The materials for forming an estimate of the typical character of the burials of the Viking time in Norway are ample, and they have been very fully described by the Norwegian archæologists. Upwards of a thousand graves of this period are known. The form of burial which they exhibit is burial with grave-goods. The burial is usually covered by a mound, either round or oblong in shape. The mounds vary greatly in size, but they differ from those of the early Iron Age, and of all previous ages, in being usually unfurnished with either cist or chamber. Stones are often found set round the burial, which, when the body was unburnt, was simply laid on the natural surface, and the mound heaped over it. In Norway the custom of burning the body exceeds in frequency the custom of burying unburnt by about four to one. Where the body has been burnt it is usually found that the grave-goods have also passed through the fire, but this is not always the case. The burnt remains are either found spread over the area of the base of the mound or gathered together in a heap in the centre. Very frequently they are found placed in an urn. The urns of the Viking time are very rarely made of clay, but are either hollowed out of some soft stone, such as steatite, or they are caldrons made of thin plates of iron riveted together, or beaten out in bronze. The grave-goods buried with these interments include the clothing, weapons, implements, or ornaments used or possessed by the deceased, and the furnishings of the grave are thus rich in proportion to the wealth and station of the individual. [Illustration: Fig. 27.—Sword found at Vik, in Norway.] The sword which is characteristic of these interments in Norway is a peculiar weapon. It is long, broad-bladed, often double-edged, and usually furnished with a short, straight guard and a triangular pommel. One which was ploughed up from a grave-mound at Vik, in Flaa Sogn in Norway, in 1837, is shown in Fig. 27 for comparison with those of the same type found in Scotland. I have said that we have no Celtic sword of this type. It is the type which prevailed in Scandinavia during the last three centuries of their heathen period. It differs from the types that preceded and succeeded it in Norway, and it differs also from the types of swords of the later Iron Age in other countries of Europe. It is specially the sword of the Norwegian Viking.