“Odin enacted the same laws in his land as had formerly prevailed with the Asar. Thus he ordered that all dead men should be burned, and on their pyre should be placed their property. He said thus: that with the same amount of wealth should they come to Valhalla as they had on the pyre; that they should also enjoy what they had themselves buried in the ground. But the ashes should be thrown into the sea or buried in the earth; that over great men mounds should be raised, as memorials; and over men who had some manfulness _bautasteinar_ should be erected, and this custom was observed for a long time” (Ynglinga Saga, c. 8). “It was the custom of powerful men, whether kings or jarls, at that time to learn warfare and win wealth and fame; that property should not be counted with the inheritance, nor should sons get it after fathers, but it should be placed in the mound with themselves” (Vatnsdæla, 21). “The first age is called the age of burning; then all dead men were burned and bautastones raised after them. But after Frey had been mound-laid at Uppsalir many chiefs raised mounds as well as bautastones to the memory of their kinsmen. Afterwards King Dan the Proud had his own mound made, and bade that he and also his horse with the saddle on and much property should be carried to it when dead in king’s state and in war-dress. Many of his kinsmen did the same afterwards, and the mound-age began in Denmark. But the burning age lasted a long time after that with the Northmen and the Swedes” (Prologue of Heimskringla). “The first age was the one when all dead men were to be burnt. Then the mound-age began when all powerful men were laid in mounds and all common people buried in the ground” (St. Olaf’s Saga. Prologue). [Illustration: Fig. 746.—Largest pavement of pyre, 33 feet in diameter.—Broholm, Fyen, Denmark. ] As we read the Sagas we get a vivid and impressive idea of the grand and solemn pageant that must have taken place when the body of a great warrior was put on the funeral pile, and his companions in arms, relatives or former foes bid him happy speed to Valhalla, as the flames ascended high up towards the sky, or the ship sailed from the land in a lurid blaze, while the purifying fire was consuming the corpse. Then followed the ceremony of carefully gathering the charred bones, which were sacredly preserved in an urn or valuable vessel.[190] The first duty to the dead was to close the eyes and mouth and pinch together the nostrils, which ceremony was called _nabjargir_.