Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.2010, Page 210

ORÐ Í BELG UM ÍSLENSKA KUMLHESTINN OG UPPRUNA HANS 209
Summary
Horse is the most common grave good in Icelandic Viking Age graves, and appears
to be more common in Iceland than in any other part of the Old Norse world. This
most evident characteristic of the grave custom has not been given much thought
by scholars but more often explained away as an incidental and meaningless trait
ref lecting the general poorness and simplicity of the corpus. In an article on the
Icelandic horse in 1981 Eldjárn proclaimed that the abundance of horses in Icelandic
graves could most likely be explained by the large quantity of horses from early on
in the settlement, which had made it economically favourable to deposit them in the
graves with the dead (Eldjárn 1981: 4). More recently, a similar opinion has been
expressed by Vésteinsson (2000: 170).
Horses, however, appear in all types of graves in Iceland – rich and poor, with men
and women, old and young. The fact that horses are present in most “rich” as well as
well armed graves may indicate that there was a stronger correlation between higher
status and possession of horses, while still exhibiting a relatively “egalitarian” pattern
of accompaniment. The horses most often accompany a human being, resting either in
the grave’s foot end or in a grave separated from the human grave with a small barrier.
In these cases the proximity, or even physical relation, between the two is such that
they can not possibly be viewed separately – but rather as one being. In other instances
horses are buried in completely detached graves, although located on burial grounds
with human graves. In many cases the horses are, moreover, accompanied with their
own grave goods, saddles or other equipment. In short, it is argued, horses are buried
alongside humans, among humans and as humans.
Therefore, taken seriously as an important aspect of the grave custom, horses may
indicate something more than mere economic conditions or causes. The horse is
a powerful and recurring symbol or metaphor in the Old Norse symbolic language.
They appear in the written sources, in the mythology as well as in the different styles
of ornament and decoration. This paper suggests that the horse-in-the-grave, or the
“kumlhestur” should be read as part of this same sign language, where the animal
is found in different relations to other beings and things, appearing not only as a
powerful individual but also as a recognized and important symbol.
Generally the presence of horses as well as boats in graves is interpreted as the
symbolical expressions or metaphor for the conception of death as a journey between
the world of the living and the world of the dead. As the only vehicle of transport in
Viking Age Iceland, apart from the boat, it is not hard to imagine that the horse was
the ultimate symbol for the passage between life and death. However, according to its
mythological representation the horse does not only symbolize the passage between
opposing spheres – it is itself of a supernatural or liminal nature. Its presence in death
rituals may thus have been of vital importance and its presentation in the grave – in
relation to other constituents of the grave collective – may have signalized far more
complex relations than the mere passage from life to death.