The Blood Eagle
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- Опубліковано 13 січ 2022
- A look at Old Norse texts that discuss the infamous torture method called "the blood eagle."
Jackson Crawford, Ph.D.: Sharing real expertise in Norse language and myth with people hungry to learn, free of both ivory tower elitism and the agendas of self-appointed gurus. Visit jacksonwcrawford.com/ (includes bio and linked list of all videos).
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Jackson Crawford’s translation of Hávamál, with complete Old Norse text: www.hackettpublishing.com/the... or www.amazon.com/Wanderers-Hava...
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Audiobook: www.audible.com/pd/The-Poetic...
Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Saga of the Volsungs: www.hackettpublishing.com/the... or www.amazon.com/Saga-Volsungs-...
Audiobook: www.audible.com/pd/The-Saga-o...
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The new article on the blood eagle and the question of its medical plausibility (link valid as of Jan. 2022; warning: explicit gory content): www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/717332
To Jackson:
If you haven't been informed yet, check out the manga and/or anime "Vinland Saga". Supposedly, it is historically accurate . . . .
Surprisingly for myself I've read all article with great interest. Thanks for sharing.
Luke is a really nice guy.
Mr Crawford Sir, Your PHD isnt a dead end. You have been given to us to teach us history and stories. I have learned so much from this channel keep it up!
*Dr.* Crawford. At least do him the honor of using his correct title.
Indeed
I feel the man. He has a right to open himself up like that,we all admire his will to teach.
Agreed. Thank you Dr. Crawford.
Yeah, thanks for going into so much debt to be our Bard
Never forget that on a dark and frosty nordic evening, the man who can tell the best story at the fire, is the man who gets more steak and beer.
Jackson’s too humble to point out that his own work is cited in the article! So cool!
Well now that we got the gory stuff out of the way, how about a video on Hnefatafl --Viking chess?
Referring to ancient manuscripts as, "fan-fic" :D I love this channel.
The ‘marking the city’ out with hide is, I think taken pretty clearly from the story of Dido and the founding of Carthage.
That's the earliest example I can think of too. This seems remarkably survivable concept, however. For example, in the Balkans it survived all the way to the 19th century, where legends about similar methods for convincing Ottomans to provide land for churches were written down.
yeah, you beat me to it, it seems like the ancient writer borrowed from other sources and in so doing contaminates the work.
Given that Saxo Grammaticus was writing for a Latin-literate audience, he's almost certainly borrowing from Roman histories. There aren't many examples of this kind of trickery.
Whenever you have sections Old Norse on the screen, I pause the video and read it out loud utilizing the methods you taught. Then I play the video to hear you speak the lines and see how close my pronunciation was. The funny thing is that I find my attempts are much smoother in rhythm if I affect a general Scandinavian accent.
Any attempt at any language goes smoother if you attempt the accent with it. Even if the accent is stereotypical or stilted, the natural prosody of the language works better when spoken in similar manner to its native speakers.
Same here. I don't know how accurate it is or would've been but I find the text sounding much smoother if I just read it in my own accent, but more eloquently without swallowing consonants as much.
That stereotypical accent doesn't come from nowhere! We Scandinavians actually speak like that in our native languages. It only makes sense that our ancestors would have done so too.
A few years back when I was attempting to learn Russian (modern) one of the books I had instructed to affect a Russian accent in order to aid in pronunciation. When I have been attempting pronunciation from these videos I've found the words themselves almost force an accent. Language is a funny thing
No way is your PhD a dead end! I'm trying to learn recreated ancient Norse and your info is really helpful.
Having watched the video and read at least some of the article, the full blood eagle seems to be a method of execution that is as much about warning the crowd what will happen to those who commit certain crimes as it is about executing the actual criminal. As it is an execution the survival of the criminal is not of any real concern. In this regard it is similar to the "hanging, drawing and quartering" that was the punishment for high crimes in medieval England, the criminal could easily die in the first stages of the execution, but the sentence would still be carried out as a warning to others.
I also get the feeling from what Jackson Crawford said, that this would not have been a common punishment, and was probably reserved for those that they really want to make and example of.
Thanks for the video! As a rule of thumb, an English place name ending in "cester" is pronounced "ster". Like Lester, Glouster, Bister, Worster (Leicester, Gloucester, Bicester, Worcester) etc.
and the few exceptions are almost exclusively when the cester would be expected to receive secondary stress e.g. after a trochaic first element (e.g. Cirencester)
so would Winchester be pronounced Winster?
@@Cathy1864 no, "Chester" is still "Chester" (Winchester, Manchester, Chester etc.).
Also, Tristan, I can't think of any other exceptions than Cirencester, if you know any I'd be interested
@@Cathy1864 no, chester is always pronounced as two syllables, it's only cester that gets reduced to one
For those confused, there's actually a logical reason for this. "Cester" used to be pronounced "Sester." If you're talking fast, the e gets shortened and eventually it's easier just to drop it. So "Gloucester" was said "Glou-sester," but if you say it fast and frequently, it makes it easier and more fluid to sort of downplay that first e sound between the two S sounds. Kind of like how we Americans downplay the o in mirror to ease the gap between the Rs. It's for ease of speaking. Eventually the e was dropped completely in "Cester" but not in written form.
"Carve upon your naked back
Blood eagle.
Skinned alive, your ribs will crack
Blood eagle.
Still alive you gasp for air
As panic strikes your eyes they stare
Terror grips your dying heart
Blood eagle"
Amon Amarth 🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘
You're educating me on my favorite topic (Vikings) and making me homesick ... I'm from the Rocky Mountain Region.
Such a great article. I have been circulating it throughout my department and everyone is super excited about it.
I've been waiting for this one! It's rare to see this topic discussed with integrity.
I also always get English place names wrong, and Leicester is a doozy. It’s pronounced Less-ter. To me it seems like an Old English version of the Latin castrum (military camp), which is common in English place names, as so many cities started as Roman army camps. But then it gets worse because it seems the pronunciation was further impacted by the Normans and their funky French. I could be wrong, but either way, I learned that it was pronounced Less-ter somehow.
@@therealbettyswollocks So now you’ve got me curious… How do you pronounce Meopham?
@Courtney Schwartz
its prounounced meppum. e from get. u is the a in human.
it's exactly how i personally guessed but i am bri'ish.
And not too far from Leicester is the Vale of Belvoir, overlooked by Belvoir Castle. Pronounced "Beaver"!
There's a coastal village not too far away from me called Happisburgh. No one gets that right.
I just read about this in Thomas Williams's book "Viking Britain" in which he says pretty much the same thing. Thank you Dr. Crawford for this great video!
Oh Luke. He is a really nice guy. Kind, polite, friendly and smart.
Dan Carlin has at least one Hardcore History episode on historic torture and execution practices called Painfotainment if you are the "Just can't look away type."
I'm stationed in ft Carson, but currently deployed. Watching your videos is always a nice piece of home.
Thank you for all you do.
My ancestry is of Norse descent and ive always had this deep need to know more, in an unbiased or unsullied way. It’s funny because I always loved poems, and learning that Vikings did too, especially in a funny “rap battle” sense was priceless. I’ve learned so much, and without your teachings I don’t think I would have ever had this further connection within myself. All the best, from Alberta.
Great video Mr. Crawford!!!!!!!!!!! Always a pleasure
The "strips of hide long enough to make a city" is much older. Afaik it is part of the Anaeis, Dido does exactly that to found Carthage. (May be even older)
Thanks for the video, and sharing the article. It’s nice to see this actually put to paper, as it were, and have some very smart folks do the legwork. Coming from a medical background, I assumed the chances of preforming a successful full blood eagle were nearly, but not completely impossible. It’s the “fluttering” of the lungs that always got me though. Assuming someone did cut the lungs out of someone’s back without severing an artery or collapsing the lungs beforehand, all the lungs would be able to do is deflate, not reflate. If you’ve ever seen real lungs being filled and deflated with air, in a lab for example, it isn’t an entirely smooth movement and the lobes of the lungs do appear to jerk or even “flutter”. But once the lungs are separated from the diaphragm, they cannot take in air. Inhalation happens when our diaphragm flattens and air rushes in to fill the vacuum of our lungs. If someone took a huge breath before the lungs were separated from the diaphragm (unlikely, since pain causes shallow breathing), they could still potentially be deflating when removed from the chest cavity. Anyway, excellent work to all those involved!
University of Wyoming student here - love the hat!
Thanks for this! Have had many a discussion on this topic including with a physician who plainly stated the victim would die of blood loss quite early into the process and the butchery part would likely be post mortem possibly as a visual display for others as Crucifixion was albeit is would be a fast demise.
you got Keele right, but Leicester is pronounced Lesster. The ce of cester is almost always silent, the few exceptions are almost exclusively when the cester would be expected to receive secondary stress e.g. after a trochaic first element (e.g. Cirencester)
Poor man. Nauseous *and* cold. :)
Great vid, Professor.
Thank you.
Great video Dr. Crawford
Jackson, ur so kewl, hehe. i love hearing old norse. Great video right up to 17:00 when the last sources are blipped on the video, not visible while you read them aloud..
The part about the cowhide must be adapted from the Aeneis, where the same thing is described in reference to Carthage
So that's where Thomas Harris came up with that horrific scene. I had no idea such a method had a history, and a Norse one at that. Thank you for the lesson.
I appreciate the knowledge 🙏😎👍
Another awesome video.
Awesome videos keep it up
Fascinating article! Without spoiling too much I always thought it dubious that a sword was used to do the cutting. A knife would be much more practical.
If the Romans could invent crucifixion as a cruel form of torture, I'm sure that the Norsemen could imagine something intimidating to make an example out of someone.
I unfortunately stumbled across a video a few years ago showing similar trauma to a blood eagle probably from Mexico. Without getting too graphic the person was on his back and held down, another person with a 'Bowie' style knife cut an oval shape, the top under the collar bones, bottom just above the pelvis and the piece of skin and muscle removed leaving the man's insides exposed.
The cutter then taunted this man for about a minute then quickly cut through 3-4 ribs at the breastbone, lifted them and removed his heart. The man was fully concious until his heart arteries were severed and until that point there was not a great deal of blood loss.
Respect for what you do . Going outside in the wilderness like a viking !
Does anyone know how I can stay up to date with new articles and studies?
interesting read, though I fear most would have suffered from asphyxiation due to the Lung collapse long before the ribs were sprung. But still very interesting. Thank you for all you post!!
Thank you for the article. I've been thinking it wasn't really possible to do it the way I've seen it described - like the Aztec heart cut-out where it was a good sign if the heart beats a bit after removal from the body. What I ran across was the lungs inhaling a bit before coming to a permanent halt and, though I'm not really educated in anatomy, it didn't seem possible. The article is a bit wishy-washy about it but it finally says the the most likely outcome is death within a few seconds of cutting into the back before ribs get cut, etc. That's about what I expected
I read this article which I found on Facebook. Very well written I thought. Your commentary is most beneficial for clarifying my understanding. I have long believed that the idea of this torture was a bit fantastic. As I think, anyone with any experience butchering might also believe.
Leicester = Lester. That's not an easy one if you're never heard it
I feel like Dishonored 2 (2016) deserves a place on the list. Dishonored is looking a bit long in the tooth but Dh2 can hold its head up.
are we talking "in the interest of scholarship" or "in the interest of skaldrship"
I adore listening to reading in Norse to all of us but the blood eagle makes me grit my teeth.
Well it was very nice of you to address this subject that you do not feel comfortable with for the benefit of public knowledge! Is it in the Old Norse habit to call people who address subjects they dislike “drengr”?
Could the carving of a blood eagle have included cutting the 'wings' to form a flap of tissue.
As for the deer hide, of course a 'hide' of land was a traditional measurement and no doubt the hide was cut in the same way that leather/rawhide thonging is made today.
How can the blood eagle be implausible but a pit of venomous snakes in northern England be likely?
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with the public.
I dare say there would be adders aplenty across the Yorkshire moors. Collecting a sufficient number for a dungeon torture hole (a terrible place, I've seen one in a medieval Andalusian castle courtyard) could have been within the power of a cruel ruler.
And the "full" blood eagle with the later embellishments isn't wholly implausible because of human anatomy, says the paper abstract, but it's difficult and lethal.
@AB A valid point! Catching a live venomous European adder shouldn't be all that hard to do reasonably safely. Several times I've seen my father do it by hand, releasing them afterwards ofc, as they're endangered.
I guess the tricky part would be the transportation phase. They can be carried by hand if held by the tail and the arm is fully outstretched, because this particular species _Vipera berus_ lacks the agility to turn around and all the way upwards to attack the arm. Some kind of bottle/basket could possibly be used.
Be that how it may, it bears emphasising that AFAIK there are no attested real snakepits in recorded history, and the phenomenon should therefore be considered mythical.
Blood owl? Never heard of it haha. Where else could I learn such practical info on UA-cam?
You said Keele right university in North Staffordshire
I wonder if the old Norse word for "blood eagle" is a cognate of the Dutch surname Bloedorn?
Funny how dutch and danish are so close to each other :-) Blodørn
@@85Vikingen Frisia sent many men vikingr and Ubbe is called The Frisian. Also the Frisians were the best shipwrights. Frisians were long known as famous pirates.
@@patriciamayhew6321 I know, but thx anyway ☺️ Scandinavia should unite in Kalmar 2.0 and invite the Frisians and Dutch to join 🙂
@@85Vikingen Blodörn in swedish:)
You know you can make videos in a nice heated cabin too 🙂
What mountains?? Bighorns??
Excellent video. I don't believe the blood eagle could be myth. There seems to be too many accounts of it's infliction for it to be a misnomer or altogether false.
Do remember that the sagas were written long after the deaths of any possible witnesses.
@@NieroshaiTheSable not all, but yes most. Though each account was written by different authors at slightly or wholly different times. Meaning if it were a myth, they would be getting information about the same myth from different sources over a long period of time. Just seems unlikely in my humble opinion.
Prostagma?
Fascinating. But I like gore, gimme those practical effects over CGI blood splatter any day.
👍
Sounds like the blood eagle required significant surgical skills and detailed anatomical knowledge. Was this common among Viking swordsmen?
They taken many animals apart, sure they knew how from that alone.
Great video and info, sound could be better but that's a minor grumble. Subscribed!
To people used to butchering animals, and killing people with hand weapons I doubt the blood eagle would have been difficult. Besides, it's not like they expect to put the person back together.
In gross anatomy we started with dissection of the back.
Ya it would have been disturbing in that it may have been someone they knew but there were no bleeding hearts in Norse society. Like you say animal butchery, close combat and keeping slaves was commonplace to the Norse so they wouldn't have been too disturbed by a blood eagle.
With a sword?
@@NieroshaiTheSable sword, knife, cleaver what's the difference?
Viking blod mjød shall henceforth be called blod ørn, hear that Dansk Mjød?
Hello Dr. Crawford! I just watched your God of War trailer review and I think this is the only way you could see this.
I have a quick question: Isn't Muspelheim supposed to be a stand-in for Northern Africa in Norse Mythology? As opposed to Jotunheim where Angrboda comes from?
I would love to hear from you since I'm not convinced about her design yet (ignoring the fact that it's a choice by the developers) and I'm curious about your quasi-historical interpretation of the myths, since you are an expert in this field.
Thanks! :)
Friendly reminder: Spartans didn't go bare-chested into battle and have massive red spiral tattoos either. The series has always been ahistorical.
But...but...no beaver felt hat! I don't recognize you, sir!
Just joking, of course. Still a bit disoriented, though. Must be a cold day out West.
Hey, I'm in Orms þáttr Stórólfsonnar!
I'm not exactly sure if Osborne is a descendant of Ásbjǫrn or not, but that would make me Norse!
Is there any evidence that the Blood Eagle was carried out amongst the other Germanic tribes or was it a thing peculiar to the Norse?
We have no reason to even believe the blood eagle was widespread.
Again, I have an actually relevant comment/thing I was considering: sadly, I reference, pop culture, but, somewhat truthful, the show "Vikings" there was a comment made about an earl being killed via blood eagle, and if he cried out, then he would not go to Valhalla. But, my thought was that would have been a great Loki-style loop hole way for a warrior who seemed to be unable to die in battle find his way to Valhalla, in requesting a "blood eagle" and not scream out (maybe drug himself or something). Not sure how important of a reward Valhalla was to them, but imagine being able to gain a godly reward by just enduring that, reminded me of suicide bombers in a more modern reference of finding a holy death. Blah, blah, blah...
Then the obious question. Can you screem when your lung is draged out from your back?
I don’t think anyone would be requesting a blood eagle ever. Far more people lived normal lives farming and raising a family (just trying to survive) in this culture than people who died on the battlefield with weapon in hand.
@@lubricustheslippery5028 that is an interesting question. Guess we need to read that paper (in the link).
@@pharmdadfit Ya there was only room for so many bums on those boats so it would have been only those who were the best warriors (or best politically connected) that got a spot. Proven warriors and the best at local contests to replenish the ranks would have been the only ones invited. The others would have been expected to defend the village in case of a counter raid by another band.
I mean...
1. Loki has no say over Valhalla.
2. Yay another piece of media treating Valhalla like it's Norse heaven. Odin tricked people into leading violent lives so they'd die a bloody death and join his army.
We didn’t declare independence from the tyrannical king to say it “Lester”
I first noticed blood eagle, and thought about the name "blodigle" which means a blood worm (small worms living in fresh water" I guess you call itt Igle as well in english then i noticed it was "orn" (ørn as you know in Norwegian), and not "orm" that means snake . . :-) I was confused for a while . . "igull" I think is the word for that creature in Old Norse, but is irrelevant to this . . ha ha . . never heard of the term "blodørn" . . verry interesting video :- !!!
Don't go watching the movie Midsommer if you're squeamish about the blood eagle. ;))
My uneducated guess is that the depictions of carving an actual eagle is based in misunderstanding on the part of the respective authors.
It's a form of execution why would it matter how long they survived lol? It thought if a Norseman could be executed via Blood Eagle but didn't scream he was "redeemed" for his crimes in life? or is that just TV BS from the vikings tv show lol?
Jackson repping the 307!
Props from the 435!
@@johnbaker1256 wyomings telephone area code, 435 is utah
7:23
Oh for god sake how that saga is a blatant copy of the tale about the founding of Carthage 2000 years before.
They even picked an ox hide which lack clear cultural significance for the Vikings, but its overwhelming for the Phoneticians, and all others in/from the Levant.
Ive recently come to think of the "blood eagle" as an expression that the people using didnt't give a whole lot of condsideration to. Imagine a culture a thousand years in the future hearing the term "kick your ass." it's ubiquitous and not especially specific. Then someone would probably hear Toby Keith's song about "we'll put a boot in your ass" and ascribe some literal and ristualistic significane to the expression, when it in all likelihood just meant "soundly defeating" so and so.
Nope. Think I'll skip this one.
Just know it's really bad and you wouldn't want it done to you. 😄
I wonder how many people have asked this man the most important question of all, is Thor actually fat? Since God of War claims he is 🤣
God of War also depicts a Spartan with shorn hair and a massive tattoo, who goes into battle almost nude. Why do people care NOW if characterization isn't quite accurate to the sources?
@@NieroshaiTheSable Because the creators never said anything about "Accuracy" when it came to Greek myth. That's why. God of War Ragnarok, the new director caused a massive ripple effect of morons who now believe that Almighty Thor was a fat looser.
And why are you mentioning the female author last even despite the fact that she is listed second?
You reading too much into it wokestani