Open-air cremation

On 24-26th March 2009 the Royal Courts of Justice in London will review Britain's cremation laws and decide whether Baba Davender Kumar Ghai deserves the legal right to a Hindu religious cremation on an open air funeral pyre.

I know several Pagans who would like an open-air funeral pyre, so I think we should support this campaign. If it uses too much wood, this could always be offset by planting more trees (I'm willing to bet that it is more environmentally friendly than most crematoria). Other than the possible environmental impact, this doesn't harm anyone else.

Also, gas-fired crematoria use a huge amount of gas.

Anglo-Asian Friendship Society funeral pyre campaign (you can register your support by filling in the comment box on this page)

The pioneer of the revival of cremation in Britain was William Price, an eighteenth century Druid.

Some ancient pagans also cremated their dead, probably for similar reasons to Hindus.

I'd quite like my corpse to be pushed out to sea in a burning longship (Viking-style), but failing that, either an open-air cremation or a woodland burial would do. Although a burial mound would be good. I will of course have plenty of grave-goods for future archaeologists to examine. Maybe I should be buried in acid-free soil so they can examine my bones and analyse them.

The Vikings' burning question

You see, they were sensitive types really...

clipped from www.timesonline.co.uk The Vikings' burning question: some decent graveside theatre The average Viking lived a life in which spirituality and thoughts of immortality played a far more important part than the rape and pillage more usually associated with his violent race, according to new research. A study of thousands of excavated Viking graves suggests that rituals were performed at the graveside in which stories about life and death were presented as theatre, with live performances designed to help the passage of the deceased from this world into the next.

Vikings were looking for wives

So apparently the Vikings were just looking for a bit of cosy domesticity.

clipped from dsc.discovery.com During the Viking Age from the late eighth to the mid-eleventh centuries, Scandinavians tore across Europe attacking, robbing and terrorizing locals. According to a new study, the young warriors were driven to seek their fortunes to better their chances of finding wives. The odd twist to the story, said researcher James Barrett, is that it was the selective killing of female newborns that led to a shortage of Scandinavian women in the first place, resulting later in intense competition over eligible women. "Selective female infanticide was recorded as part of pagan Scandinavian practice in later medieval sources, such as the Icelandic sagas," Barrett, who is deputy director of Cambridge University's McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, told Discovery News.

Hat tip to wiccantexan