Germanic peoples, both in the form of prietesses and diviners. Both Tacitus and Eiríks saga rauða mention the seeress prophesying from a raised platform, while Eiríks saga rauða also mentions the use of a wand. Practices Burial practices Some insight into Germanic religion can be provided by burial customs, which varied widely in time and space but nonetheless show a few consistent practices. The Germanic peoples generally practiced cremation until the first century BCE, when limited inhumation burials begin to appear. The ashes were usually placed in an urn, but the use of pits, mounds, and cases when the ashes were left on the pyre after cremation are also known. In Viking Age Scandinavia, as much as half the population may not have received any grave, with their ashes scattered or their bodies unburied. Grave goods, which might be broken and placed in the grave or burnt on the pyre with the body, included clothing, jewelry, food, drink, dishes, and utensils. Beginning in the early 1st century CE, a minority of graves also included weapons. On the continent, inhumation burial becomes the most common form of burial among the southern Germanic peoples by the end of the migration period, while cremation remains more common in Scandinavia. In the Migration period and Merovingian period, the grave was often reopened and these grave gifts removed, either as grave robbery or as part of an authorized removal. By the Merovingian period, most male burials include weapons. Often, urns were covered with stones and then surrounded by circles of stones. The urns of the dead were often placed in a mortuary house, which may have served as a cultic structure. Cemeteries might be placed around or reuse old Bronze Age barrows, and later placed near Roman ruins and roads, possibly to ease the passing of the dead into the afterlife. Some graves included burials of horses and dogs; horses may have been meant as conveyances to the afterlife. Burials with dogs are found over a wide area through the migration period; it is possible that they were meant either to protect the deceased in the afterlife or to prevent the return of the dead as a revenant. After 1 CE, inhumation burials in large burial mounds with wooden or stone grave chambers, which contained expensive grave goods and were separate from the normal cemeteries, begin to appear across the entire Germanic area. By the