Ättestupa

The name supposedly denotes sites where ritual senicide took place during pagan Norse prehistoric times, whereby elderly people threw themselves, or were thrown, to their deaths.

Senicide and suicide precipices are mentioned in several sources from antiquity, such as the Ligurians in Paradoxographus Vaticanus[2] and Procopius in his description of the Heruli from the 6th century CE.

The Swedish linguist Adolf Noreen started questioning the myth at the end of the 19th century,[5] and it is now generally accepted among researchers that the practice of suicide precipices never existed.

[10] Several places in Sweden are alleged to be former suicide precipices: In the 1960s, the Swedish comedy radio program Mosebacke Monarki satirically introduced ättestupa, abbreviated ÄTP, as an alternative to ATP, a state-provided pension.

[12] The 2019 horror film Midsommar by Ari Aster uses the term to describe a fictional tradition in which elderly cult members throw themselves off a high cliff in ritual suicide once they reach the age of 72.