Part 7

In the grave-mound at Eigg there were found, along with the sword-hilt, a buckle or fastener of a belt of bronze or brass (Fig. 41), attached to a thin plate of the same metal, and a solid lump of metal apparently of a similar alloy, 2½ inches in length, which appears to have been one of the feet of a large three-footed pot.

Two other grave-mounds in the same neighbourhood were excavated in 1875 by Professor Macpherson, and I had the opportunity of seeing them subsequently. The ground-plans and sections of them which are here given (Fig. 42), were made by Mr. Arthur Joass. The largest mound was about 40 feet in diameter and from 6 to 7 feet in height, with a circular depression in the centre. In an enclosure roughly formed of stones in the centre of the mound and on the original level of the surface, there were found traces of an interment, with grave-goods, of the usual Viking character. They consisted of an iron sword in the sheath, similar to that found in the Islay grave, an iron axe-head, a spear-head of iron, a penannular brooch of bronze plated with silver and ending in knobs of the shape of thistle heads (Fig. 43), an agrafe or belt-clasp of bronze or brass, ornamented with a scroll-like pattern in relief (Fig. 44); a small whetstone (Fig. 45), and several portions of dress consisting of cloth of three different varieties of texture (Fig. 46), one of which is trimmed with fur.

The smaller grave-mound, a few yards distant, contained the fragments of an iron sword, a whetstone, a plain penannular brooch with knobbed ends, of a slightly flattened form, in bronze or brass, and some beads of amber and jet.

Perhaps the most remarkable cemetery of graves belonging to this intruded Paganism of the Norsemen was that excavated by Mr. William Rendall, of Pierowall, in the island of Westray, in Orkney, in 1849. The graves were situated in the sandy links at the north-west side of the head of the bay of Pierowall. Mr. Rendall’s notes are brief and imperfect. I have twice gone over the ground explored by him, with the view of ascertaining certain points in connection with these interments, and I think there is evidence on the spot that each of them was placed on the original surface of the ground, that they were surrounded by roughly made enclosures of stones, and covered by a mound of greater or less bulk. Mr. Rendall explored two groups of these grave-mounds, the one containing four and the other five interments.

In the first group, grave-mound No. 1 contained a human skeleton laid on its right side, north and south, the skull cleft, apparently before burial, and only one half of it found. Deposited with it there were a number of iron weapons or implements, among which Mr. Rendall recognised an iron axe and what he calls the half of a helmet, which I have no doubt was half of the globular boss of a shield. Grave-mound No. 2 contained the remains of a man, a horse, and a dog. It is not said whether the whole skeleton of the horse was in the grave, but the remark is made that the horse was of small size, and the bridle-bit remained between its jaws. Many pieces of iron were found, among which were a buckle and a spear-head or part of a sword. Grave-mound No. 3 contained the remains of a man and a horse with fragments of iron implements. Grave-mound No. 4 contained a skeleton only.

At a little distance to the north-east of this group of grave-mounds was the second group. In grave-mound No. 1 was the skeleton of a man. At his head lay the cup-shaped boss of his shield; at his left side his sword. A whetstone, a comb, and several glass beads were also found, and many pieces of iron of whose form and purpose there is no suggestion. In grave-mound No. 2 was a skeleton, which Mr. Rendall concluded to be that of a female. Two oval bowl-shaped brooches of brass were found on the breast, and a little below them a circular ornament and a pin of the same metal. There were no traces of iron, or remains of iron implements or weapons. Grave-mound No. 3 contained a small skeleton with two oval bowl-shaped brooches and a small circular-headed pin on the breast, and two long single-edged, round-backed combs of bone (Fig. 47) lay on either side of the neck. No. 4 had been previously disturbed. In No. 5 were two brooches, two combs, and a pin similar to those in No. 3.

In 1851 Mr. Rendall presented to the National Museum the contents of a grave which is not described in these notes but was found in the same locality. It contained the skeleton of a man, with which there had been deposited an iron axe, a spear-head of iron, and the iron boss of a shield, an oval bowl-shaped brooch (Fig. 48), and a penannular brooch of Celtic form, ornamented with interlaced work of purely Celtic style.[37] In this remarkable cemetery we have the same type of burial and the same typical forms of weapons, implements, and ornaments, as in Islay and in Eigg. Of the whole group of objects found in all these graves there is but one, viz. the Celtic brooch last mentioned, that is of a type native to the soil in which they are found.

Footnote 37:

Figured in the previous series of Lectures—_Scotland in Early Christian Times_, p. 29, Fig. 22.

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 [Illustration: 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 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.

Footnote 38:

Sometimes the description of a burial mentions the digging of a grave instead of the raising of a mound. When Thorolf died, Egil took his body and prepared it according to the custom of the time, then they dug a grave and placed Thorolf in it with all his weapons and raiment, and Egil placed a gold bracelet on each of his arms, then they placed stones over him, and earth over all.

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.

Footnote 39:

Suorri says that the custom of burning the body was over before the time when the historical sagas begin their chronicle of events. The fact that it is represented in the mythological sagas as the burial rite of the Æsir, in the Twilight of the Gods, shows that it was out of memory as a human custom in Iceland.

Footnote 40:

A translation of this narrative is given in the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, vol. ix. p. 518.

Turning now to the evidence derived from the grave-mounds themselves, we find that it corroborates and supplements the literary evidence in a remarkable manner. For instance, close above the strand at Möklebust, in Norway, there is a semi-globular mound 12 feet high and 92 feet in diameter; round its base there is a ditch 12 feet wide and 3 feet deep, interrupted on the south and east by accesses on the natural level. The whole base of the mound was covered by a layer of burnt ashes. In an oval, about 28 feet long and 14 feet wide, lay a quantity of iron rivets and nails as they had settled down among the ashes when the planks they had fastened were consumed. Around the circumference of this oval, and among these rivets, were found no fewer than forty-two shield-bosses, mingled with pike-heads, axes, swords, knives, and other implements of iron. Near the centre of the oval lay a large bronze pot or caldron, one-third full of burnt human bones, over which were heaped the bosses of thirteen shields, now firmly rusted to each other and to the sides of the pot. The pot itself was splendidly enamelled round the rim; in fact, an exquisite work of art. Among the bones within it was an iron pike-head, which M. Lorange, who explored the mound, concluded to have been the weapon by which the Viking met his death. Recounting the whole phenomena and circumstances of the burial as observed during the process of exploration, he says: "It seems that the sea-king’s men had drawn his ship up on the strand, with all its fittings as it was on the day of his death, laid the dead man in it clad in his best and with his arms and horse; then they hung their shields round the gunwales as they used to do when going on a cruise, hoisted the sail, piled wood under and around, and fired the vessel as she stood. Then, when the fire had done its work, they gathered the burnt bones into this splendid pot, covered them with the bosses of the burnt shields, and placed them in the centre of the heap of ashes over which the great mound was finally reared."

But more frequently the vessel and its contents have not passed through the fire. One such ship I have seen. It was found under a mound at Tune, and is now preserved in connection with the museum at Christiania. The mound was 12 feet high and 80 yards in circumference. The vessel stood on the original surface on even keel. It is clinker-built; the planks of oak, the ribs of fir. The keel is 43½ feet in length, and the ship is low and narrow for her length, which is no more than that of a first-class herring boat of the present day on the east coast of Scotland. Each side was of eleven planks, an inch thick, fastened with clinker nails, having round heads outside and square heads inside. The seams were caulked with tarred oakum of neat’s hair. The ribs, thirteen in number, are built of three different layers of wood fastened with oaken trenails and iron nails. The mode in which they are fastened to the skin of the boat is peculiar. The upper boards alone are fastened with oaken trenails, and the lower ones are merely attached to the planking by ropes of bast passed through holes in the ribs, and then through corresponding holes in wooden clumps on the planks. The mast was secured in a step on the bottom lining, and the vessel was steered by a side rudder. The Viking’s body, which was unburnt, was placed on a wooden platform abaft the mast. Beside it lay the bones of a horse, with remains of the saddle. The rest of the grave-goods were of the common character, comprising merely a few beads of coloured glass, a few fragments of clothing, a sword of the ordinary Viking type, a spear-head, a shield-boss, a rolled-up coat of mail, and some tools and implements of iron.

Another of larger size was discovered last summer in a mound at Gokstad, near Sandefiord, and is now placed beside the Tune specimen. Its length is about 80 feet, with a breadth of beam of 17 feet. It is of oak, and clinker-built, the planks and the frame-timbers connected in the same peculiar manner as in the Tune ship. All the planks have planed and moulded edges both inside and out, but there is no trace of the use of the saw either in the planking or framework of the vessel. Her lines are well laid; stem and stern are alike sharp and finely modelled. She has neither deck nor seats for the rowers, although her sides are pierced for sixteen oars each. The oars, some of which were found on board, were 20 feet long. In rowing, they were passed through circular holes 18 inches below the gunwale, and having narrow slits cut on each side of them to allow the passage of the blade of the oar. Like all her kind, she had but one mast and one sail, square in form, and she was steered by a side rudder. The vessel, though showing signs of wear, had been comparatively new when drawn on shore to enhance the funeral honours of its owner. A sepulchral chamber was built of timbers in front of the mast reaching to the prow. In this chamber the dead Viking was laid, surrounded with his grave-goods, his arms, and ornaments. That these were numerous and costly there can be little doubt, but the mound was broken into at an early date, a great hole cut in the side of the ship, and the funeral chamber rifled. The few relics that were left, chiefly mountings of belts and harness, exhibit the finest art of the Viking time, and the completeness of the equipment of the vessel, from the row of painted shields round the gunwale down to her cordage and anchor, and the cooking utensils of the crew—together with the fact that the mound also contained the remains of three boats and the bones of eight or nine horses, as many dogs, and a peacock—testify to the wealth and consideration of the man whose burial rites were thus celebrated.

I have described these Viking burials found in Norway and in Scotland partly because they enable us most vividly to realise the peculiar characteristics of Pagan burial, but chiefly because I am unable to illustrate the burial phenomena of the Iron Age Paganism of Celtic Scotland from its own remains. The archæology of Scotland is absolutely destitute of recorded data for this purpose. The uninstructed excavators have some respect for stone and bronze, but old iron is shovelled into oblivion without a moment’s hesitation.

LECTURE II (20TH OCTOBER 1881.) NORTHERN BURIALS AND HOARDS.

It has now been shown that the intrusion of the Norwegian Paganism into the northern and western area of Scotland produced an extension into this country of types and phenomena which are purely indigenous to the Scandinavian area. But along with the types and phenomena that are purely Norwegian we also find, within the area of this intruded Paganism, a series of modified types—neither purely Celtic nor purely Scandinavian, but partaking to some extent of the distinctive characteristics of both. This has already been demonstrated in so far as the products of this commingling of distinctive styles and customs have been characterised by indications of Christianity;[41] but there still remain to be discussed a group of phenomena and objects of this mixed character which either present no distinct indications of Christian associations or exhibit characteristics that are distinctive of Paganism.

Footnote 41:

_Scotland in Early Christian Times_ (second series), pp. 226-232.

I therefore proceed to describe a series of burials occurring within the same area in which the distinctive form of burial with arms, implements, and ornaments of purely Norwegian types also occur, but differing from these, inasmuch as though they present unequivocal indications of Paganism they do not so distinctly indicate their origin. As we examine their characteristics it will be seen that they form a group strictly local in its range, and possessing affinities which are rather Norwegian than Celtic.