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 ...
Actors had to be able to play multiple races and roles back then..
Taras Bulba , King of Siam , come to mind and some of the actors therein
an episode of Vikings depicted something along these lines.
“Thrall” girl? Is that were the descriptive “enthralled” comes from?
“Thrall” is an archaic word meaning slave, from an Anglo-Saxon word that came from Old Norse. “Enthrall” is derived from “thrall.”
Debbie does a funeral.
No Norwegians among the four. Three Jews and an Italian... Didn’t realize how pretty Janet Leigh was in her 20s
Eaters of the Dead, truly frightening book.
Gee. Do you you think this guy might have been - a CHIEFTAIN?
I was innocently reading along, and all of a sudden you made me drop a chicken leg on my keyboard-you are mean...
Well the lady who volunteers for the funeral pyre duty sounds like one of the Manson family chicks!
Loved that movie as a kid. Kirk Douglas, Janet Leigh, Tony Curtis, and Ernest Borgnine. How cool is that!!!!!!
Ernest Borgnine at his grooviest.
Crichton borrowed heavily from Ibn Fahdlan.
This is news? I read this over 40 years ago!
The movie was called the 13th warrior, the name of the book was different which escapes me at the moment...
THE EATERS OF THE DEAD.
Hey, let’s not forget THE LONG SHIPS.
She was a knockout blonde.
The shower scene made her a brilliant one!!
I come from the area where the Kensington Runestone was found in Minniesoda .. The Vikings were here before Columbus. Yaa..
Lindsay Lohan has the skills for this part.
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