Editing Fólkvangr (section)

===Stone ships and Proto-Germanic afterlife location===
In a 2012 paper, Joseph S. Hopkins and Haukur Þorgeirsson propose a connection between Fólkvangr, Sessrúmnir, and numerous [[stone ship]]s found throughout Scandinavia. According to Hopkins and Haukur, Fólkvangr and Sessrumir together paint an image of a ship and a field, which has broader implications and may connect Freyja to the [["Isis" of the Suebi]]:
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Perhaps each source has preserved a part of the same truth and Sessrúmnir was conceived of as both a ship and an afterlife location in Fólkvangr. 'A ship in a field' is a somewhat unexpected idea, but it is strongly reminiscent of the stone ships in Scandinavian burial sites. 'A ship in the field' in the mythical realm may have been conceived as a reflection of actual burial customs and vice versa. It is possible that the symbolic ship was thought of as providing some sort of beneficial property to the land, such as good seasons and peace brought on by Freyr’s mound burial in ''Ynglinga saga''.

Evidence involving ships from the pre-Christian period and from folklore may be similarly re-examined with this potential in mind. For example, if Freyja is taken as a possessor of a ship, then this ship iconography may lend support to positions arguing for a connection between a Vanir goddess and the "Isis" of the Suebi, who is associated with ship symbolism in Tacitus’s ''Germania''. Afterlife beliefs involving strong nautical elements, and, separately, afterlife fields, have been identified in numerous Indo-European cultures …"<ref name="HOPKINS-HAUKUR-14-17">Hopkins and Haukur (2012:14-17).</ref>
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Hopkins and Haukur additionally propose a connection between Fólkvangr and a variety of other Germanic words referring to the afterlife that contain extensions of Proto-Germanic *''wangaz'', including Old English ''[[Neorxnawang]]'', potentially pointing to an early Germanic '''*wangaz'' of the dead'.<ref name="HOPKINS-HAUKUR-14-17"/>