90 Miles From Tyranny : The 10th century chronicle of the violent, orgiastic funeral of a Viking chieftain

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

The 10th century chronicle of the violent, orgiastic funeral of a Viking chieftain

For the 10th century holy man and jurist Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, the violent, orgiastic, drunken spectacle put on by mourning Vikings in Bulgaria must have been shocking.

In Ibn Fadlan’s Muslim tradition, loved ones cleaned the deceased person’s body, said prayers over him, placed him in a shroud and buried him in a relatively shallow grave the same day he died – the grave was shallow so the dead person could hear the call to prayer.

In the Viking tradition, if it was a chief who died, he was placed in the ground while his burial clothes were prepared for 10 days, during which his followers drank and had sex with doomed slave girls “purely out of love.” On the day of cremation, the Viking’s body was exhumed, then his companions burned him, along with volunteer slave girls or boys who were slain, slaughtered dogs, horses, cows and chickens, food offerings, his weapons and his ship.

For many years people have been fascinated by Vikings. Their reputation as rapacious, violent, deadly marauders up and down the coasts of Europe and farther east are famous. But in recent years people have..
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1 comment:

  1. Hmmm... Yes. Most do not realize the religion of Vikings was a blood cult, meaning blood sacrifices... captives, sometimes their own. War itself was a... religious experience. Most have no idea what a blood eagle was. Oh the stories I... have heard. Blood, lust, sex, drink, death, and Valhalla. The modern world does not even have a hint of an idea of how things were. Some still do. Nor do many realize Vikings weren't alone in that, just another band of bloodthirsty bands that litter, and destroyed, the ancient world.

    Funny thing is, the closer men get to modernist civility, the thinner the line between now and then gets. As they attempt to murder God, whether through war or greed or lusts of various sorts, the closer we get to those times. Abortion, alone, is a key indicator of how the blood cults worked. Sacrificing babies for economic or other gains was typical. Same same.

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