Odin's Whisper Death and the Vikings

Odin's Whisper provides the first full treatment of this subject, giving an in-depth account that uses the stories of Norse mythology and the most recent archaeological evidence to draw a vivid picture of the Viking mind. Neil Price contextualizes their understanding of death within the Ragnarök, the immense battle of living and dead, gods and humans that would ultimately consume all the world in fire, to illustrate that the Vikings' conception of the afterlife was only ever viewed as a respite before this ultimate end. The violence and extravagance that marked their conception of the afterlife equally informed their funeral practice, as Price illustrates with blood-curdling contemporary accounts of the sacrifices and rapes that occasionally marked Viking burial.