Where do you get the idea that 'most Vikings almost wanted to die' from?

All of our literary evidence indicates that not dying was the plan for most Scandinavian warriors, but if they were in a situation where they were going to die, the heroic ones are almost always depicted as accepting it stoically and without fear. See, for example, Gunnars death in Njáls saga, Þórolfs in Egils saga, Egils death as well, and basically the deaths of every major heroic figure in the Íslendingasögur