Pyre

Thus, the “Great Viking Invasion” began. They were able to conquer almost all of the kingdoms in northern England until they came to Wessex where the Vikings were defeated by King Alfred the Great. While defeated, King Alfred was unable to force the Vikings out of the country. Despite a peace treaty, the warring went on for many years. As legendary as the Vikings were, nothing is more recognizable as a Viking funeral. Norse funerals were important displays of their pagan beliefs. Funeral pyres were used to cremate the bodies of their fallen friends, the smoke from the pyres bringing the spirits of their fellow warriors to where they belonged in the afterlife. Some Vikings chose to send those who fell in battle to Valhalla by placing their body on a boat, lighting it on fire creating a funeral pyre on the water so they could sail the sea one final time. Not all Vikings were pillagers and plunderers. Many would be surprised to know that some Vikings were farmers, craft makers, potters, traders of wares and blacksmiths who rarely picked up a sword themselves. They wanted to settle on a land of their own and make a life for their…

Suttee, sati or self-immolation of widows, was one of the most prominent forms of altruistic suicide ancient in India; it required the widow to follow her husband on death by either ascending his funeral pyre and burning along with his corpse, or burning herself after the cremation of her husband (Vijayakumar, 2004). The term sati carries with it several associations and controversies. A woman who immolates herself can be regarded as a victim or a victor, depending on the approach. Still, I…

Hindu’s believed that the human body and universe consist of five elements, air, water, fire earth, and space. I did not know that there is an exception in cremating the death, babies and children are not cremated, they are buried instead. White cloth is used to wrap the dead if they are widowed or male and red and two toes tied together with a string and a Tillich red mark placed on the forehead if it is a woman whose husband is still alive. The cremation is done near a river or water by family…

death of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre. A funeral pyre is the spot they burn the husband after he has died. The wife has to throw herself onto the fire. If the husband is not burned but is buried she…

range or other objects buried with the individual. During their rein, Anglo-Saxons performed a great range of elaborate burial practices that portrayed their ways of life, stemming from Cremation and inhumation. Before the Christian missionaries influence began to spread through Europe and particularly to the Anglo-Saxon groups, Cremation was one of the simplest and most popular burial practices. Anglo-Saxons performed cremations on a pyre, a pile of combustible material often used in funeral…

Reflection Paper: Suttee or Sati: Victim or Victor In this article, the author firstly introduced Sati, "which is the death of a woman on her husband's funeral pyre"(p.175). The historical background is also given by the author. Sati seems to have a long history. "There have been several attempts to abolish the practice"(p.176), while it seems not successfully abolished. "Some instances still occur, even in the 1980s, and the esteem and devotion paid to the memories of women who have died in…

the text. This overlap can be seen most in the ending passage of the poem as the text deals with making sense of the page versus Christian view on death, immorality and the afterlife. In this essay will examine the ending as both the death of material viking culture, but also immorality through symbolic language and storytelling. The ending of the poem bring the confrontation between christian and viking values to a head. These final lines take place after the epic hero Beowulf has been…

For my culture development, I choose the topic of death and dying in the Sati culture in India. This culture was composed around 200 CE and belongs to the Laws of Manu (“Sati Introduction”, n.d.). Sati occurs when a Hindu wife becomes a widow who is not allowed to remarry. She would be labeled as a Sati for the meaning of pure or virgin. However, this term was also used as a ritual of self-sacrifice in which the wife would throw herself into her husband’s pyre (“Sati Introduction”, n.d.). This…

Heroes triumphing over monsters is a major theme in Beowulf, with characters being clearly on one side or the other. Often, however, heroes and monsters share characteristics, making the distinction between what makes someone good or evil more blurred. They share similarities to show how thin of a line there is between being a hero and a monster, and how easy it is to go down the wrong path. In Beowulf, the word fire is used to draw the similarities between Grendel and Beowulf, as well as to…

However, instead of the fire representing anger, the fire Beowulf is cremated in represents his heroic achievements. Beowulf is cremated on a funeral pyre, which is described as having “received him” (90), similarly to how Hell “received” Grendel. During Beowulf’s funeral, “the sound of weeping/ rose with the roar of the surging flame” (100). The word surge is also used when describing the water that Grendel is surrounded by during his death, introducing another parallel between Beowulf and…