The Oseberg ship, a well-preserved Viking ship discovered in a large burial mound at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold county, (Photo: norskevaapen.no)
Posted on 09/27/2014 2:26:32 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
...A 10th century Arab Muslim writer named Ahmad ibn Fadlan produced a description of a funeral of a Scandinavian, Swedish, chieftain who was on an expedition on the eastern route. The account is a unique source on the ceremonies surrounding the Viking funeral, of a chieftain.
The dead chieftain was put in a temporary grave which was covered for ten days until they had sewn new clothes for him. One of his thrall women volunteered to join him in the afterlife and she was guarded day and night, being given a great amount of intoxicating drinks while she sang happily...
Meanwhile, the thrall girl went from one tent to the other and had sexual intercourse with the men. Every man told her “tell your master that I did this because of my love to him”. While in the afternoon, they moved the thrall girl to something that looked like a door frame, where she was lifted on the palms of the men three times. Every time, the girl told of what she saw. The first time, she saw her father and mother, the second time, she saw all her relatives, and the third time she saw her master in the afterworld. There, it was green and beautiful and together with him, she saw men and young boys. She saw that her master beckoned for her. By using intoxicating drinks, they thought to put the thrall girl in an ecstatic trance that made her psychic and through the symbolic action with the door frame, she would then see into the realm of the dead. The same ritual also appears in the Icelandic short story Völsa þáttr where two pagan Norwegian men lift the lady of the household over a door frame to help her look into the otherworld...
(Excerpt) Read more at thornews.com ...
The Oseberg ship, a well-preserved Viking ship discovered in a large burial mound at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold county, (Photo: norskevaapen.no)
“Lo, there do I see my father...”
Sounds a lot like the Michael Crichton novel and film, The Thirteenth Warrior. Antonio Banderas played the visiting Arab prince who joined up with a bunch of Viking warriors. A good story. Those Vikings were badasses.
The girls were rather, uh, promiscuous in that tale too.
The role of the thrall girl would make for a very twisted movie.
Good book and movie...
The movie was called the 13th warrior, the name of the book was different which escapes me at the moment...
I’d be surprised if it hasn’t been made. :’)
I think it was Eric the Red’s daughter, during a two ship expedition to hell and gone, wanted the women aboard the other ship killed, and when her father wouldn’t do it, she went over during the night and did it herself.
Eaters of the Dead.
I think they changed it because audiences would expect a much different movie with that title.
That’s because elements of the Crichton novel and the film were based on ibn Fadlan’s chronicle of his travels.
“Eaters of the Dead” by the late, brilliant author Michael Crichton.
Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton
Well worth reading.
Crichton took a bunch of it from the account of Ibn Fadlan, so no surprise concerning similarities.
Thank you....yes... he was brillant...
Thanks..
Yea....a movie about Vikings and an arab prince with that name might be a issue with all the teenage slasher movie buffs...
Eaters of The Dead was Crichton’s rewriting of Beowulf
to put the subject into a state known as psychic..
they better make the new joisey medium on TLC take a breath test. 8 -o
it could explain a lot.. or not. )
A real thraller. 8-}
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