VARIOUS FORMS OF GRAVES.
Different forms of graves—Picturesque situation—Various shapes of
mounds—Bautastones—The Hjortehammar burial-ground—Stone-set
graves—Ship-form graves—Triangular graves—Anund’s mound.
Mouldering bones and ashes of mighty heroes and noble women now
forgotten under the mounds, or in the graves made hoary by the centuries
that shroud you by their oblivion, I salute you! We also shall be
forgotten.
The thousands of mounds, cairns, _bautasteinar_ (memorial stones) and
graves found to this day all over the North show the high veneration the
earlier English-speaking tribes had for their dead; these mounds or
cairns are always situated on some conspicuous place by the coast, from
which a magnificent view can often be had.
We have already treated of graves at some length with special reference
to the age—stone, bronze, or iron—to which they belonged, and also with
relation to the objects found in them. Before, however, proceeding to
speak of the burial customs of the Norsemen it may be well to give some
further idea of the various classes of graves.
Sweden is particularly rich in these mementoes of the past, in the midst
of which the high roads not unfrequently pass, forming a most impressive
scene. What emotion have I felt when standing upon many of these graves,
deeply impressed by the beauty or loneliness of the site chosen and of
its surroundings; perhaps never more so than on the coast of
Bohuslän—the Viken of yore.[184] There the cairns have been erected on
the summit of the bare solid rocky hills of primary formation, several
hundred feet above the level of the water, and overlooking a panorama of
fjords, sounds, barren islands and desolate coast, with the open seas
beyond, and with the sun sinking below the horizon. The waves strike at
their base, and with the wind sing mournfully a requiem over the
forgotten dead; their work is done, the glorious mission they had to
accomplish in the history of the world is ended, the mighty drama of the
sword is closed.
[Illustration:
Fig. 709.—Cairn, Bohuslän, Sweden.
]
It is towards evening, before the twilight fades gradually into
darkness, that the scene of this weird landscape is most impressive, and
no one can really imagine its effects until he stands upon the spot and
sees the view spread before him.
In some parts of Norway the contrast is often great in the extreme; the
mounds there have huge mountains in the background with their summits
clad in snow, and in the foreground the grand open sea. One of the
bleakest spots in the country, where these have been erected, is on the
flat gravelly coast of Lyster, which lies between the mountain and the
sea;—there, over the last resting-places of those warriors, the wind
blows most fearfully in winter-time, and the sea dashes on the shore in
huge foamy white waves.
In Denmark and parts of Sweden there are places on the elevated points
of the coast full of charms, looking over the Sound, the Cattegat, the
Baltic, or the waters of some of the great lakes. Many of these
resting-places of man are now covered by forests, and upon some of the
mounds huge oaks sprung from the acorn of their sires tell forcibly of
the centuries that have passed over them.
[Illustration:
Fig. 710.—Grave, Einang, Norway; diameter, 50 feet; earlier iron age.
]
We can vividly realise why the people laid their dead to rest by that
sea they loved so much during their lifetime, and upon which they had
sailed so often. The mariner as he passed by could behold the graves of
the dead and victorious champions, whose memory was always kept fresh by
the _scalds_[185] who sang his exploits generation after generation,
thus filling the youth of the country with pride, and making them wish
to emulate the deeds of these men, often their kinsmen of old, who had
gone to Valhalla.
The mounds and cairns are not always round, they are sometimes square,
oblong, rectangular or triangular. The round mounds and cairns exist in
different parts of the world, and in Scandinavia as far back as the
stone and bronze ages; the vast number of bautastones seen all over the
country shows also how well the injunctions of Odin were carried out by
his followers in that respect. Some of these are very imposing, and
their dark forms look weird enough against the landscape or the clear or
gloomy sky. One of the finest stood in Brastod parish, Bohuslän, now
lying prostrate and broken, its height being 26 feet; and its place was
on one corner of a stone set of rectangular graves 40 feet in length and
28 feet in width.
[Illustration:
Fig. 711.—Bautastone (from grave shown on p. 301) with nineteen runes;
1/15 real size; 5 feet 8 inches in height; width, 3 feet 2 inches; 9
inches thick; length of rune, 2 feet 1½ inches.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 712.—Bautastone on a mound 200 feet in circumference and 7 feet
high, Runesten Grimeton (Bohuslän), Halland; 19½ feet high, 4½ feet
wide. Surrounding it are mounds and graves of various shapes.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 713.—Oblong mound, Yttersala, Södermanland; 33 feet in diameter.
In the vicinity are numerous other graves of various shapes.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 714.—Square stone-set grave. Södermanland.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 715.—Rectangular stone-set graves with bautastones. Length, 70
feet; width, 24 feet.—Färentuna parish, Upland, Sweden.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 716.—Rows of mounds with bautastones from 4½ to nearly 6 feet
high, Rekarnebygden, Södermanland. Near by are many other mounds and
stone-set graves.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 717.—Square stone-set graves with large boulders at the corners
and centre.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 718.—Triangular grave; sides of triangle about 50 feet; corner
stones about 3 feet high. In the middle of the south-west side are
two stones, 5 feet apart, with a slab between them, one 3 feet, the
other 4 feet high. Thorsbacken, Nerike, Sweden.
]
The most interesting of the graveyards which I have seen is that of
Hjortehammar, situated in the province of Blekinge on a narrow
promontory lost in the maze of islands which dot the coast of Sweden on
this part of the Baltic. It is joined now to an island situated near its
further end by a causeway and a small bridge. This is not only
remarkable from its position and size, but on account of the numerous
forms of graves of various sizes it contains. The length of the cape is
about 1,200 feet, and its greatest breadth about 200 feet. The engraving
gives an idea of the shape and size of the different graves, some of
which are shown in large scale. This cape is but a continuation of a
ridge full of graves; heather and juniper cover many of them; and well
chosen was this secluded and quiet spot for the last resting-place of
their departed kinsmen or friends.[186]
[Illustration:
Fig. 719.—Hjortehammar burial-ground, with various shaped graves.
]
In the _Háleygjatal_, a poem on the genealogy of the famous Hákon jarl,
tracing his pedigree to Odin, there is a passage which recalls the
burial-place Hjortehammar.
Straumeyjar-nes which is
Stone-marked
Round the Fylkir’s[187] body
Is widely known.
[Illustration:
Fig. 720.—Vedby ridge, Blekinge. The large stones are from 4 to 6 feet
high. Length of each side, 40 feet.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 721.—Stone-set grave, Blekinge. Length, 38 feet.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 722.—Triangular grave. Sides 60 to 65 feet long, with a small
elevation in the middle, and a bautastone nearly 5 feet high and 2
feet 6 inches broad. Lyngstad, Södermanland.
]
Among the most remarkable and not uncommon stone-set graves are those of
the so-called “_ship-form_” setting; they belong both to the earlier and
later iron age. This peculiar form of grave is found on the peninsula of
Scandinavia and on the islands of Gotland, Öland, and other islands of
the Baltic, in Courland and Livonia, and was also erected in England and
Scotland by the people of the North.
[Illustration:
Fig. 723.—Blekinge. Diameter, 30 feet.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 724.—Listerby ridge, Blekinge. Diameter, 18 feet.
Stone-set graves.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 725.—Graveyard with mounds and stone-set graves at Åsby,
Södermanland.
]
One of the most interesting is that where the rowers’ seats are marked,
and even a stone placed in the position of the mast.
The longest ship-form grave which I think is known is one near Kåsberga,
a fishing village in the southern part of Sweden, with a length of 212
feet and a width of 60 feet. It is made by thirty-eight stones, the two
forming the prow being 12 and 18 feet in height above the ground—the
latter being the northern one.
[Illustration:
Fig. 726.—Ship-form grave, Karums parish, Öland.
]
But the finest of all, though less in size, is the famous one of
Blomsholm, near Strömstad, the whole neighbourhood of which is
surrounded with mementoes of the past—graves, dom-rings, mounds,
bautastones, and rock-tracings.[188]
[Illustration:
Fig. 727.—Ship-form graves, Blomsholm, Bohuslan, made of forty-nine
upright stones (formerly there were fifty-one). Length, 141 feet;
greatest breadth, 31½ feet; prows north and south, the northern
headstone 11 feet high, the southern 14½, the stones gradually
diminishing in size towards the centre, where the largest is about 3
feet. Built on a small mound or elevation which was higher in former
times.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 728.—Sjusta mound, Skog parish, Upland; 204 feet in
circumference; 28 feet high; with a row of stones at its base. At
the south end is another stone-set mound.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 729.—Type of Mound with bautastone at the top and circle of
stones at the base.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 730.—Mound, 3 feet high, with bautastone, Balunda parish,
Westmanland.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 731.—Triangular graves; stone forming the apex, with runes, is
about 25 feet from the two others, which are 14 feet
apart—Björktorp, Blekinge.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 732.—Incomplete mound; 50 feet in circumference; 10 feet high;
largest stone over 6 feet high; in Thortuna parish, Westmanland.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 733.—Mounds on Kjula-ridge. Södermanland.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 734.—Mound set with boulder-stones, Dalsland; circumference of
boulders, 100 feet; height of mound, 4 feet, on the top of which are
two flat stones standing on edges. Near it is a boulder
stone-setting, probably a dom-ring.
]
Many of the cairns, which are often beautifully arranged, are small,
being 4 or 5 feet in height, or sometimes almost even with the ground,
their diameter varying from 20 to 80 feet. Numbers of them have
stone-settings, sometimes close, sometimes not.
[Illustration:
Fig. 735.—Diameter, 20 feet.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 736.—Diameter, 16 feet.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 737.—Diameter, 16 feet.
Cairns—Blekinge.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 738.—Round cairn at Björkeby, Foresund, Södermanland.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 739.—Square cairn, island of Öland.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 740.—Anund’s mound, Vestmanland. Circumference, 652 feet; height
84 feet. A great number of standing or fallen bautastones are found
near the mound.
]
One of the most interesting graves which have been recently opened in
England is one belonging to the manor of Taplow, near Maidenhead, about
fifty miles by river above London. The mound, 240 feet in circumference,
and 15 feet high, overlooks the Thames and the surrounding lands.
[Illustration:
Fig. 741.—Gold fibula ornamented with garnets and red glass. ⅔ real
size. Taplow, England.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 742.—Fibula of bronze, ½ real size, the edge of the triangle and
nail heads of bronze, the middle a thin silver plate. Found in a
mound with 14 urns and burned bones, a spear point of iron, &c.
Zeeland, Denmark.
]
Among the objects were two shield bones, one sword, fragments of others,
fragments of a spear head, one bronze vessel, one wooden bucket so
common in the graves of the North, with bronze hoops, &c., two pairs of
glass vessels (one of which is here represented) similar to one found
with a burial ship in Vold in Norway, forty checkers, two pairs of
ornaments for drinking horns (all of silver gilt), one green glass bead,
&c. &c.; a fibula of the same form as those of the North. But the most
remarkable article was a quantity of gold thread belonging to a garment,
the triangular form of the pattern still remaining.
This grave, like the one of King Gorm of Denmark and several others of
the North, is in the old churchyard where the ancient parish church
stood. On the slope of the mound itself several Christian graves are
seen. The viking, like some of the chiefs of the North, was probably
buried on his estate, on the land that had descended to him through his
ancestors or which possibly he might have conquered from some of his
foes. These antiquities by their form seem to belong to the later iron
age.
[Illustration:
Fig. 743.—Vessel of green glass. ⅔ real size. Taplow, England. 11⅛
inches in height.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 744.—Ornament of silver gilt, showing end of drinking horn. ½
real size.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 745.—Silver gilt ornamentation for mouth of drinking horn. ½ real
size. The horn itself, found in a mass of small fragments. Taplow,
England.
]