Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Blaðsíða 85

Færeyinga saga, chapter forty
93
concluded that the prophylactic intention was predominant
in the use of the hurdle or related forms of wickerwork,1)
comparable to the later common practice of driving a stake
through the body.2)
Various other burial practices are designed to dissuade
or prevent the dead from returning from the grave. Some<
times the intention is clearly to put a barrier of more or
less complexity in the way of the dead. Thus the corpse
may be shrouded in a net or a piece of net may be inclu*
ded in the grave*goods. If there is particular fear of the
malevolent propensity of the dead, the grave may be plan*
ted with or surrounded by thorníbushes of some kind.3)
In Silesia in the early eighteenth century the graves of
women who died in childbirth were surrounded by »Ge<=
gitter«, lattice»work fencing, to ensure that they stayed quiet.
Various other kinds of barrier are known, some spread net=
like over the graves, some built like walls around them.4)
Not dissimilar practices may spring from necrophilic
motives but they seem rare in comparison with cases where
the necrophobic element predominates.5)
') F. Stróm, On the sactal origin of the Germanic death penalties (1942),
188. Strom, 187, refers to a custom which forbade the use of nails in
a suiciđe’s coffin: the boards were fastened together with withes. His
source for the practice in north Sweden is L. Hagberg, Nar ddden
gastar (1937), 501, but it was also known in west Norway, cf. Halldor
O. Opedal, Makter og menneske. Folkeminne ifrá Hardanger II (Norsk
folkeminnelag nr. 32, 1934), 208. This may be too remote to be rele«
vant, but it would be odd if the knotted withes were reckoned more
of an obstacle than nails of iron and the custom might contain a remb
niscence of early methods of fixing the dead.
2) See e. g. A. Sandklef, ‘Om den nedpálade dóde i ságen och fynd’,
Folkminnen och folkiankar 24 (1937), 72—87.
3) Hwb. 1 986—7, III 1095; H. Rosen, Livets højtider (Nordisk Kul*
tur XX, N. D ), 95.
*) Hwb. I 985-7, 989.
5) The grindr which King Sverrir had put around the grave of
Magnús Erlingsson in Christchurch, Bergen, were apparently counted
a contribution to his honourable entombment, see Sverris saga, ch. 97