In addition, there are possible traces of the fortified camps which the Viking armies
constructed when they overwintered, most notably at Repton, near Derby, in 873 – 4.
Here a massive D-shaped encampment was built, using the River Trent as its long side,
and incorporating the tower of the Mercian royal shrine of St Wigstan as a gatehouse.
Adjacent to the shrine, a number of accompanied burials have been excavated. The most
dramatic was the grave of a warrior who had been killed by a slashing cut to his inner
thigh, but may also have had a sharp object thrust through the socket of an eye. He was
buried with a knife, a key and a sword which had been deliberately broken and replaced
in its fleece-lined scabbard. He wore a silver Þórr’s hammer amulet at his neck, and a
jackdaw leg bone and a boar’s tusk had been placed between his legs, possibly symbols
of Oðinn and Freyr respectively. Outside the encampment the Viking army had also
desecrated a second mausoleum, levelling a two-roomed structure, and burying an
important warrior in the centre of one of the rooms, arranged the reinterred remains of at
least 250 individuals around him. A group of four young males, buried adjacent to this
mound, may have been sacrificial victims. It has been argued that the charnel deposit,
comprising 80 per cent males, may have consisted of warriors of the Viking army,
although it has also been suggested that they may have been the Anglo-Saxon monks,
either killed in the attack on Repton, or disturbed from their graves when the fortification
was constructed (Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle 1992 , 2001 ; Halsall 2000 ; Richards 2004 b).
On a hill overlooking Repton, 4 km to the south-east, there are the remains of the
only Scandinavian cremation cemetery in the British Isles, at Heath Wood (Richards
2004 b). Some fifty-nine burial mounds have been identified, in four clusters. Some
mounds, where the dead had been cremated in situ, covered cremation hearths of
charcoal, ash and cremated bone. These included human bone, sometimes representing
more than one individual, as well as a wide range of offerings, including joints of
mutton and beef, as well as the complete bodies of horses and dogs. Although the
hearths had been raked over and larger pieces of iron removed, there is evidence that
the bodies had been laid out with weaponry, including swords and shields, as well as
more everyday objects. Other mounds had been thought to be empty, but complete
excavation of one has led to the discovery of a small token offering of a few fragments
of burnt bone and a ringed pin. Heath Wood may have functioned as a war cemetery of
some of the Viking Great Army; perhaps the token offerings represent warriors who died
in battle and were cremated elsewhere, with just small parcels of bone and personal
items which had been brought back to Heath Wood. Use of the cemetery at Heath
Wood appears to have been short-lived, whereas the cemetery at Repton continued in
use into the tenth century. The finds at Repton and Heath Wood are remarkable and
reflect the range of Scandinavian-style burial practices developed by the Viking force in
the frontier zone of the valley of the River Trent.
In general, the relative scarcity of burials of identifiable Scandinavian character
suggests that elsewhere the settlers soon gave up the practice of burial with traditional
costume and grave offerings (Graham-Campbell 2001 ; Hadley 2002 ; Halsall 2000 ;
Richards 2004 a: 189 – 212 ). The exceptions are mostly clustered in north-west England
and Cumbria, where burial practices are similar to those observed on the Isle of Man
(see Wilson, ch. 27. 3 , below). In these areas most settlers lived in scattered farmsteads
and were buried on their farms. A number of individual mound burials, frequently
containing weaponry, have been excavated – generally in the nineteenth century – at
sites such as Aspatria, Hesket in the Forest and Claughton Hall (Edwards 1998 ). The
–– chapter 27: Viking settlement in England––