Death in Norse Paganism - Death and Sexual Rites

Death and Sexual Rites

In early sources, there is an additional complex of beliefs that is connected with the afterlife: death could be described as an erotic embrace between the dead man and a lady who represents the afterlife. This lady was often Hel, but it could also be Rán who received those who died at sea. Rán's nine daughters are also depicted as erotic partners in death. There is good reason to believe that such erotic elements are not just skaldic playfulness, but authentic pagan notions, since they appear in the oldest known skaldic poems. In the 9th century poem Ynglingatal, there are several stanzas where the kings are said to be in "Hel's embrace". Several skaldic poems and sagas describe death in battle or on the sea with erotic terminology. The skald praises the brave sea warrior who fights in vain against the natural forces, but who finally has to give up, and then he enters Rán's bed or is embraced by her nine daughters.

Several of Gotland's image stones show scenes that allude to death and eroticism, and the stones are two to three metres tall phallic memorial stones in remembrance of the dead. The stones have richly decorated surfaces and they often have a certain motif in the upper field: a welcoming scene in the realm of the dead between a man and a lady. The lady offers a drinking horn to the man who arrives on Sleipnir. What makes it possible to connect the images to the literary sources is among other things the man's shape: he has a phallic shape. The scene may depict the deceased who is united with Hel or with Rán. It is primarily kings and chieftains who are portrayed with an erotic death, but also the death of a hero can be portrayed in the same way.

The connection between death and eroticism is probably ancient in Scandinavia, and to this testify numerous "white stones", great phallic stones that were raised on the barrows. The tradition goes back to the 5th century, and in total 40 such stones have been discovered, and mostly on Norway's south-western coast. It is possible that death required an extra portion of fertility and eroticism, but also that the living received life force from the dead. The thought may be that life and death have the same origin and if an individual died, the fertility and the future life of the clan would be ensured.

In Ibn Fadlan's eyewitness account of a Viking funeral, there is a description of a slave girl who was to be sacrificed and who had to undergo several sexual rites. When the chieftain had been put in the ship, she went from tent to tent where she visited warriors and traders. Every man told her that they did what they did for their love to the dead chieftain. Lastly, she entered a tent that had been raised on the ship, and in it six men had intercourse with her before she was strangled and stabbed. The sexual rites with the slave girl show that she was considered to be a vessel for the transmission of life force to the deceased chieftain.