DK Eyewitness Books - Viking

VIKING SOAP OPERA
This romantic painting shows the funeral pyre of Sigurd the dragon-
killer (pp. 51, 58) and Brynhild (p. 30). In the legend, Sigurd was in
love with Brynhild. But he married another woman instead and tried
to trick Brynhild into marrying his brother-in-law, Gunnar. Brynhild
was so angry that she had Sigurd killed. Overcome with grief, she
stabbed herself and joined Sigurd on his funeral pyre.

All five posts had

long wooden planks

attached to t heir bases

wit h wooden dowels

The First Baroque

animal-head post

The Academician’s

animal-head post

Surface decorated wit h

hundreds of nails wit h

heads shaped like flowers

Metallic

fangs and eyes

Open jaw wit h

large bared teet h

Two elegant,

intertwining

animals

Second animal

swallowing t he first

Swirling circles carved

Flaring nostrils in very high relief

Large glaring eyes

Head of

first

animal

THE ENGLISH WAY

In their homes in Scandinavia, the Vikings raised

huge memorial stones to remember dead friends or

relatives (pp. 58–59). These stood in public places,

often far from the dead person’s grave. But in their

colonies in England, the Vikings adopted the native

custom of gravestones. This fragment of a stone

from Newgate (near York) is decorated with

two animals, one devouring the other.

Traces of red paint show that it was

once brightly colored.

PLANTS

AND ANIMALS

These twisting figures

decorate an 11th-century

English gravestone. Two

animals with S-shaped

bodies form a figure-eight

pattern. Plant leaves and

shoots sprout from their

snaky bodies.

SHIPS IN STONE

Only the very rich could afford a real

ship to carry them to the next world.

Other Vikings had their graves marked

with raised stones in the shape of a

ship. These ship settings are common

all over Scandinavia. This is one of a

whole fleet of ships in the big

graveyard at Lindholm Høje in

Jutland, Denmark.

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