There was drinking in the seven days before they cremated their daughter. Dagmar stayed in the room that had once been Guthrun and Sigfried’s but was now hers and Erik’s. Erik did not disturb her. He assumed she did not want the people to see her red-eyed and weeping. Children died all the time. It was no use weeping over them. But most people had others or the hope of others. Dagmar had given up hope for another child. Her daughter was her life.
During the days, the men cut down wood and built the funeral pyre. They built it outside the city in a place where many had been cremated before. They laid long pieces of wood parallel to each other, then others at right angles to those. They continued to build the pyre until it reached four feet in height.
Erik supervised the building of the fu
