Blood eagle

The Blood Eagle was a method of torture and execution that is sometimes mentioned in Norse saga literature. It was performed by cutting the ribs of the victim by the spine, breaking the ribs so they resembled blood-stained wings, and pulling the lungs out. Salt was sprinkled in the wounds. Victims of the method of execution, as mentioned in skaldic poetry and the Norse sagas, are believed to have included King Ælla of Northumbria, Halfdan son of King Haraldr Hárfagri of Norway, King Maelgualai of Munster, and possibly Archbishop Ælfheah of Canterbury.

The historicity of the practice is disputed. Some take it as historical: evidence of atrocities fueled by pagan hatred of Christianity; others take it as fiction: heroic Icelandic sagas, skaldic poetry and inaccurate translations.

Contents 1 Accounts 1.1 Orkneyinga saga 1.2 Norna-Gests þáttr 1.3 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 1.4 Knútsdrápa 2 Authenticity 3 References

Accounts

There are a number of accounts of the practice in Norse sources.

Orkneyinga saga

The Orkneyinga saga: "Next morning when it was light they went to look for runagate men among the isles if any had got away; and each was slain on the spot as he stood. Then earl Torf-Einarr took to saying these words: 'I know not what I see in Rinansey, sometimes it lifts itself up, but sometimes it lays itself down, that is either a bird or a man, and we will go to it.' There they found Halfdan Long-leg, and Einar made them carve an eagle on his back with a sword, and cut the ribs all from the backbone, and draw the lungs there out, and gave him to Odin for the victory he had won then Einar sung this:"^[1]

Norna-Gests þáttr

Norna-Gests þáttr has two stanzas of verse near the end of its section 6, "Sigurd Felled the Sons of Hunding", where a character describing previous events says:

Nú er blóðugr örn breiðum hjörvi bana Sigmundar á baki ristinn. Fár var fremri, sá er fold rýðr, hilmis nefi, ok hugin gladdi.[2]

Now the blood eagle With a broad sword The killer of Sigmund Carved on the back. Fewer were more valiant As the troops dispersed A chief of people Who made the raven glad.[3]

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Some say that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes the killing of king Ælla of Northumbria after a battle for control of York, thus: "They caused the bloody eagle to be carved on the back of Ælla, and they cut away all of the ribs from the spine, and then they ripped out his lungs." (Ivar the Boneless had captured Ælla, who had killed Ivar's father Ragnar Lodbrok.) The relevant year (867) of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says merely:

Her for se here of East Englum ofer Humbre muþan to Eoforwicceastre on Norþhymbre, ⁚ þær wæs micel ungeþuærnes þære þeode betweox him selfum, ⁚ hie hæfdun hiera cyning aworpenne Osbryht, ⁚ ungecyndne cyning underfengon Ællan; ⁚ hie late on geare to þam gecirdon þæt hie wiþ þone here winnende wærun, ⁚ hie þeah micle fierd gegadrodon, ⁚ þone here sohton æt Eoforwicceastre, ⁚ on þa ceastre bræcon, ⁚ hie sume inne wurdon, ⁚ þær was ungemetlic wæl geslægen Norþanhymbra, sume binnan, sume butan; ⁚ þa cyningas begen ofslægene, ⁚ sio laf wiþ þone here friþ nam; ⁚ þy ilcan geare gefor Ealchstan biscep, ⁚ he hæfde þæt bisceprice .l. wintra æt Scireburnan, ⁚ his lic liþ þær on tune.

Here the Viking enemy army went forth from East Anglia over the mouth of the Humber to York town in Northumbria, and there was there great discord of the people among themselves, and they had their king Osberht overthrown, and accepted a strange king Ælla; and they late in the year turned to fighting against the enemy army, and they gathered a great army, and they sought the enemy army at York, and broke into the town, and some of them got in, and there was an unmeasurable slaughter of Northumbrians, some inside, some outside; and both kings were slain, and the survivors made peace with the enemy army; and in the same year bishop Ealhstān died, who had the bishopric 50 winters at Sherborne, and his body lies in the town.

Knútsdrápa

Finally, some believe the blood eagle is referred to by the eleventh-century poet Sigvatr Þórðarson, who, some time between 1020 and 1038, wrote a skaldic verse named Knútsdrápa that recounts and establishes Ivar the Boneless as having killed Ella and subsequently cutting his back. Depending on the interpretation an eagle is either what was cut, or what was doing the cutting.

Sighvatr's skaldic verse in Old Norse:

Original Ok Ellu bak, At lét hinn’s sat, Ívarr, ara, Iorví, skorit.[4]

Literal translation And Ella’s back, at had the one who dwelt Ívarr, with eagle, York, cut.

Suggested reordering And Ívarr, the one who dwelt at York, had Ella's back cut with [an] eagle[5]

Skaldic poetry, a common medium of Norse poets, was intentionally meant to be cryptic and allusive, therefore the idiomatic nature of Sighvatr's skaldic verse, describing what has become known as the blood eagle, is a matter of historical contention. This is all the truer in this case, since, in Norse imagery, the eagle was strongly associated with blood and death.

Authenticity

There has been debate as to the authenticity of such accounts. Some credit the Gotland picture stones as archaeological evidence attesting to the authenticity of the blood eagle as presented in Norse literary traditions. Some have suggested that the blood eagle was never actually practiced, arguing that such accounts are based upon unsupported folklore or upon inaccurate translations. Ronald Hutton's The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy reports 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." (p. 282) However, it has also been suggested that an Old Norse word for "blood eagle," blóthorn or blóðörn indicates some type of ritual existed.^[6] Alfred Smyth (1977) is a particularly enthusiastic supporter, taking the blood-eagle rite as a historical practice of human sacrifice to the Norse god Odin.^[7]

Roberta Frank writes in her article "Viking Atrocity and Skaldic Verse: The Rite of the Blood-Eagle": "By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the various saga motifs — eagle sketch, rib division, lung surgery, and 'saline stimulant' — were combined in inventive sequences designed for maximum horror." (p. 334) She concludes that, reveling in the misdeeds of their pagan predecessors, the saga authors took skaldic poetry originally intended to make elliptical reference to defeat in battle (causing one's back to be scored by eagles, i.e. killing them and thus turning them into carrion) along with separate martyrdom tracts expressing the final tortures of worthy victims in terms reflective of the intended execution of Saint Sebastian (shot so full of arrows that their ribs and internal organs were exposed) and combined and elaborated them into a grandiose torture and death ritual that never was.

If the procedure were performed, the condemned would die of suffocation very soon after the lungs were pulled out (since breathing occurs via the diaphragm and chest muscles) and would probably lose consciousness due to blood loss and shock before that.

References