Blood eagle

According to the two instances mentioned in the Christian sagas, the victims (in both cases members of royal families) were placed in a prone position, their ribs severed from the spine with a sharp tool, and their lungs pulled through the opening to create a pair of "wings".

The primary versions share certain commonalities: the victims are both noblemen (Halfdan Haaleg or "Long-leg" was a prince; Ælla of Northumbria a king), and both of the executions were in retaliation for the murder of a father.

[5] There they found Hálfdan Hálegg, and Einarr had an eagle carved on his back with a sword, and cut all the ribs from the spine and pulled out a lung, and he gave it to Odin for his victory.

Saxo Grammaticus in Gesta Danorum tells the following about Bjørn and Sigvard, sons of Ragnar Lodbrok and king Ælla: Idque statuto tempore exsecuti, comprehensi ipsius dorsum plaga aquilam figurante affici iubent, saevissimum hostem atrocissimi alitis signo profligare gaudentes.

There are two stanzas of verse near the end of its section 6, "Sigurd Felled the Sons of Hunding", where a character describing previous events says:[12][13] Nú er blóðugr örn breiðum hjörvi bana Sigmundar á baki ristinn.

She compared the lurid details of the blood eagle to Christian martyrdom tracts, such as that relating the tortures of Saint Sebastian, shot so full of arrows that his ribs and internal organs were exposed.

[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.

They further concluded that, were it performed in the most extreme versions depicted in the sagas and the subject of the torture still lived at that point, death would have followed the severing of the ribs from the spine within seconds, due either to exsanguination or asphyxiation.

Detail from Stora Hammars I , Sweden shows a man lying on his belly with another man using a weapon on his back. Note the triangular Valknut symbol above, which is theorized to represent an ecstatic state .