Ann Groa Sheffield and Joe Mandato have given a superb presentation on heathen views of "Death and the Afterlife" and if they ever post the notes online, you will certainly find a link here. In the meantime, you can refer to Chapter 26 of Our Troth, available online here.
Hilda Roderick Ellis (in her long-out-of-print The Road to Hel) tells us that to our predecessors there may have been some notion of a connection between the way the remains were disposed of and the kind of afterlife people expected for the dead. But modern heathens don't seem to feel this connection. We seem to focus our attention on the memorial service more than on the actual interment.
Traditionally, there were three general ways to dispose of a body: mound burial, ship burial, and cremation. There are also plenty of simple burials that may have been stripped-down ship or mound burials, but it's hard to tell what people were thinking at the time. Note that a ship burial was not necessarily in a ship. Often the grave was delineated by stones arranged in the shape of a ship. And we have no certain idea of what the ship symbolized, although you might guess it had something to do with travel in or to the afterlife.
There is no evidence that anyone ever really carried out the "Viking Funeral" with a flaming ship drifting slowly out to sea that is so beloved by filmmakers.
Modern heathens seem to have a strong sense that a sumbel is an excellent memorial for the dead. Other than that, there doesn't seem to be a general or common view on funeral rites in Asatru.
If you are likely to be called on to preside at a funeral, you probably want to put together some notes of your own, with an appropriate invocation and statement of purpose. And it would be kind to have some prepared farewell statements that family members can use if they want to speak but are too overcome to compose their own.
Last Modified 1 March 2001.
Comments to Manny Olds, oldsma@pobox.com