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Still known as "blóðörn" in Old Norse or "the blood owl", the blood eagle is one of the most excruciating, cruel and time consuming methods of torture ever described . Where does this practice come from? What does it mean ? What must be done to suffer such a degree of punishment? Answers in this item.
Mainly associated with the Scandinavian tradition and the Vikings , the blood eagle method is performed in two different ways. The least cruel method is to carve an eagle on the victim's back. The other method, which is the most cruel and the most atrocious consists in slicing the ribs of the victim along his spine, extracting his lungs from his rib cage and extending his ribs, so as to reproduce the image of an eagle spreading its wings.
It should be noted that the victim is kept alive while his ribs are broken, sliced and detached one by one from the spine. One does not need to experience this to understand that it is an indescribable suffering. And just by mentioning the name of the method, a whole village could take the key to the fields.
Are subjected to this form of execution, only the people who were made guilty of a crime which revokes their honor. It is generally a practice used by Scandinavians to take revenge for a horrible act, high treason, sacrilege committed by a ruthless enemy. The blood eagle therefore served to crush this enemy with the most cruel bird.
@lagertha__raven__odinn
The blood eagle has often had several meanings. This is not always an ordinary execution ritual. It is also given the meaning of a sacrificial ceremony. According to Norse mythology for example , the blood eagle method was practiced as an offering to the god Odin, who was associated with the eagle, as a symbol of power and dominance of the gods.
At the end of each won battle , the Vikings, who do not have the reputation of being altar boys, made it their duty to torture their enemies and offer them to the god Odin, the blood eagle being the most barbaric methods of torture.
The blood eagle is employed in the Viking series by the sons of Ragnar who, wanting revenge on King Aelle of Northumbria for the cruel death he inflicted on their father by throwing him into a pit full of serpents after the to have tortured.
Ragnar's sons had found only the blood eagle to match the torment experienced by their father. They have an eagle carved into Aella's back and separate her ribs with an axe, making an opening through which her lungs are extracted. Under the hands of Ivar Ragnarsson (the Boneless), the king succumbs soon after. He thus becomes the first victim to undergo this ordeal.
@ vakentin.chht
Nearly a century after the Revenge of the Sons of Ragnar , the Blood Eagle is once again employed by the Viking hero Torf-Einarr to exact revenge on Halfdan Haleggr who, after driving him from his lands, kills his innocent father just to humiliate him further. Torf-Einarr prepares an army and captures Halfdan whom he subjects to the Blood Eagle.
In summary, the blood eagle represents a sort of triumph of good over evil. The Vikings used it to avenge a sacrilege committed by an enemy and to make him suffer a torture that equals or surpasses his affront in atrocity and cruelty.
In all Scandinavian literature, the blood eagle is used only four times. But the question is whether this is a practice actually used during the Viking Age or just a literary invention .
Several books have addressed this issue. The Blood Eagle , written by Marc Voltenauer, for example, tells the story of Inspector Andreas Auer who, trying to trace the mysteries of his origin , finds himself on an island which reveals to him, among other things, secrets of human sacrifices practiced during ancient Viking rites.
For Roberta Frank, author of Roberta Frank's book Viking atrocity and Skaldic verse: The Rite of the Blood-Eagle , the blood-eagle is the bird that never existed. She maintains that this would only be an allusion to the abandonment on the battlefield of the remains of the enemies which will later be torn and shredded in the back by the scavengers.
Some languages have also hinted that the majority of Scandinavian sagas were written during the era of Christian invasion, proof that this was just a myth invented by Christians to demonize the Vikings with who they don't share the most beautiful love story . Other historians argue that they are Christian myths based on a misunderstanding of ancient Norse verses to which details of stories of Christian martyrdoms and heroes were added.
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