PinterestA blood eagle execution.
Posted on 11/23/2018 8:05:31 PM PST by vannrox
PinterestA blood eagle execution.
The Vikings didn’t come into towns walking on moonbeams and rainbows. If their sagas are to be believed, the Vikings cruelly tortured their enemies in the name of their god Odin as they conquered territory. If the suggestion of a blood eagle was even uttered, one left town and never looked back. Viking sagas define blood eagle as one of the most painful and terrifying torture methods ever created. The story describes:
“Earl Einar went to Halfdan and carved blood-eagle on his back in this wise, that he thrust a sword into his trunk by the backbone and cut all the ribs away, from the backbone down to the loins, and drew the lungs out there….”
One of the earliest accounts of the use of the blood eagle is thought to have occurred in 867. It began a few years before, when Aella, king of Northumbria (present-day North Yorkshire, England), fell victim to a Viking attack. Aella killed the Viking leader Ragnar Lothbrok by throwing him into a pit of live snakes.
In revenge, Lothbrok’s sons invaded England in 865. When the Danes captured York, and Lothbrok’s son who was also the most feared Viking of his day, Ivarr the Boneless, saw to it that Aella would be killed.
Of course, killing him wasn’t good enough. Ivarr’s father Ragnar had —allegedly — met a gruesome fate by a pit of snakes.
Ivarr the Boneless wanted to make an example out of Aella and to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies.
Thus, he committed the damned king to the blood eagle.
Modern scholars debate how Vikings performed this ritual torture and in fact whether they even performed the gruesome method at all. The process of the blood eagle is indeed so cruel and grisly that it would be difficult to believe that it could actually be carried out. Regardless of whether it is merely a work of literary fiction, there is no denying the fact that the ritual was stomach-churning.
The victim’s hands and legs were tied to prevent escape or sudden movements. Then, the person seeking vengeance stabbed the victim by his tailbone and up towards the rib cage. Each rib was then meticulously separated from the backbone with an ax, which left the victim’s internal organs on full display.
The victim is said to have remained alive throughout the entire procedure. What’s worse, the Vikings would then literally rub salt into the gaping wound in the form of a saline stimulant.
As if this wasn’t enough, after having all of the person’s ribs cut away and spread out like giant fingers, the torturer then pulled out the lungs of the victim to make it appear as if the person had a pair of wings spread out on his back.
Thus, the blood eagle was manifested in all its gory glory. The victim had become a slimy, bloody bird.
King Aella was not the last royal to face the blood eagle. One scholar believes that at least four other notable figures in Northern European history suffered the same fate. King Edmund of England was also a victim of Ivarr the Boneless. Halfdan, son of King Haraldr of Norway, King Maelgualai of Munster and Archbishop Aelheah were all believed to victims of blood eagle torture because they were victims of the merciless and bloodlusty Ivarr the Boneless.
That means the torture method could have occurred in England, Ireland, and France. There were two main reasons Vikings used the blood eagle on their victims. First, they believed it was a sacrifice to Odin, father of the Norse pantheon of gods and the god of war.
Second, and more plausibly, was that the blood eagle was done as a punishment to honorless individuals. According to the Orkneyinga saga of the Vikings, Halfdan was defeated in battle at the hands of Earl Einar who then tortured him with a blood eagle as he conquered Halfdan’s kingdom. Similarly, Aella was tortured in vengeance.
Indeed, even the stories of the blood eagle — true or not — would have emptied out any village just by word of mouth before the Vikings could even make ground there. At the very least, the rumors of such torture would have established the Vikings as a divinely fearsome lot — and not to be trifled with.
Victims of the practice died in the 800s and 900s, maybe into the 1000s. Written accounts, often embellished and told for entertainment during long winter nights up north, didn’t come about until the 1100s and 1200s.
Writers of the Viking sagas heard stories and wrote them down. Perhaps they embellished the ferocity of Vikings to make them sound more heroic. Second, and more plausibly, was that the blood eagle was done as a punishment to honorless individuals. According to the Orkneyinga saga of the Vikings, Halfdan was defeated in battle at the hands of Earl Einar who then tortured him with a blood eagle as he conquered Halfdan’s kingdom. Similarly, Aella was tortured in vengeance.
Indeed, even the stories of the blood eagle — true or not — would have emptied out any village just by word of mouth before the Vikings could even make ground there. At the very least, the rumors of such torture would have established the Vikings as a divinely fearsome lot — and not to be trifled with. Ritual Or Rumor?
Victims of the practice died in the 800s and 900s, maybe into the 1000s. Written accounts, often embellished and told for entertainment during long winter nights up north, didn’t come about until the 1100s and 1200s.
Writers of the Viking sagas heard stories and wrote them down. Perhaps they embellished the ferocity of Vikings to make them sound more heroic. Top articles 1/5 READ MORE 31 Vintage Crime Scenes Brought To Life In Stunningly Gruesome Color Painting Of Lothbrok
Wikimedia Commons A depiction of messengers of King Aella bringing news to the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok. Clearly, that didn’t do any good.
However, there may be merit to the blood eagle story. The poets who wrote them down were very specific in the method used. Surely, someone actually tried this torture method because of the gory details that someone described. One Danish historian, Saxo Grammaticus, relays the ritual as merely the means of carving an eagle into a victim’s back and other details were added later and, “combined in inventive sequences designed for maximum horror.”
Either the blood eagle was an actual thing, or it was a propaganda tool. But either way, it was terrifying. Other Viking Torture Methods
The Vikings employed other torture methods aside from the blood eagle.
One was known as Hung meat, which was just as nasty as it sounds. Vikings pierced the heels of victims, threaded ropes through the holes, and then strung them upside-down. Not only was piercing the heels horrendously painful, but the blood ran down to their hearts.
The fatal walk was another gruesome testament to torture. A victim’s abdomen was sliced open and a bit of intestine was pulled out. Then the torturer held the victim’s intestines as the victim walked around a tree. Eventually, the entirety of the victim’s intestinal tract would wrap around the tree.
Whether it was a blood eagle, hung meat, or a fatal walk, the Vikings knew how to make examples out of their enemies.
If these torture methods are true, they harken back to a bloody time in humanity’s past. If they are false, then the Vikings knew how to spread fear into the hearts of others without really having to do much.
Found it! NORTHWEST PASSAGE (1940)script describing Abinaki Indian tortures...
They captured lieutenants
crofton and phillips
and 20 other rangers.
Lieutenant crofton’s
brother is here.
He can tell you
what happened to them.
Yes, major.
I can tell you.
Phillips had
a strip of skin
torn upward
from his stomach.
They hung him
from a tree
while still alive.
They chopped his men up
with hatchets
and threw the pieces
into the pine.
They tore
my brother’s arms
out of him.
They chopped
the ends of his ribs
away from his backbone
and pried them
out through his skin
one by one.
Thas what happened
to crofton and phillips.
But they were soldiers.
Tey had to take their chances.
Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=northwest-passage
What’s with the repeating text? It happens all the time these days. When I read same thing twice, I stop reading the article, and go find something that isn’t wasting my time.
Thanks vannrox. Heh followed me onto that mummies site, didn't ya? ;^)
After reading explicit historically recorded and eye witnessed stomach turning accounts of the torture-atrocities that American Indigenous tribes practiced on their enemies, be they other warring tribes or white settlers, including woman and children, that rivaled if not exceeded in cruelty this Viking ritual, which I have little doubt also occurred, such being the bottomless pit of depravity humans are capable of.
LOL!
I had a book on photojournalism in college that had pictures of torture victims from the communist revolutions in South and Central America.
A common torture was removing the skin off the faces of the victims a few square inches at a time - lips, eyelids, nose, ears, etc.
Looked mighty painful, and one would live a lot longer than being eagle filleted.
Shush.... Don’t you tell anyone else, ya hear.
PING
My old man grew up in upstate NY, lots of indian lore up there. He used to scoff at the image of the peaceful indians at one with nature. They were, he said, more cruel than people could imagine. He never elaborated though, so I don't really know what they did other than scalping, which is really bad just by itself. Whatever it was he was referring to, I'm sure it was even worse.
That first time - for Jarl Borg - I thought that it was chosen as a way to honor the guy? I must be thinking of some other death sentence, where the guy was honorable, but he had to be punished and executed. But executed in such a way that he still made it to Valhalla. (Or perhaps I’m confabulating three different story-lines!)
I do recall a battle where some old guy joined them in hopes that he would be killed in battle so would go to Valhalla.
I went right to the fifty-seven years without a Super Bowl ring.
That's as many years as we have states!!
I'll be discreet. In fact, I won't even send this message.
I don’t believe a person could survive having their thorax opened. They’d be dead shortly after the vacuum was broken.
Saw an episode of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. where Solo was stretched out over some bamboo trees that had been cut to a sharp point. The plan was that he would be stabbed to death as they grew.
Dunno. I know of victims of Mexican cartels who seemed to survive a long time despite having their lungs exposed. The heart was reportedly still beating when they finally pulled it out, which they took their sweet time doing.
The practice does not make medical sense. If a person were opened up like is described by the blood eagle procedure, they would have died through loss of blood, long before the procedure was done. There is no torture if the person is dead.
He was right. If you want to know the true non-PC, you-are-there, unvarnished truth about the Indians during the time of White settlement and migration, I HIGHLY recommend the following books. They are all gripping page turners. After you have read these books, the Liberal’s guilt ridden historical revisionism, and PC BS, will roll off your back like water on a duck....
‘Captured By The Indians: 15 Firsthand Accounts, 1750-1870’
by Frederick Drimmer
“Astounding eyewitness accounts of Indian captivity by people who lived to tell the tale. Fifteen true adventures recount suffering and torture, bloody massacres, relentless pursuits, miraculous escapes, and adoption into Indian tribes. Fascinating historical record and revealing picture of Indian culture and frontier life.”
________________
‘Over the Earth I Come: The Great Sioux Uprising of 1862’
by Duane Schultz
“Over The Earth I Come, Duane Schultz brilliantly retells one of America’s most violent and bloody events—the Great Sioux Uprising of 1862.”
________________
‘Wild Frontier: Atrocities During the American-Indian War from Jamestown Colony to Wounded Knee’
by William M. Osborn
“The real story of the ordeal experienced by both settlers and Indians during the Europeans’ great migration west across America, from the colonies to California, has been almost completely eliminated from the histories we now read. In truth, it was a horrifying and appalling experience. Nothing like it had ever happened anywhere else in the world.”
________________
‘Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865-1879’
by Thomas Goodrich ‘
“Some of the most savage war in world history was waged on the American Plains from 1865 to 1879. As settlers moved west following the Civil War, they found powerful Indian tribes barring the way. When the U.S. Army intervened, a bloody and prolonged conflict ensued. Drawing heavily from diaries, letters, and memoirs from American Plains settlers, historian Thomas Goodrich weaves a spellbinding tale of life and death on the prairie, told in the timeless words of the participants themselves. Scalp Dance is a powerful, unforgettable epic that shatters modern myths. Within its pages, the reader will find a truthful account of Indian warfare as it occurred.”
_________________
‘A Fate Worse Than Death: Indian Captivities in the West, 1830-1885’
by Gregory Michno and Susan Michno
“One of the greatest dangers on the western frontier in the nineteenth century was the threat of capture by Native Americans. The most extensive collection of what it was like to be an Indian captive in the West, with special emphasis on Texas, this is both a record of human brutality and a testament to the durability of the human spirit.”
_________________
‘Deadliest Indian War in the West’
by Gregory Michno
“Gregory Michno gives readers the first comprehensive look at the Natives, soldiers, and settlers who clashed on the high desert of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, and Northern California in the Snake War, which claimed more lives than any other western Indian war.”
_______________
‘Cheyenne War: Indian Raids On The Roads To Denver 1864-1869’
by Jeff Broome
“In this volume, Jeff Broome has done a marvelous job of mining documents filed under the Indian depredation claims system a federal Indian policy intending to preserve peace on the frontiers by allowing white settlers and Indians, alike, to file claims for the wrongs done by each other. The policy, the federal government hoped, would prevent frontier retaliations and violence. It failed miserably, but the resulting claims reveal nearly a century s worth of previously unheard white voices describing the horrors of Indian-white conflict. Broome focuses on the roads to Denver, 1864 1869. His engaging reconstruction of this era and place, as seen through the lens of white frontiersmen and women, will inspire other researchers to don miner s helmets and descend into this mother lode of heretofore-neglected historical evidence.”
________________
‘Dog Soldier Justice: The Ordeal of Susanna Alderdice in the Kansas Indian War
by Jeff Broome
“In his study of the civilian population that fell victim to the brutality of the 1860s Kansas Indian wars, Jeff Broome recounts the captivity of Susanna Alderdice, who was killed along with three of her children by her Cheyenne captors (known as Dog Soldiers) at the Battle of Summit Springs in July 1869, and of her four-year-old son, who was wounded then left for dead.”
________________
‘Girl Captives Of The Cheyennes: A True Story Of The Capture And Rescue Of Four Pioneer Girls, 1874’
by Grace E. Meredith
And then there were the English and Scots and French - with their ‘ ‘hung, drawn and quartered”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUV9BfM70lg
Becoming a burnt marshmallow at the stake was no picnic either ...
... and it’s not all ancient history - the beheadings are still taking place, Hussain would boil people alive in vats of oil, for one. And who doesn’t remember this? Doused in gas and burned alive -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwoiQuT49W4
Man can be as vilely barbaric NOW as in history. only thing holding it back is civilized rules of law...and we are never far from losing that protection.
Never get on the cattle cars
#14. ISIS, imitating the Communists and Nazis, Croatian Utashi, Lithuanian Nazis, and Arabs in pre-Israel Palestine Mandate.
American Indians were also excellent at torturing their captives, Indian or otherwise.
The myth of the “Noble Redman” is one that should be deconstructed for all to read. Then, perhaps we can address the Native Americans of today in realistic terms, not in “false images” and disinformation stories.
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