The Vikings' Voyage to Eternity Since the Merovingian Age, during the postRoman era of the 6th7th centuries AD, Norsemen have been associated with ships— for trade, exploration, and war. No aspect of Viking culture was entirely separate from the influence of ships, including their view of death. In fact, kings and heroes, believing that they would sail to the other world after death, had themselves buried in their ships. This is proved by the epics and sagas which tell of the heroic deeds of the Vikings, many of which have survived to our own day. The greatest details regarding early Scandinavian history, including the custom of ship burial, come from the writings of the Icelandic chronicler Snorri Sturluson, who composed the Heimskringla (History of the Kings of Norway) .sometime between AD 1220 and 1235, plus numerous other works. Although much is lost in modern translations, the original poetry of the sagas remains on many levels, and historians are ever grateful to their predecessor for his attention to detail. For about four centuries, the sagas and legends were elaborate in their portrayal of ships. Documentation, of course, may have been added some untrue details for the sake of a good story. In addition to the legends, there is visible evidence of the influence of ships and the sea in Viking lore (口头流传的知识), as a number of ship burials have been discovered in the past two centuries. Therefore, we can use both the archaeological and the literary evidence to piece together a small window into the world of the Vikings. It is particularly interesting that the ships that do remain to this day were buried on land, an intriguing practice which, due to its pagan(异教徒) implications, died out soon after the Viking con version(皈依) to Christianity. Boat burials, in combination with sagas, indicate that Viking activity, whether trading or raiding, de pended upon reliable ships to sail, and without them the longer sea crossings that we know to have occurred would have been impossible. The voyages that had become commonplace in the 9th century would have been unthinkable 100 years earlier. The Vikings treated their mortal warriors with as much respect as their Gods, and this is evident in Norse mythology, particularly with the tale of Balder. This god of light was killed by a 'dart of mistletoe' thrown by tile mischievous Loki, resulting in 'the greatest misfortune ever to befall gods and men'. Balder was given a luxurious ship burial as recorded in the Prose Edda. Epics and sagas were tales of pride and grandeur. Naval power, perfected early by Norsemen, had an exceptional place in these tales, and continued to be used in Christian narratives after the Conversion. There is not a great deal in the way of illustrated evidence for the earliest period of boat building by the Nordic people, but the record does increase from about the 11th century AD until the end of the Viking era. There is also literary evidence, present in many heroic sagas, of the abundance of Viking exploration and acquisition of land, beginning in about the 9th century. The most valuable evidence, however, undoubtedly comes from archaeology. In archaeological terms, the survival of a boat burial depends entirely upon the soil in which it was buried. For example, soil that surrounded the early 7th century AD find at Ladby is highly acidic, thus all that remained of the original vessel were the rivets(铆钉) in a ghostly outline. Nevertheless, this and other finds, allows us to determine how the ships were made. The Nydam boat, found in 1863 in Southern Jutland, dates from the fifth century and is a former form. of the characteristic long boat associated with the height of the Viking period. Previously, ships had been designed for both trading and warfare, but the Nydam boat, measuring 76ft overall, shows characteristics that indicate that it was built primarily as a warship. This tre