This story is based on the burial traditions of the rus people (around the 900s) as these were described by the Arab ambassador and traveller Ahmad Ibn Fadlan. Although this is the only comprehensive description of the funeral traditions of Viking-related tribes it is far from a perfect source. Fadlan was openly biased against the rus people and had no understanding of their language or their tradition. All his information, although firsthand, was conveyed through an interpreter and at the time people in that role tended to be unreliable in their accuracy.
As a result, this story has a lot of blind spots that have been supplemented through more unreliable sources about the human relationships and behaviors of the Viking people.
Even though I tried my best to keep the story historically accurate and true to life, I am a person living in the 21st century writing about people who lived more than a thousand years ago, with no good accounts of their culture, society, and tradition.
Nothing from this story should be taken as historically accurate.
The sad reality is that we do not know what the Vikings did or did not, but I tried my best with the information that is accepted as accurate from the modern historians at the time of my research.
For these reasons, I will ask you, dear reader, to enjoy this story for what it is, disassociating it from the reality of the people that it portrays.
Enjoy
~ Timedemon
YOU ARE READING
A viking funeral
Ficción históricaA short gay romance/drama based around the burial traditions of the late viking tribes. I was inspired by the fantasy of the viking funeral, which made me go down the rabbit hole of the real viking burial traditions.
