Newcastle-on-Tyne.
_Suicides buried in Cross Roads_ (Vol. iv., pp. 116. 212. 329.).--In the
fifth chapter of the most remarkable Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne, we find
some curious customs to have been prevalent in Greenland relative to the
burial of the dead in unconsecrated ground. Thorstein Erikson, the
second husband of Gudrida, died of a sore sickness. Many of the
household had previously been carried off by the same malady, and the
ghost of each corpse joined its fellows in tormenting and terrifying the
survivors. The night after Thorstein's death, his corpse rose up in the
bed and called for Gudrid his wife. With reluctance and terror the widow
approached the body of her husband.--
"Now when Gudrid arose and went to Thorstein, it seemed to her as
though he wept. And he whispered some words to her which none
could hear, but these other words he spoke in a loud voice, so
that all were aware thereof. 'They that keep the truth shall be
saved, but many here in Greenland hold badly to this command. For
it is no Christian way as here is practised, since the universal
faith was brought to Greenland, to lay a corpse in unblessed
earth, and to sing but little over it. It had been the custom in
Greenland, after Christianity was brought in, that the dead should
be buried on the lands where they died, in unhallowed earth, _and
that a stake should be set up over the breast of the dead_
(_skyldi setja staur upp af brjosti hinum dauda_); and when the
priest afterwards came, the stake was pulled up, and holy water
was poured into the hole, and they sang over the body even though
it was long after.' And Thornstein's body was carried to the
church in Eriksfiord, and there it was sung over by the priests
(_yfirsöngvar af Kennimönnum_.")
May not this custom, which prevailed in Greenland in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, have been derived from the Scandinavian north, and
there have been applied to the suicide buried in the cross road? Was the
idea of burying these outcasts in such a place, the hopeful one of
placing them at least under the shadow as it were of the cross, though
they were denied a resting-place in consecrated ground. That the old
Northerns regarded suicide with horror, we know from the "Eyrbiggia
Saga," p. 530. of Mr. Blackwell's edition of Mallet's _Northern
Antiquities_.