A Viking Funeral

Yet, another sterling example of the totally whacko ideas that my mind can come up with after a few drinks. They always seem quite brilliant at the time, and can often be so funny they can reduce grown people to tears (not always of joy admittedly).

Following on from my post on Big Blogger 2007, here is the tale of the demise and funeral of my pet rabbit, Tufty.

So, one morning, I went out to feed the rabbit and find that to be a quite pointless task. He is no more, an ex-rabbit or put more simply he is dead. I decided to postpone the disposal of the body as I had prior arrangements to meet some friends for a drink or seven. Fortunately, the town where I was living was quite small but, for some bizarre reason had eleven pubs. Plenty for a comfortable pub crawl.

I met with the guys at the arranged first, and having been greeted by the usual "Alright S" was then asked why I was looking so glum. I explained about the rabbit and they listened in silence. One of the guys, who is nearly as mental as I am then stunned everyone, especially the little old dears, who were eating their lunch, by standing up on the table and shouting at the top of his voice - "ALRIGHT EVERYONE - SHUT THE FUCK UP" - a silence fell across the pub and everyone turned to see what the commotion was.

"A toast to Tufty - the greatest rabbit to have lived !!".

Madness like this is easy to get caught up in so we all stood and chorused "TO TUFTY" and clinked our glasses together. The rest of the lunchtime was spent discussing ways to give Tufty a fitting send off. They ranged from the lunatic, tying him to a large firework, to the pitifully boring little burial. I dismissed them all, he was still my rabbit in memory and it had to be fitting.

Several pints later I had a brainwave. "I know" I said "It needs to be a Viking funeral". I then had to explain the process of building a funeral pyre and setting it to sea, sending a warrior to Valhalla. There is a river that runs through the centre of town and that would suffice as a pathway to Bunnyhalla. There was silence as the guys paused to register this which was eventually broken by "That is fucking brilliant".

It started to get more complex because as we moved from pub to pub, the tale of the Viking Funeral was getting there before us. More and more people came up and wanted to know what time would it be, what should they bring etc. As more and more drinks flowed, my plan became more elaborate. I would need some people to light candles on either side of the river to guide the way. It would have to be at midnight, I would have to be on my own to launch him.

After closing time I went home thinking everyone would have forgotten about this. Nope. 11.45 pm and there's a knock on my door. "S, you're not gonna believe this but there's about 50 people there already" - "Oh Fuck" I replied. I hastily went outside and fashioned a raft from the now useless hutch, grabbed a can of petrol and placing Tufty's by now, stiff little body on the raft walked to the river. As I looked downstream I could see the candles lining the bank and people milling about on the bridge.

Too late to back out now I thought. I doused petrol on the raft, a little too much I know but this was not something I'd rehearsed. Placed the raft on the river and quickly threw a lit match on it. There was a large WOOF and flames shot about 5 foot high. However, Tufty began his journey down the river to Bunnyhalla, flanked by people raising cans of beer and toasting as he went by.

I'd like to think he's now kicking ass in Bunnyhalla having been imbued with the spirits of the Gods.