In his book The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy, Ronald Hutton tends to agree with Franks analysis: The hitherto notorious rite of the Blood Eagle, the killing of a defeated warrior by pulling up his ribs and lungs through his back, has been shown to be almost certainly a Christian myth resulting from the misunderstanding of some older verse. The give-and-take nature of the pairs collaboration with Luke John Murphy, a historian of religion at the University of Iceland, proved eminently fruitful, with the different perspectives of history and medicine pushing the scholars in unexpected ways. Real Executions Downplayed in Film and TV, Execution and Infamy in 18th Century Britain, Details About The Blood Eagle, One Of History's Most Nightmarish Torture Methods. The Earl made a blood eagle be cut on his back with the sword, and had his ribs severed from the back-bone, and his lungs pulled out.". Gruesome Viking "blood eagle" ritual is anatomically possible, study finds But victims would have died long before the torturous execution concluded. The work of scholars is to understand how this violence fit into a complex societyand a new study does just that. If you purchase an item through these links, we receive a commission. In each of the extant nine accounts, the victim is captured in battle and has an eagle of some sort carved into their back. But What is it, Really. The blood eagle is described as a sacrifice to the Norse god Odin, who is referenced throughout the Vikings series. 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The blood eagle is referred to by the 11th-century poet Sigvatr rarson, who, some time between 1020 and 1038, wrote a skaldic verse named Kntsdrpa[9] that recounts and establishes Ivar the Boneless as having killed lla and subsequently cutting his back. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. See more at profgabriele.com. However, the victim inevitably would have died from shock and blood loss very early on in the process, so the final fluttering of the lungs is likely poetic license. Her videos about dinosaurs, astrophysics, biodiversity and evolution appear in museums and science centers worldwide, earning awards such as the CINE Golden Eagle and the Communicator Award of Excellence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br-eCy6wG14 The Ritual Behind The Blood Eagle King Aella was not the last royal to face the blood eagle. In the 1970s Alfred Smyth supported the historicity of the rite, stating that it is clearly human sacrifice to the Norse god Odin. Captors would cut and open large flaps of skin and muscle from their living victim's back and then sever the ribs from the spine, opening the ribs out to the sides to form "wings." "Class War" is Back in the Headlines. Vikings didn't leave many written records behind and the blood eagel is one of those things that leaves no archeological traces. As Murphy explains, The blood eagle plays a prominent role in our early 21st-century constructions of Vikings, which generally favor an [understanding that] violence was commonplace in the Iron Age Nordic region. Thats been the case for quite a while, he adds: The [ritual], as it exists in popular culture today, owes a lot to the attitudes of Victorian scholars who were keen to exaggerate its role in order to emphasize the barbarity of the past and civilized nature of their own time. According to sometranslations of the Viking saga, a less invasive Blood Eagle could be performed by simply carving an eagle with outstretched wings on the victim's naked body; however,for added cruelty, the eviscerating method could be performed from the front. A lively and magisterial popular history that refutes common misperceptions of the European Middle Ages. The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles, "Viking atrocity and Skaldic verse: The Rite of the Blood-Eagle", "Icelandic Sagas and other Historical Documents Relating to the Settlements and Descents of the Northmen on the British Isles VolumeIII The Orkneyinger's Saga", Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages, "An Anatomy of the Blood Eagle: The Practicalities of Viking Torture", "Gruesome Viking "blood eagle" ritual is anatomically possible, study finds: But victims would have died long before the torturous execution concluded", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blood_eagle&oldid=1150810754, This page was last edited on 20 April 2023, at 08:25. And maybe it simply refers to letting the rotting corpse be torn apart and eaten by an actual eagle. In order to perform the full legendary ritual, the executioner would be faced with obstruction from the shoulder blades and deeper back muscles and would hence need to sever the trapezius muscle and the underlying levator scapulae muscle in order to expose the ribs. cut with [an] eagle. Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla contains an account of the same event described in Orkneyinga saga, with Einarr actually performing the deed himself: gkk Einarr jarl til Hlfdanar; hann reist rn baki honum me eima htti, at hann lagi sveri hol vi hrygginn ok reist rifin ll ofan alt lendar, dr ar t lungun; var at bani Hlfdanar. The blood eagle seems to have been a more extreme case of this sort of behaviour conducted only in exceptional circumstances: on a captured prisoner of war who had earlier subjected the. The answer, according to an interdisciplinary team of medical doctors, anatomists and a historian, is a resounding yes. Then we come to various rituals and rites that don't involve reciting sagas and drinking a lot. Others are more graphic, aligning with the extreme versions depicted in contemporary popular culture. The blood eagle was a method of ritually executing a chosen member as detailed in late skaldic poetry. The conventional interpretation of the Blood Eagle stipulates that the shape of an eagle was carved onto the victim's back, after which the skin was pulled back and the ribs were detached from the spine. | Seeing that fullness, that richness of our subjects in the past, allows us to not only better understand them but ourselvesas well. Jennifer Ouellette - 1/10/2022, 11:22 AM. Some references to the torture are terse. So it probably comes as no surprise that the group known as the Vikings gets a new veneer every few years or so. hilmis nefi, of the killer of Sigmund. According to Saxo, the term eagle was used by men who rejoiced in "[crushing] their most ruthless foe by marking him with the cruellest of birds.". A posterior view of the thorax, illustrating some deeper structures encountered while exposing the ribs. Second, the mere act of opening the thoracic cavity from behind would likely weaken or sever several major arteries of the body, and probably deflate the lungs. Such a knife could have been used to cut and peel back the skin and muscle layers for the first part of the blood eagle ritual. Mindy studied film at Columbia University; prior to Live Science she produced, wrote and directed media for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. who dwelt at York, Others note that the early references occurred centuries after Scandinavia had been Christianized and that the Blood Eagle was merely a propagandist myth used by Christians to make the pagan Vikings appear subhuman. Human anatomy is complex, and the authors noted three distinct anatomical challenges to performing the ritualparticularly if the goal was to keep the victim alive for the entire process. kinsmen of kings, We wouldnt wish the Blood Eagle upon our worst enemyOK, except for maybe that one guy who did that one thing one time. Use them in commercial designs under lifetime, perpetual & worldwide rights. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Not satisfied with impressing a wound on him, they salted the mangled flesh. "For the slayer by a cruel death of their captive father, Ragnar's sons act the blood-eagle on Ella, and salt his flesh.". However, researchers recently found that the act known as blorn, or "blood eagle," was in fact anatomically possible and could have been performed with known Viking weapons. ("They caused the bloody eagle to be carved on the back oflla, and they cut away all of the ribs from the spine, and then they ripped out his lungs. "[18], While taking no view on the historical authenticity of the ritual, the authors of a 2022 study concluded that the ritual as described was not inconsistent either with physiology or the tools available within the sociocultural context of the Viking era. Viking warriors were known to go to extreme lengths to protect their reputations, and the blood eagle appears to have been reserved for exacting revenge for the dishonorable killing of a father (or other male relative). Sign in BLOOD. Single-edged "fighting knives" with rigid handles have been found in elite Viking burials, and some resemble large knives that are used in modern autopsies, according to the study. baki ristinn. ar fundu eir Hlfdan hlegg, ok lt Einarr rsta rn baki honum me sveri, ok skera rifin ll fr hrygginum ok draga ar t lngun, ok gaf hann ni til sigrs sr. with a broad sword A typical Iron Age fighting knife would have been ideal for this purpose. After that, his exposed lungs would be pulled out of his body and spread over his wings, offering witnesses the sight of a final bird-like fluttering as he died. In our forthcoming book, The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe, we show clearly how the Vikings were savvy traders who rode camels into Baghdad and explorers who settled new lands across the Atlantic. She was also a contributor for FanSided's BamSmackPow and 1428 Elm. [7], Afterwards, Earl Einarr went up to Halfdan and cut the "blood eagle" on his back, in this fashion that he thrust his sword into his chest by the backbone and severed all the ribs down to the loins, and then pulled out the lungs; and that was Halfdan's death.[8]. DOI: Speculum, 2021. The blood eagle might be nothing more than fiction, but it was definitely one of the most brutal killing methods in the series. No contemporary accounts of the rite exist, and the scant references in the sagas are several hundred years after the Christianization of Scandinavia. In other words, rituals like the blood eagle had meaning because they were a wayin practice or on the pageof drawing lines between groups of people and warning outsiders of the dangers of crossing that boundary. After that, his ribs would be hacked from his spine with an ax, one by one, and the bones and skin on both sides pulled outward to create a pair of wings from the mans back. About 50 percent died during the first year due to their inexperience at meeting the dangers of living in the wild. It wouldn't be possible to cut each of them and detach the ribs quickly with a serrated blade while the victim was still alive. BLOOD EAGLE EXECUTION OF KING AELLE - BEHIND THE SCENES PICTURES - VIKINGS - YouTube 0:00 / 1:54 Sign in to confirm your age This video may be inappropriate for some users. Unless archaeologists find a corpse bearing clear evidence of the torture, well likely never know. A detail from a Viking-era picture stone in Gotland, Sweden, shows a ritual execution resembling a practice described in Nordic texts as the "blood eagle. "), There are also two accounts of Torf-Einarr's execution of Halfdan Haaleg. Archaeologists have never found human remains that display signs of having endured this ritual. No exact date is attached to its origins, nor is therea specific legal prohibition as to its use, but popular culture depictions keep it alive and well. A detail from a Viking-era picture stone in Gotland, Sweden, shows a ritual execution resembling a practice described in Nordic. They then looked at weapons from that era, to see how diverse blades might have been used for a task so laborious and grisly. (The word translated "raven" is not hrafn but hugin, the personal name of one of Odin's ravens.). The Oxford English Dictionary provides a very brief description of the method: A Viking method of killing someone, usually the slayer of a mans father, by cutting out the ribs in the shape of an eagle. Horik then told Ragnar to reestablish their alliance with Borg, and after the latter accepted the offer, Ragnar captured him and sentenced him to death by blood eagle (in season 2s episode appropriately titled Blood Eagle). Cut with an eagle? Well, thats sort of vague, isnt it? According to descriptions of the blood eagle in poems and prose dating from the 11th century to the 13th century, victims were typically captured in battle. Cookie Settings, The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe, Five Places Where You Can Still Find Gold in the United States, Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Otherand the Birds Loved It, Balto's DNA Provides a New Look at the Intrepid Sled Dog, The Science of California's 'Super Bloom,' Visible From Space, What We're Still Learning About Rosalind Franklins Unheralded Brilliance. [17], Ronald Hutton's The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy states that "the hitherto notorious rite of the 'Blood Eagle,' the killing of a defeated warrior by pulling up his ribs and lungs through his back, has been shown to be almost certainly a Christian myth resulting from the misunderstanding of some older verse. It is alleged that the practice was invented by Ivarr the Boneless, a Viking military leader in occupied England who lived in the 800s and disappeared from the historical record by 870 AD. Vikings, like many medieval people, could be spectacularly violent, but perhaps not more so than other groups across a range of time periods. Your Privacy Rights The Disturbing Truth About The Vikings' Blood Eagle Execution. Fr var fremri, "The blood eagle was thus no mere torture: it had meaning," the researchers wrote in the study. [5], Einarr made them carve an eagle on his back with a sword, and cut the ribs all from the backbone, and draw the lungs there out, and gave him to Odin for the victory he had won.[6]. Regardless of whether it is fact or legend, performing such a ritual, while challenging, would have been anatomically possible with the tools available at the time, according to the authors ofa recent paper published in the journal Speculum, and would be in keeping with the Vikings' cultural mores. ok hugin gladdi.[12]. | Two separate episodes of the hit History Channel show Vikings depict an unimaginably grisly and horrific torture method that is known as the Blood Eagle. In the first, the villain Karl Borg is murdered through the extremely cruel and brutal method; in the second, the corrupt King Ella is tortured to death using the Blood Eagle method. Ergo, "even if the ritual was carefully performed the victim would have died very quickly," the authors wrote. The longest that any Bald Eagle has been known to live in the wild is 39 years. Adrienne Tyler is a features writer for Screen Rant. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine The Heimskringla Saga from 1230 describes the same alleged incident: Finally, for the final stage of removing the lungs through the cuts along the spine, one would need to fold the ribs outward to create wings. Performing such a horrific act would have been "anatomically challenging" for the torturer but it would not have been impossible, scientists reported in the January 2022 issue of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies. Experts have long debated whether the blood eagle was a literary trope or an actual punishment. A BRUTAL Viking torture ritual rubbished by researchers may have actually been a thing, according to a new study. The 'Blood Eagle' ritual was allegedly practiced from the 8th to the 11th centuries by Scandinavian sea raiders.
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