Originally Posted by butterflywing

the vikings laid you out on a beautiful boat with all your personal belongings, set fire to the boat and pushed you out to sea, where they believed you would spend eternity surrounded by all your stuff in the next life.

i could be laid down on a cruise-ship with all my fabric, notions, machines, and what-all and also set out to sea. burning. the stuff i own would fill every room on the ship, and the flames would be seen around the world. people all over would believe (a) a meteorite had landed, or (b) armageddon had arrived (c) an enormous lava flow was eating up the world or (d) we should have paid more attention to global warming.