Human sacrifice, a female angel of death and why the Vikings were even more savage than you thought.

[dipsydoodle]

The Viking warlord did not go quietly to his death — they never did. Ragnar ‘Hairy Britches’ was legendary for leading a fleet of longships up the Seine and pillaging Paris, but when he turned his band of marauders to England, he met his match.

Defeated by the Anglo-Saxon King Aelle in Northumbria, he was not executed cleanly, but thrown alive into a pit of poisonous snakes.

As vipers crawled over him and he died a lingering death in terrible agony, he sang a song of defiance and revenge.

It fell to his sons, Ivar and Halfdan, to carry out that threat. In 876, having crossed the North Sea, they took York, captured King Aelle and demonstrated that no one could out-do the Vikings for sheer violence and horror.

In a macabre ritual killing known as the ‘blood-eagle’, Aelle’s chest was cut open, his ribs split and his lungs pulled out from inside the ribcage and then pinned back to his chest like the wings of an eagle. The message was clear: you mess with the Norseman at your peril.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2565331/Human-sacrifice-female-angel-death-Vikings-savage-thought-As-British-Museum-unveils-treasures-ferocious-invaders.html#ixzz2u3CSqVHS

[JustAnotherGen]

1. Wow

That's one I highly encourage people to go read! Thanks dipsydoodle. As usual, you have linked an article that relates to Great Britain's history that made me write: Wow Bookmarking for my husband to read! He loves when it's not his ancestors being pointed out as Europe's pillagers.

[CTyankee]

9. What was that British king who had a red hot poker shoved in his rear? Good god, his screams were

heard from far away...when I heard that one I was terrified...

[roguevalley]

10. one died eating his straw mattress if I remember correctly and another

was held down as melted lead was poured into his ear. some of the queens were awful.

[geek tragedy]

11. Was that nice? was that polite?

And not a tube of preparation h in sight!

/montypython

[Throckmorton]

13. No, Mel Brooks

History of the World, Part 1

[geek tragedy]

14. dammit, unforgiveable error on my part, nt

[Aristus]

16. Edward II, son of Edward I Longshanks, of 'Braveheart' fame (or infamy...)

The younger Edward's character was rather unfairly written by the homophobic Mel Gibson, and protrayed as a snivelling coward.

The real Edward II was known to be a competent and brave soldier. He was just an extremely poor leader.

He was put to death by his wife (Sophie Marceau in the film) and her lover. Before the poker was inserted into his anus, they placed a funnel there first, so that no mark would appear on the body.

[CTyankee]

18. wow, they didn't mess around in those days...

[heaven05]

2. I love 'real' history

Last edited Sat Feb 22, 2014, 10:57 AM - Edit history (1)

this is a view of how really truly savage human beings were and are. The same goes on now, Syria, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, child soldiers and on and on. All are reflections of the savagery ongoing among the 'civilized nations and people' of modern times. What's described in this british museum exhibition/article is great reading.

[toby jo]

3. Too bad the xstians managed to do away with all of our elders

otherwise we'd have a full telling of medieval power run amuck.

[Champion Jack]

4. Just in time for Ragnarok!

[starroute]

5. There are doubts about whether this ever really happened

It's never been settled either way, but there's a fair amount of skepticism as to whether the handful of available descriptions should be taken as authentic. Here's Wikipedia's summary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_eagle#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 (p. 282) 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." However, it has also been suggested that an Old Norse word for "blood eagle", blóthorn or blóðörn, indicates some type of ritual existed. 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.

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." 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.

[Scuba]

6. Some may be unaware of the origins of the expression "go berserk".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker

Berserkers (or berserks) were Norse warriors who are primarily reported in the Old Norse literature to have fought in a nearly uncontrollable, trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the English word berserk. Berserkers are attested to in numerous Old Norse sources. Most historians believe that berserkers worked themselves into a rage before battle, but some think that they might have consumed drugged foods.

More at the link.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. I highly recommend BBC History magazine

I found it in the BBC America website Shop, and I've now subscribed for three years. It's naturally very Brit-o-centric, but it has articles about the entire world, as well as guides to historical and archeological sites around the British Isles and Europe (a different theme each month, such as Vikings or ruined monasteries), book reviews (both non-fiction and historical fiction), imaginary "time travel" travelogues to various cities during interesting historical events, and a back page feature in which well-known people talk about their favorite historical character.

[truebluegreen]

8. Is the author trying to maintain that being thrown alive into a pit of poisonous snakes

and left to die slowly in terrible agony was less vicious than the "blood eagle" which I'd think would kill much faster?

[geek tragedy]

12. Or compared to being hanged, drawn, and quartered?

[Blue_Tires]

15. I took a glance at some wiki pages for more background

and discovered this DM story "borrows" so much from wiki it isn't even funny

[dipsydoodle]

17. The Daily Mail article is extracts from The Northmen’s Fury, by Philip Parker,

so if anything and you are correct about the Wiki entries then Parker will be sued for plagarism......unless of course he wrote the Wiki entries.

[idendoit]

19. I heard that wife is derived from quif....

...trade goods in Old Norse.