Have you ever had the thought that the idea of simply putting your body to rest in a standard coffin wasn't enough, but rather, you'd prefer to quite literally go out in a blaze of glory in a traditional Viking funeral where your shrouded body is set afloat on a boat and then set on fire via flaming arrow until you burn to ash? Well before you put that in your will, you should probably take a look at why your Viking funeral is most likely not (read: definitely not) going to happen any time soon.
1. That's not actually a traditional Viking funeral
Yeah, sadly, most people have gotten swept up in the myths, legends, wishful thinking, and Hollywood portrayals of such Viking funerals from movies like "First Knight, Van Helsing, Shrek III, The 13th Warrier, V for Vendetta, Conan, and It Runs in the Family, or shows like Vikings." First off, one's boat was super expensive to make and extremely valuable even after death. It would be like dying and having everyone burn your house and your car down even though you still had wife/husband and kids who lived there or needed to use it. You just wouldn't do it. Most likely that 100 foot boat would pass on to your son or other male relative/Viking. It was however true, that some well to do wealthy Vikings and royalty were buried in the ground in their boats with their worldly goods.
2. It's more like a land based blaze of glory
The average Viking would have been sent to the Valhalla on the funeral pyre. In the cold winter months, it was too difficult to dig into the ground, so bodies were burned above ground on a funeral pyre. Vikings believed that you needed the wind to carry your ash, aka, your soul, on to Valhalla. But the reality was, after your body had burned to ash, it would have been too difficult to sort your ash out from the wood to even get it out to a boat at sea. Barring the funeral pyre, more than likely you would have been buried in a mound above ground.
3. We have laws, for your sake and mine, that thankfully regulate human disposal
Imagine if everyone was like, let's bury Dad at sea or cremate sister in the backyard. You'd have people just rolling up to the beach front with bodies and boats or potentially burning down the neighborhood and trying to do it on the cheap with some gasoline and a lighter. Not a pretty sight and might I add, when a body burns, there is a lot of soot, and pathogens that can potentially be released in the air, not to mention the burning wood/fire risks, and the smell of a burning body which no one needs to smell.
4. ...but even more disturbing
Is the fact that in order to cremate a body, it needs a temperature of at least 1800 degrees F, and it takes about 2 hours for an average sized body to burn to ash, not to mention someone who is larger in size needing longer. A wood fire, in the open air, over water, can only ever hope to reach about 1300-1400 degrees F which would mean, your flesh would burn off, but bones, and organs and various other bits of you wouldn't which then means, seagulls, ocean life, river life, what have you, are swooping down and feasting on you, and everything they don't get is most likely going to wash back up on shore for some 5 year old to find whilst trying to fetch some sand to build her sandcastle. You can only imagine the tourism board, or humanity in general frowning upon the idea of finding a few of your fingers or an ear on the shore.
5. Okay so what about that traditional funeral pyre, can you still do that at least?
Yes, sort of. There is literally only one place, just one place, in the whole of the United States where you can cremate a body by law on an open funeral pyre. It's located in Crestone, Colorado. It costs about $425 to do...BUT....they only do 12 of them a year because the town did not want every single person with dreams of some crazy Viking funeral, to just go to the town for kicks, so they've restricted it to only allowing locals to participate, and only 12 are done a year.
6. But, like, I can still be buried at sea without all the fire and boats right?
You can.......but it's super freaking difficult and expensive and most likely not going to happen. A burial of your full body at sea is going to run you about 25K to 30K minimum. You see, as in the above, where you light your body aflame, no one wants your entire body now, not cremated, washing up on shore, or at someone's lake house so we have laws that say for full body sea burial or even the dusting of ashes in the water, you must be basically a hell of a long way off shore (at least 3 miles for ashes except for in CA) which means, start by adding up the costs to get you out there to the depth required to legally do so, transport fees, legal documents, etc.
Second, funeral directors are not going to release a body to a sea captain. It's got to go through proper licensed channels, so there's that. And then since we have EPA (environmental laws) you cannot dispose of a body that has been embalmed, so that means, you have about a 2 day window where you'd need to get the body out there quick, and thanks to many many maaannnnyyy legal hoops about who, where, why, and how a body can be disposed of, most likely, you're not going to get approval in time to do so. Luckily if you were in the Navy as a former active-duty member, retiree or honorably discharged veteran, they provide burial at sea services for free, but they cannot be attended by civilians.
7. I'm just going to have someone do it anyway
Long story short, don't. If you are caught breaking maritime laws, burning fires, boats, bodies at sea, destroying property, breaking environmental and human disposal laws, breaking state/county laws...it will not end well for whomever decides to try an honor your crazy wishes. These laws aren't in place, just to keep you from having a fake Viking funeral, they are there because we tend to frown, as a society, on the idea of your human remains polluting, infecting, or washing up in places that they really don't need to be. You can still be cremated, and your ashes set adrift in the ocean, but leave the Hollywood Viking funeral to the imagination.
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