Scotland in Pagan Times; The Iron Age

by Joseph Anderson

Fig. 49.—Iron Key, from a Grave-mound in Westray (5¾ inches in length).

Fig. 50.—1. Sheath-mounting from a grave in Westray, Orkney. 2. Plan of its ornament.

But a still more remarkable set of graves was found at Pierowall by Mr. Farrer and Mr. George Petrie. Unfortunately there is the same absence of any precise and detailed record of the phenomena. The first, which contained the bones of a man and a horse, had been found at the sands of Gill by Mr. George Petrie in 1841, and the relics from it were deposited in the Kirkwall Museum. When that museum was broken up and its contents sold, they were purchased by Colonel Balfour of Trenaby, and sent to the National Museum. They consist of the bronze cheek-ring of a bridle with part of the iron bit, and fragments of wood with iron rivets which were supposed to be the remains of a shield. The second grave was explored by Mr. Farrer in 1855. There is no record of the phenomena of the burial, but the objects found were sent to the museum. They are an iron knife, a small sickle of iron, an iron key of peculiar form (Fig. [49]), and a bronze mounting of a sheath or scabbard-end plated with silver, and ornamented with an engraved pattern suggesting

Fig. 50.—1. Sheath-mounting from a grave in Westray, Orkney. 2. Plan of its ornament. a grotesque face (Fig. [50]). With these were found large quantities of decayed wood pierced with iron rivets which were also supposed to be the remains of a wooden shield. The third grave-mound was explored by Mr. Farrer and Mr. Petrie in 1863. No record of the phenomena exists, but the articles found were two iron buckles apparently of saddle girths, and a quantity of pieces of decayed wood varying in thickness from 1 to 2 inches, pierced by iron rivets, and also suggested to be portions of a wooden shield.

In these three instances the principal feature of the interment is the presence of quantities of wooden planks, sometimes as much as two inches thick, pierced by iron rivets. When these are closely examined it is seen that the wood is of oak, that the rivets are peculiar in character, having round heads on one side and square heads on the other, and that they frequently pass through the wood obliquely. These are the characteristics of the clinker-nails which fastened the planking of the Viking ships. They were square-headed on one side and round-headed on the other. The fact that these rivets pass through the wood obliquely is more suggestive of a boat than of a shield. The thickness of wood between the rivet-heads is more than twice that of any shield of the time whose thickness is known. No shield-boss or handle was found with any of these interments, and no shield of oaken planks fastened with such rivets is known. In point of fact, no shield could be used whose thickness was two inches of solid oak, and the quantity of wood and iron found with the interments seems much in excess of what would be required for shields. I therefore conclude that, in these three instances, the form of burial was that in which the Viking was laid in his ship—drawn up on the strand, and set on even keel to receive him and his grave-goods—and a mound raised over all.

The testimony of the earlier sagas is unanimous that the common mode of sepulture in the heathen Viking time was by raising a mound over the remains of the dead, who were placed in their grave-mounds honourably, with abundance of goods, weapons, ornaments, and costly garments, horses and sometimes even thralls or slaves. Thus we are told that a great[that a great] store of goods was placed in the grave-mound with Hravnkel Freysgode, and all his war-suits and his good spear. So also we learn that Skalagrim was laid in his grave-mound with his horse, his weapons, and his smithy-tools, and Egil was buried with his weapons and his clothing. Thorgrim, priest of Frey at Sæbol was buried in his ship, over which they raised the mound after the ancient fashion. But the most striking of all the saga notices of heathen burial is that of the sepulture of King Harald Hildetand, who was slain on Braavalla Heath by his nephew Sigurd Ring, in the middle of the eighth century. After the battle the victor caused search to be made for the body of his uncle, which he placed in his chariot in the midst of the grave-mound; then his horse was slain and laid beside the dead; and Sigurd caused his own saddle to be placed beside the horse, so that Harald might have his choice and ride or drive to Valhalla as he had a mind. Then Sigurd made a great funeral feast, and the nobles threw massive rings and splendid arms into the grave-mound in honour of the dead king.

Thus we gather from the early literature of the Scandinavians a very vivid impression of the character and accompaniments of their heathen burial. Yet this literary evidence is characteristically defective on special points that are of paramount interest to the archæologist. Hence, when it is attempted to be used scientifically, the result is what might be expected of a scientific operation conducted with unscientific materials. For instance, Dr. Dasent, gathering the literary evidence into one generalisation, concludes that the burial took place in a how or cairn, and that the body was laid in the how with goods and arms, sometimes in a sitting posture, sometimes even in a ship, but always in a chamber, formed of baulks of timber or blocks of stone, over which earth and gravel were piled. Since it is the main object of our science to attain to great and wide generalisations from completed evidence, it is manifest that such a generalisation as this, which gives us what always was the special character of the sepulchral structure for a given period, would be one of the most precious and costly fruits of scientific research. Founded on purely archæological evidence, it could only be the result of the completed investigation of all the grave-mounds of the period. As here given, it is arrived at by a much shorter process, viz. the comparison and critical interpretation of a few texts, for it is not expressly stated in any text, but is an inference from incidental expressions in several of them.[^[38]] And the interest with which we must regard the inference lies in the fact that this special form of sepulchral mound, which is deduced from the literary evidence as having been always the form in use throughout the Viking period, is a form which is almost archæologically unknown in that period.

It is to be observed also that the saga evidence is defective as to the customs connected with cremation.[^[39]] The only literary evidence we possess in regard to them is to be found in the strange narrative by Ahmed Ibn-Fozlan, an eye-witness of the ceremonies attending the incremation of the dead body of a Northern chief.[^[40]] The scene is on the banks of the Volga, and the date is towards the close of the Viking time. The narrator tells us that there was a temporary interment till all the preparations were made; that a female slave who had elected to die with her master was given in charge to an old hag, who as mistress of the ceremonies was significantly styled “the angel of the dead;” that the dead man’s ship was hauled up on the strand and prepared to be his funeral pile; that, when all was ready, the corpse was taken out of its temporary grave, arrayed in fur-mounted and gold-embroidered garments, and laid in state on the deck, where a banquet was spread for him; that his weapons were placed ready to his hand, and two horses, two oxen, his dog, and two fowls were hewn in pieces with swords and cast into the ship; that the woman who was to die, after taking leave of her friends, was first drugged with strong drink and then brutally slaughtered with a big knife by the “angel of the dead,” while two men pulled the ends of a cord wound round her neck and the crowd beat upon their shields to drown her shrieks; that she was then laid beside her dead lord and the pile fired by his nearest relative, and after it had burnt out a great mound was raised over the ashes.