Shetland Folk-Lore
ants. Many of them probably belong to a more remote past, but some must have been raised over Vikings who fell in fight, or who, thinking themselves unlucky in this, died a “straw death.” When the body was buried uncremated in ancient times, it must have been, in most cases, placed in a bent position with the knees raised up, as the cists are usually from three to four feet in length. The barrows are said to be modelled on the primitive house, and in them the Norsemen believed the dead to dwell. The family tomb was usually near the homestead, and at its side the patriarch sat to learn wisdom from the ancestral spirit buried within.
In the Sagas many stories are told of great and terrible sights witnessed at some of the howes. One of these is found in the Eyrbyggja Saga. It tells of the apparition seen on the death of Thorstein Codbiter, who was drowned about the year 938. He was the son of Rolf, one of the
early settlers in Iceland, a great friend of
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