Viking boats and funerals

I didn’t have time to say much about viking boats and the viking’s funerals in yesterday’s blip with our memorial viking boat for Peter….modern movies based on sagas and stories have popularized the notion of putting a boat with the deceased out to sea and then shooting flaming arrows at the sails so it burns up.  And there are contemporary folks who want that to happen to them.   Hard to know exactly what happened in the 9th and 10 centuries without written testimonies but there was very little off anything like that..   A body might be burned in a boat on land with all the things they might need in the next life. And then that buried in a shallow grave.  And there are many gravesites in the nordic world covered with stones  the shapes of boats, with or without boats underground.    Not sure how we got started , (probably the 1958 Viking movie with Kirk Douglas?))  but we have been asked specifically if we’d do this.…one person we didn't know.    We do put a little tea light candle on it but it’s mostly all natural materials…perhaps a few nails and a little string…and a picture if we have one. Nothing to cause trouble in the sea.     I’ve found it’s very meaningful for people and an easy situation on the beach to talk about them.  Many times it’s just the two of us if we can’t go to a proper funeral.   And then we worry whether the boat’s going to go out or capsize.    These 2  photos are from last night. but I want them recorded .. …it was dead calm and we didn’t know how far it would get.   But I saw that candle lit up from our deck making progress before I went to bed (9:20) and Cathy looked all over the beach this morning …no boat to be seen… think it went out to trincomali channel, the tide would pick up after the first turning when not much happens.   

Cathy left this morning. It was a lovely time.    We needed slow and quiet today.  It actually rained a few drops… 

Hope this link works....  
 think we need to see season 3 of The vikings:Valhalla on Netflix ...