 Okay, so yes, as said, I'm not actually an archaeologist. I was approached by Duncan Sayer, of course it is, and he asked me a very simple question which is how are swords and burials depicted in the literature? What kind of evidence for it survives and what does it suggest? So far it's not really clear actually how this evidence relates to the archaeological evidence, but it seems to me that there must be a relationship. I know that Neil Price has been a little bit skeptical about that, but I think that there must be a relationship and that it's worth exploring what that is. And if the evidence doesn't coincide, then it strikes me that that's an interesting thing to explore as well. Literature of course is rather difficult to use as evidence, but if it's well analyzed it can actually be quite reliable. Unlike annals or chronicles, exactly what has just been said, which are always written by someone who is specifically trying to convince you of something. They've sat down to write this account to convince you. Somebody who is writing a poem or composing a poem, they should say, is only really trying to entertain their audience. And it's only an effective poem if it makes sense in terms of the audience's cultural assumptions. So there are surprisingly few depictions of swords in burials in Anglo-Saxon literature. There are lots of swords in battles of course. The most detailed source is Beowulf, which is now being reasonably reliably dated to the late 7th century linguistically. And I should say too that although Beowulf is set in the past, there is reason to believe that the poem is depicting more or less contemporary Anglo-Saxon England. If you have questions about that, ask me later. Beowulf includes the descriptions of three funerals, All of Warriors, Shield, Hilleburg's Kin and Beowulf himself, each of which famously display different funerary practices. Interestingly, there is nothing to suggest in the text that the poet thinks that this is unusual, or that he expects his audience to be surprised by it. Typically, if an author does think his audience will be surprised, he will actually make an explaining comment like we find in Andreas's poem, Andreas were the poet comments on the cannibalism of the Myrmidonians. So I was Theo Heltcher, that was their custom. And if it's an archaic custom, we see the same thing. Be for example, when the reports on the English gathering to listen to traveling clerics in the past says, what's in that teared, they are Anglicunus falcon. That was the custom in England at that time. So Beowulf suggests at least some diversity and interestingly it even offers a clue as to why this might be. In both the cases where the warriors live to be an old age, as opposed to dying unexpectedly, as Hilleburg's Kin do, the poet actually, sorry, the warrior actually gives specific directions for how he wishes his funeral to be. So these are the two funerals of Beowulf and of Sheild. Sheild is placed in a boat, so I hear himself a third and word and welder, as he himself asked when he ruled with words. And Beowulf gives directions to his nephew, we laugh when he's dying, which we laugh then reports back to Beowulf Smith. He says that Beowulf asks that they build a mound in memory of his deeds, which his warriors then do, so I hear myself as he asks. Usually literary scholars interpret the difference in forms as reflecting the difference between pagan and christian burial practice, but intriguingly neither Sheild nor Beowulf make any reference at all to religious beliefs when they're requesting these funerals. Beowulf talks at length about God and he talks about wanting to go to be with his ancestors, but at no point does he say please do this so it will allow me to have, to go to heaven, to make that journey. He only talks about it in terms of what its significance will be in contemporary society, that other people will see it. Obviously I don't want to minimize the role of religion, but there is nothing in the poem that suggests that the preference for these forms is anything other than a personal preference, for whatever that's worth. Okay let's have a look at funerals in the cells. First one is of Sheild. Sheild is the founder of the Sheildings and he is defined by his warrior prowess, so we can assume that this is regarded as an appropriate burial for a warrior. He's laid at the centre of the ship by the mast, famously the same placement as the body in Mount Waumetsatunhu, and grave goods are placed around him. And the poet says there were many treasures from far away ornaments brought, I've not heard of a more beautiful ship adorned with battle weapons, war gear, swords and armour. So while Sheild presumably has a personal sword or sword that has particular significance to him, it's interesting that it doesn't seem to be here among this list. Instead he's interred with several swords, none of which have any distinguished lineage. Throughout Bayer Wolf you get long lineages of swords and as you say they don't have that at all. And they don't seem to hold any particular place among any of the other war gear. Perhaps suggesting this is more an expression of wealth than a reflection of Sheild's warrior status. Instead actually emphasis is given to the fact that Sheild is buried with jewellery from far off places, which the poet seems to regard as a more important sign of his power and his significance while he was alive. So the next one is Hilleberg's kin. This is the funeral of Hilleberg's male relatives. Here there is a feud that rear ups between her father and her husband and in the ensuing battle her son and her brother are killed. The funeral which she orders and designs is an expression of her grief, but also it seems to me of her anger at the conflict. And the poem stresses that she is being treated very badly in this situation. So even though neither warrior expresses a wish for this particular form of funeral, here too it seems to be a ritual which is individual and adapted to specific circumstances. Hilleberg orders a pyre to be built for her brother, Neyf, and then places her son beside him so that they're cremated together. Again whatever the religious elements may be play here they're actually not stressed. Instead the poet focuses on how the pyre allows for the public display of Hilleberg's distress. It's an extraordinary and very moving very violent description actually. It says that you could see the body's being burned and you could see the wounds being ripped open as the pyre started to consume them. You'll also notice that she makes the point of burying the warriors in the clothes they were wearing so you can see the signs of the battle on them. She doesn't put them in beautiful replies as you find them even further, for example. Heads melted open, words wounds boast open, blood gushed out and the body's hate bites. Fire swallowed everything, the previous guest, those who were taken in battle from both sides. So this too is obviously a warrior funeral and here there's actually no interest in, certainly no interest in mentioning swords but no interest actually in mentioning any part of the grave. So finally we have Beowulf's funeral. This, the description of the funeral takes up most of the last section of the poem and it actually takes up a lot more space than any of Beowulf's actual battles. So that perhaps gives you some sense of how important the poet thought it was. As Beowulf was dying he gives Willough instructions for his funeral which Willough takes back to the war band and these instructions are the very first thing that he tells them, not anything about the nature of Beowulf's last battle or his death or anything. He tells him how Beowulf wants to be buried. Beowulf is actually given two sets of grave goods, neither of which include swords of any description. The first set is cremated with him. His pyre is decorated with helmets and shields, bright baronies as he had requested and then the remains are buried in a barrow. They laid rings and broaches in the barrow and all such ornaments. So consequently in this burial the jewellery would be the most visible aspect, at least as it's imagined here. Aside from the evidence of funerals there's also the broader issue of the cultural significance assigned to swords in Beowulf. Here war gear and especially swords tend to be passed on. Swords are consistently referred to as heirlooms and celebrated for their age. They're referred to as El Le Laf, Gomera Laf, El Swerd, Gomera Swerd, Er Laf. So Laf is actually a word that just means heirloom but in poetry you can use it to mean sword. If you say Laf it is quite clear that you mean a sword. So again the emphasis is on passing it on. And in fact when Beowulf is dying the thing that he says is I wish I had a son to leave my war gear to. His people are about to be wiped out so there are other things that maybe would be more important for his son to take on at this point but the thing that he focuses on is the war gear actually. And similarly when the poet introduces Will Laf the first thing he says is that he took his ancient sword known among men as Airman son of El Laf's heirloom. And then we actually get a little history of this weapon where it says that Will Laf's father, Wilson, held this treasure for many years, the sword and the bernie until his son became a warrior like his old father and then among the yeats he gave him war gear, many of much kind and then left this life. So there's almost a sense that he only really feels comfortable to die when he has had a chance to pass this on. So once again the emphasis is on passing on important weapons not bernie. Here it seems that as I said Wilson is really only content to die once he's done this. And indeed at another point in the poem there's actually a passage where a character buries a range of war gear precisely because he says he no longer has anyone who can carry these things so he has no choice but to bury them. But he speaks as though this is absolutely a kind of a last resort. Unfortunately beyond Beowulf there's not much evidence for burials in the Old English book called this but what does exist corroborates what's found in Beowulf. In more than the Wanderer and even the Battle of Brunenbra references to death or mourning are limited. The Ruin describes the dead as being an earth groth which perhaps suggests information. But the emphasis on old swords we see even right up until 10th century times like more than where when Brithnoth is describing the different kinds of weapons and he's describing their excellence the thing he focuses on in relation to swords is their age but not in relation to any other kind of weapon. Hardly is suggested that part of what makes grave goods valuable is their history the notion that they carry with them memories of great deeds that have been performed by the people who possessed them which seems like a very reasonable theory given this. But interestingly when you do see weapons buried with the dead in the poetry there actually isn't such interest in describing their their histories that's really only something you find with swords that are actually being used at the time. I know Sue Brunning has argued that there's perhaps a deliberate attempt to make swords that are buried seem older than perhaps they really were but there is a deliberate attempt to construct age which again we also see in some of the wills. So to conclude what the literary evidence reveals is that funerals were personal and the particular details of each especially in relation to grave goods seemed to have affected the wishes of the person or their family an idea that perhaps makes some sense of a very wide variety of practices that require them.