Did the Vikings Actually Torture Victims With the Brutal ‘Blood Eagle’?
New research reveals the feasibility of the infamous execution method

David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele

December 6, 2021



In popular lore, few images are as synonymous with Viking brutality as the “blood eagle,” a practice that allegedly found torturers separating the victim’s ribs from their spine, pulling their bones and skin outward to form a set of “wings,” and removing their lungs from their chest cavity. The execution method shows up twice in the popular History Channel drama series “Vikings” as a ritual reserved for the protagonists’ worst enemies, Jarl Borg and King Ælla, a fictionalized counterpart to the actual Northumbrian ruler. In the video game “Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla,” Ivarr the Boneless, a character based on the Viking chieftain who invaded the British Isles in the ninth century C.E., performs the blood eagle on his nemesis, King Rhodri.

These representations take their cue from medieval sources written in both Old Norse and Latin. In each of the extant nine accounts, the victim is captured in battle and has an eagle of some sort carved into their back. Some references to the torture are terse. Others are more graphic, aligning with the extreme versions depicted in contemporary popular culture. Either way, the ritual’s appearance in these texts is intended to send a message tied to honor and revenge.

Experts have long debated whether the blood eagle was a literary trope or an actual punishment. The sources are often vague, referencing legendary figures of dubious veracity or mixing up accepted historical chronology. Unless archaeologists find a corpse bearing clear evidence of the torture, we’ll likely never know.

If the Vikings did perform the blood eagle, does that mean the Middle Ages were as brutish, nasty and “dark” as stereotypes suggest? The answer is complex. Vikings, like many medieval people, could be spectacularly violent, but perhaps not more so than other groups across a range of time periods. The work of scholars is to understand how this violence fit into a complex society—and a new study does just that.

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For Ivarr the Boneless, the feared Viking portrayed in Assassins Creed: Valhalla, the Old Norse Knútsdrápa simply says, “And Ívarr, who ruled at York, had Ælla’s back cut with an eagle.” (This succinct description has led some scholars to posit that an actual eagle was used to slice open the Northumbrian king’s back.) Other sources detail the practice more fully. Harald’s Saga, from the Orkney Islands, states that Viking Earl Torf-Einar had his enemy’s “ribs cut from the spine with a sword and the lungs pulled out through the slits in his back. He dedicated the victim to Odin as a victory offering.”

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/did-the-vikings-actually-torture-victims-with-the-brutal-blood-eagle-180979148/

Vikings, but their foreign policy of massacreing monasteries isn't endearing! We're far from perfect, but we're improving!!!

The Aztecs, Mayan and Incan civilizations have always been intriguing to me as still today, we have so many traditions that they had. For instance…educating the children no matter their station in life. This post was exceptionally interesting

Unfortunately, learning More about the great civilizations in the "New World" has always been pushed aside until our technology is improving to the point, with ground, jungle, forest-penetrating LIDAR, it has been more or less thrown in our faces to be confronted! So many civilizations are springing into view from the tip of Chile to the North Pole!

They'll be running out of excuses for ignoring the multitudes of people who've lived in the Western Hemisphere from the beginning, in no time at all, regardless of the fact they are not blond and blue eyed, like the portraits of "The Christ!"

It's a wonderful time for those of us who really want to learn, to be alive!

Thank you, so much.

They had the Lost Civilization of the Maya and now the city of Machu Picchu. I’m getting lots of information on my interests in these people from so long ago. And, yes, I agree about our lack of knowledge about these civilizations when we share the same hemisphere. I’ve watched programs where technology has progressed that discoveries are made about people and places not recorded by humans and long forgotten in the jungles of Central America. To me, it’s amazing.

A few of the pictures are from Teotihuacan which was not Aztec but already abandoned and named by the Aztecs when they discovered it. It means, "the place where gods are created."

The Mexican flag shows an eagle eating a serpent while sitting on a cactus. This was the supposed sign the Aztecs were to look for that would let them know to stop being nomadic and to build a city.

One of my Spanish professors had an interesting interpretation. He thinks that the nobles and priest were tired of being nomadic, and when they got to Lake Texoco, they saw the eagle-serpent-cactus combo, and they huddled together and decided they would just tell everyone that it was a sign from the gods, and the working class needed to start building a city.

Part of the legend also says that a priest jumped into the lake and talked to the water god (and my namesake) Tlaloc, who verified that, yep, that was the symbol all right.

the very enlightening post, and also the many other fascinating ones.

Thanks for taking the time to look through it as we hope daily to see totally new revelations looming into view to shed some light on a very murky past!

We know Columbus and his men were savage. But can we trust their or the Church's stories about them?

filtered through the eyes of people who've swallowed history as explained to us by the very people who nearly vaporized the very citizens who built these civilizations in the first place, after destroying as much as they could of the culture which went before the Europeans invaded, murdered, tortured, enslaved, massacred, and doomed any survivors to a future of horrendous race hatred, until well into our futures.

In Bolivia, the Spanish descendants call the citizens "llama abortions" and throughout the Americas they are also called "fuckin' Indians."

We can be almost guaranteed we just won't be given an honest account for a long time to come. Gotta try to fill in the blanks ourselves, if possible! That doesn't help a lot, but it does help to realize what we can learn of European real behavior through the centuries of sadistic, brutal control of the beaten down, exploited, and abused indigenous population.

You might remember the bizarre paintings, drawings, etc. made by Europeans portraying the strange creatures they saw when they originally invaded this Hemisphere, even the US Americans. My God! I'm surprised they even bothered to depict them walking upright!

They must have been so proud as they burned up not only the writings of the native people, but also the native people, themselves! Just like the imagined "witches" in Europe. (Who can forget their drawing and quartering of greatly revered Inca kings and leaders in front of their countrymen and women?)







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