Viking Mummy Chicken Funeral

We had a Viking funeral. For a mummified chicken.

You actually did read that right.

See, some kids at the library had a project for class involving mummification. They were to take a chicken from the supermarket, immerse it in salt, spices, and a few other things, and it would mummify. Then, they were to carefully wrap the chicken--now chicken jerky, or rather, chicken mummy jerky, and then they would be done.

But the problem with that project was that at the end, you have a mummified chicken in your house. Or garage, I don't know where they kept King Cluck. Yes. The chicken's name was King Cluck.

Now, I am a weird adult. And before I was a weird adult, I was a much weirder kid. When I heard the story of King Cluck, I thought it was the coolest project ever, and I wished I could have been in on the mummification process, because it sounded awesome. But I am not a student anymore (weeps quietly), so I don't get to have fun.

EXCEPT.

One of the kids ( you don't get names, because privacy), suggested that instead of putting King Cluck in the trash, or leaving him on a shelf in the house for ages, eventually abandoning the mummy in the house for future owners to discover, perhaps behind a wall or wedged into a rafter, that they should give the mummy a Viking funeral.

The chicken got lots of swag for the afterlife. I got to fish it all out of the river after the kids went home. Totally worth the cold.

Now, this has all kinds of history points, because it means that instead of just doing a project on Egyptian history, now they could do Viking. And they did research. They learned a lot about Viking history and funeral rites. They learned everything except horrific things they used to do with the Thrall they sent off with the dead king into the afterlife. I don't just mean killing her.

Some of that water was frozen. Also I discovered that my right boot leaks.

The only problem was that they wanted to send King Cluck off in a boat and set the boat aflame. They had no place to do this.

FIRE.

I invited them over.

One of those balloons popped half a second after we took this picture.

I made them an awesome scroll that I aged in the oven, which I wrapped up and sealed. And then we walked down to the river and put King Cluck in his homemade raft, complete with Thrall (egg from the grocery, therefore not murdered for this ceremony), food, and other stuff to use in the afterlife, and we set the thing alight. It went downstream for a while, sunk, and I assume mummy King Cluck is now in Valhalla, very confused by the entire experience.

I used a stick to push it out to the current, and then it headed downstream.

Now, either the kids will have a better understanding of history OR they will never be able to eat chicken again. Or barbecue.