not gonna be walking around with, anyway, no. But, so this idea of sort of what the afterlife looks like, sometimes, and this is not just the Norse thing, and there's like really cool Anglo-Saxon stuff about this, like deviant burials, but this idea of the dead being unquiet, there's one saga where they have to have a court case to get rid of all these zombies, there's another one where they're out in the wilds of Greenland and, um, they, they, they, they're all sort of like coming back from the dead, it's like this plague, but they just keep on popping up again and they have to get rid. So it's like, there's a lot of that sort of stuff too. And so, again, coming back to belief, what was the belief? What was the sort of practice, what, how much of it was a good story?

• 58:40Speaker 03

  What's going on here? That's always the problem when we're looking at this stuff. It's, if we go back in time, to what extent some of the things from any period where we might think, oh yeah, that's definitely what they thought, go back to that period and they're like, you, you think we thought that?

• 58:55Speaker 01

  I think that's happening a lot, if we were to time travel, I really do, that's my instinct on it, where they're like-

• 58:59Speaker 03

  I kind of hope so, because it's cool.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Now, look, we are done with the willies and the bums, and thank you very much for all the Viking- mind you, Vikings willies and bums are probably not the worst willies and bums you could talk about.

• 59:09Speaker 03

  It depends, if you're asking Ibn al-Fadlan, or you're asking the Anglo-Saxon.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  True.

• 59:12Speaker 03

  Why do you do this? Why?

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Well, you came here today, you, I didn't bring information.

• 59:17Speaker 03

  You brought this to our door.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:18Speaker 03

  I think I have mild heat stroke from being out in the sun for so many hours.

• 59:21Speaker 00

  She's gonna get home later and calm down and be like, wait.

• 59:24Speaker 03

  Yes!

• 59:24Speaker 00

  What?

• 59:25Speaker 03

  We're even home, on the tube, on the tube.

• 59:27Speaker 00

  Just don't cut your nails on there, okay?

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, good, well done, mixing it all together.

• 59:31Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Um, thank you very much for listening, watching and consuming After Dark. Could you be in better company? No is the answer. Go and get yourself a Diet Coke, Coke Zero is my preferred, but we didn't have any in the office. And Diet Coke, if you want to sponsor this podcast, then you can absolutely do so. Get in touch at [email protected], that's [email protected]. Leave a review wherever you get your podcasts, five stars will help out the people.

• 59:52Speaker 03

  Come on, come on, come on, come on.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Thank you, love you, bye.

• 1:00:40Speaker 02

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