Some people think that a Viking funeral would be a great way to send off a loved one. This great idealized gesture is fully influenced by movies mass-produced by Hollywood studios.
Just as the movies show, the Vikings dispatched their honored dead by placing the body in a boat and setting the ship on fire with flaming arrows. Let us trace the history of this notion through cinema.
First Appearance: Beau Geste
nice gesture(1939-Not Rated) stars Gary Cooper, Ray Milland and Robert Preston as three brothers on the run to join the French Foreign Legion. In a childhood flashback, the brothers play with toy boats in a pond. Beau, the eldest (played by a very young Donald O’Connor), knights his younger brother John and promises her a Viking funeral.
They take one of the toy boats and place a toy soldier on a matchbox. “Wait a minute! A Viking always has to be buried with a dog at his feet,” says Beau. He brings a toy dog from the studio and adds it to the boat, the matches are lit and the boat is released.
They stand at attention without their hats on as Brother Digby blows the trumpet in the last subsequent salute as the ship goes down in flames. “That’s what I want when my time comes,” says Beau.
Great Idealized Vision: The Vikings
The Vikings (1958-Not Rated) starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis as two feuding Viking half-brothers. This great costume drama ended with the Viking funeral being romanticized in popular culture. “Set up a funeral for a Viking,” Tony Curtis intones after the hand to hand fight that leaves Kirk Douglas dead.
At sunset, the community gathers by the sea with torches lit. In a coffin constructed of shields and spears, four Vikings in war gear carry his body to a boat on the shore. The Vikings put his body on the deck and leave.
The huge striped candle falls into place. An archer dramatically shoots a flaming arrow into the sail and the ship drifts. Other archers join in and shoot arrows at the departing ship as the music rises, the sun sets and the ship is completely engulfed in flames.
A later version: Rocket Gibraltar
Rocket-Gibraltar (1988-PG) stars Burt Lancaster as the patriarch of a large, dysfunctional family who gathers at his beachside home to celebrate his 70th birthday. His eight grandchildren ask him what he wants for his birthday. He tells them no ties, no socks, he wants a Viking funeral. On the beach at night, he describes Vikings seeing off their honored dead, as depicted in the 1958 film.
The children are inspired by the grandfather’s vision. They find an abandoned rowboat, called the Rocket Gibraltar, rig it up with a striped sail and adorn the bow with driftwood.
On his birthday, the kids find out that Grandpa died due to a heart condition while taking a nap. As the big party goes on, the kids smuggle Grandpa’s body out of the house. They hijack the supplier’s truck to take the body to the beach to give him his Viking funeral.
When the parents finally figure out what’s going on, there’s a mad dash to the seashore. They arrive at the scene to find that Grandpa is already on fire. Surprisingly, they do not discipline their children for what they have done. They just sit back and watch that fool burn.
Other Visions: Eulogy and The Living Wake
Praise (2004-Mature Audiences TV Rating) is a comedy that brings together another dysfunctional family for the funeral of a wayward patriarch. In this ending, the family carries the body in a coffin in a rowboat to a pond.
The twin grandsons drill holes in grandfather’s coffin, to get gasoline inside, and shoot arrows at the boat from a distance. In this case, there is a big explosion that is very satisfying.
the living wake (2007-PG) is a dark comedy that follows the last day in the life of K. Roth Binew, a self-proclaimed artist and genius. After learning of his impending demise, he is eager to have a Viking funeral to bid him farewell. He stops by the local funeral home to see if one can be arranged. The outraged funeral director tells her to take his business elsewhere.
Binew expires on schedule in his final performance of the Living Wake. His best friend Mills Joquin carries the body to a pond, transfers the coffin to a boat, sets it on fire, and gently pushes it away from the dock.
Authenticity Explosion: Carpet Kingdom
carpet kingdom (2008-Not Rated) is a short comedy about living and dying authentically. It begins when Great-Uncle Grover dies unexpectedly and is buried with a traditional funeral. On the visit, his nephew Owen sees one of Grover’s war buddies placing a small pistol in Grover’s jacket.
Unbeknownst to Owen, Grover’s three war buddies had promised each other that when the time came, they would give each other a Viking funeral. Once he finds this out, Owen finds a way to give his uncle that big send off.
The veterans and Owen carry the casket to the shores of Lake Erie and into the water where it floats in the shallows. One of the veterans, who is on oxygen, asks, “How are we going to set it on fire?”
Owen grabs the man’s oxygen tank and puts him in the coffin with his uncle. Owen retrieves the gun and, in a final showdown witnessed by everyone at the funeral, shoots the casket. It explodes spectacularly.
The last line, from the veteran who is now without oxygen, is “I don’t want a Viking funeral. I want to fly to the kingdom!”
The truth about Viking funerals
Despite these Hollywood portrayals, Viking funerals and cremations took place on land. Rituals, including burial and cremation, varied throughout the Viking Age of Scandinavian history, from about 790 AD to 790 AD. the beyond.
When the body was cremated in a boat, the ship was parked ashore. Vikings were often burned or buried with their personal belongings. There are many examples of Norse cremation sites and cemeteries throughout Scandinavia.
In some cases there were human sacrifices. A slave, a woman kept in a drunken state, raped by the men of the clan and thrown into the fire with the deceased, was part of the funeral ritual. Think about that the next time you hear the word “enthralled.”
So every time you see a movie with a ship on fire in waterknow that this depiction of a viking funeral is at sea.
