Norse funeral
The Vikings often immolated their dead leaders in ship burials, known from archaeology and notably from the account of Ibn Fadlan.
Ibn Fadlan's account is contentious, as it refers to Rus rather than Norse vikings. The ceremony he describes may have been of Slavic rather than Nordic origin.
A Viking funeral can mean burning a boat with a corpse, as a spectacular tribute.
Also it is a humorous term to refer to the destruction of any mechanical object, especially a vehicle, by fire.
Viking funerals in pop culture
- In the 1988 film Rocket Gibraltar, Levi Rockwell, played by Burt Lancaster, tells his grandchildren that he wants a Viking funeral. He dies on the day of his birthday celebration, and at the end of the film, the children give him his final wish as his birthday present. At sunset, they put his body in a boat, filled it with kindling, and sent it out into the ocean. They lit a huge bonfire, lit the tips of arrows in the fire, and shot them at the boat. According to Levi, a Viking could achieve immortality if his corpse is incinerated upon a great seafaring warship. If the color of the fire matches the color of the sunset, that means they led a good life, and they had gone to Valhalla.
- In the Alan Moore graphic novel V for Vendetta as well as the 2006 film adaptation a kind of Viking funeral is combined with an attack: V's corpse is put in a subway train with explosives, which is released unmanned through an abandoned tunnel to strike a target (10 Downing Street in the novel and the Palace of Westminster in the film).
- In one episode of the Simpsons, Bart starts to realize that he is becoming an adult. This is realized when he tries to imagine a G.I. Joe-like toy climbing up a frozen waterfall, but as soon as the toy reaches the top, he imagines an insurance agent persuading the toy to get insurance. He then gathers all of his childhood toys (i.e. most of them rip-offs of real toys), puts them in a box, shoves them into a stream and sets it on fire with a magnifying glass.
- In the film The Ring of the Nibelung, after Siegfried (Sigmund) dies, his body is sent down the river and he is set on fire, and it is only then do they realize that the Valkyrie Brünnhilde is with Siegfried's corpse, and she dies along with him.
- In the game Legend of Legaia for the PlayStation, the day after the Seru attack the protagonist's village, the corpses of the ones who died the previous night are sent on a Viking's Funeral into the sea.
- In the beginning part of the movie The 13th Warrior (1999, Antonio Banderas, Diane Venora, Vladimir Kulich and Omar Sharrif), there is a scene in which a clear example of the Viking Funeral is shown. It happened that one of the leader in the barbaric village died. He was thus given the sort of viking funeral. The difference is that together with him in the ship, were stashes of personal belongings and even a woman to be burnt with his remains (probably assigned to be his companion in the afterlife). However, if we listen carefully to the chanting prior to the burning of the ship, we can still trace some mythical Norse elements, such as follows:
"....Lo there do I see my line of families.....In the Halls of Valhalla"
- In the 1991 film Ricochet, John Lithgow's character Earl Talbot Blake escapes prison and subsequently kills a fellow inmate he escaped with after having switched their prison dental records. In an effort to fake his own death, he puts the body in an explosive packed vehicle and sends it, blazing, off a cliff. Upon completing the task, he remarks, "I've always wanted a Viking funeral."
- In the 2004 movie Eulogy, starring Zooey Deschanel, Rip Torn and Hank Azaria, Rip Torn's character is given a Viking funeral by his son (Ray Romano) and grandsons after his death.