Ibn Fadlan Viking Funeral: The Full Ship Burial Account

This passage is from Ahmed ibn Fadlan’s Risala :

And the Russians are reckless with wine, drinking it day and night, and perhaps one of them dies with a cup in his hand. And when their leader dies, his family says to his maids and servants, “Which of you will die with him?” Then one of them says, “I will.” If he says that, then it becomes obligatory for him, and it is not possible for him to ever cancel his decision. Even if he wanted to, he could not do it, and most of the slave girls do this.

When the man I mentioned died, they said to his maids, “Who will die with him?” One of them said, “I will.” So they assigned two maids to her who would protect her and be with her wherever she went, and they might even wash her feet with their own hands. They would take care of their dead man, cut clothes for him, and handle whatever he needed, and every day the maid would drink and sing with joy.

When the day came on which he and the maid were to be burned, I came to the river where his ship had been brought out. They had made four corner posts for it from khadhank wood and other materials, and around it they also made something like large wooden pillars. They placed them on that wood, and they began coming and going and speaking words that I did not understand, while the man was still in his grave because they had not yet dug him out. Then they brought a bed, put it on the ship, and covered it with Byzantine brocade curtains and Byzantine brocade cushions. Then an old woman came, and they called her the Angel of Death. She spread the mattresses we mentioned on the bed, and she took charge of sewing and arranging them, as she was also in charge of killing the slave girls. And I saw that she was a massive, thickset old woman.

When they came to his grave, they removed the earth from the wood, took out the wood, and brought him out in the garment in which he had died. I saw that he had turned black due to the cold of the country. They had placed wine, fruit, and a lute in his grave with him, so they took all of that out. Nothing had begun to stink or decay other than his color.

So they dressed him in trousers, slippers, a kurtaq, and brocade boots with gold buttons, and they put a brocade cap trimmed with sable on his head. They carried him until they brought him into the pavilion that was on the ship, and they made him sit on the bed and supported him with cushions. They brought wine, fruit, and basil, which they placed with him.

And they brought bread, meat, and onions and threw them before him. They brought a dog, cut it in two, and threw it into the ship. Then they brought all of his weapons and put them at his side. Then they took two horses and ran them until they were sweating, then cut them with a sword and threw their meat into the ship.

Then they brought two cows, cut them up, and threw them into it. Then they brought a rooster and a hen, killed them, and threw them into it. And the slave girl who had chosen to be killed went back and forth, entering each of their tents, and the owner of each tent had intercourse with her and said to her, “Tell your master, I did this out of love for you.”

When it was the afternoon on Friday, they brought the slave girl to something they had made that was like a doorframe. She placed her feet on the hands of the men, climbed onto that frame, and spoke something in her own language, so they put her down. Then they brought her up again, and she did the same as she had done the first time. Then they took her down and brought her up a third time. Then they brought a chicken to her, so she cut off its head and threw it away, and they took the chicken and threw it into the ship.

So I asked the translator about her actions, and he said, “The first time they brought her up, she said, ‘Behold, I see my father and my mother.’ The second time she said, ‘Behold, I see all my dead relatives sitting.’ And the third time she said, ‘Behold, I see my master sitting in Paradise, and Paradise is beautiful and green, and with him are men and boys, and he is calling me. So send me to him.’” Then they passed her toward the ship. She took off two bracelets that were on her and gave them to the woman who is called the Angel of Death, and she was the one who would kill her. She took off two anklets that were on her and gave them to the two maids who were serving her, and they were the daughters of the woman known as the Angel of Death.

Then they boarded her on the ship but did not let her into the pavilion. The men came with shields and pieces of wood and gave her a cup of wine, so she sang over it and drank it. The translator told me, “She is bidding farewell to her companions.” Then another cup was given to her, so she took it and sang for a long time. The old woman urged her to drink it and enter the pavilion where her master was. She became dazed and wanted to enter the pavilion, so she stuck her head between the pavilion and the ship. The old woman took her head, brought her into the pavilion, and entered with her.

And the men began to beat on the shields with the pieces of wood so that the sound of her cries would not be heard and would not frighten the other slave girls, lest they refuse to seek death with their masters.

Then six men entered the pavilion and had sexual intercourse with the slave girl. Then they laid her down next to her master. Two of them held her legs, and two held her hands. The old woman, who is called the Angel of Death, put a rope around her neck and gave it to two of them to pull. She came with a broad-bladed dagger and began inserting it between her ribs, place by place, while the two men kept strangling her with the rope until she died.

Then one of the closest relatives of that dead man came, took a piece of wood, and lit it with fire. Then the man walked backward toward the stern of the ship, facing the people, with the burning piece of wood in one hand and his other hand on his buttocks, while he was naked, until he set fire to the wood that had been stacked under the ship, after they had put the maid, whom they had killed, next to her master.

Then the people gathered with wood and firewood, and each one had a piece of wood that had been ignited, and he would throw it onto that pile. The fire spread to the wood, then to the ship, then to the pavilion, and to the man and the maid, and to everything that was in it. Then a great, tremendous wind blew, and the flame of the fire intensified and grew hot. A Russian man was next to me, and I heard him talking to the translator who was with me, so I asked him what he had said to him. He said, “He says, ‘You Arabs are fools.’” So I said, “Why is that?” He said, “You take the person dearest and most honored to you, and you throw him into the soil, and the soil, vermin, and worms eat him. But we burn him with fire in an instant, and he enters Paradise immediately, at the time of his death.”

Then he laughed excessively, so I asked about that, and he said, “Because of his Lord’s love for him, He sent the wind so that it would take him away in an hour.” In fact, not even an hour had passed before the ship, the firewood, the maid, and the master were reduced to ashes.

Then they built on the site of the ship, which they had taken out of the river, something resembling a round hill. They set up a large plank of khadhank wood in the middle of it and wrote on it the name of the man and the name of the king of the Rus, and they left.