Viking atrocity and Skaldic verse
The Rite of the Blood-Eagle
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9802916 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Roberta Frank (University of Toronto, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1984 |
| Volume | 99 |
| Issue | 391 |
| Pages | 332-343 |
| Publication date | 1984-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The English Historical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-8266 • E-ISSN: 1477-4534 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ehr/xcix.cccxci.332 |
| OpenAlex | W2047347433 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 2 |
The Rite of the Blood-Eagle THE rehabilitation of the viking begun by Peter Sawyer over thirty years ago has recently taken a curious turn. 1 New studies of the Scandinavian invaders of England seem determined to stress their demonic side, to expose the dark virulence and fanaticism of Norse paganism. Vikings in these works behave for the most part like rational political beings. They are committed to career advancement, territorial aggrandizement, and the latest technology; they trade, they farm, and they sculpt stone -whenever they are not carving up conquered enemies according to the Odinic rite of the blood-eagle. This peculiar method of execution, lovingly described by a chain of authors from the end of the twelfth century to the present, is prominent in current discussions of whether or not vikings were more sinister than 'groups of long-haired tourists who occasionally roughed up the natives'. 2 The significance of the blood-eagle was heralded in the 1974 Stenton Lecture when J. M. Wallace-Hadrill made available the then-unpublished observations of Alfred Smyth: 'Examples of this practice may have included: King SAz of Northumbria, Halfdan son of King Haraldr Harfagri of Norway, King Edmund (a victim, like ^Ella, of the great Danish Viking Ivarr), King Maelgualai of Munster, and just possibly Archbishop iElfheah. ... It happened in Scandinavia, in Ireland and in England. I am presuming that Francia was not exempt.' 3 The historical reality of this 'ferocious sacrificial ritual' is accepted by both Patrick Wormald and Eric John in their distinguished contributions to The Anglo-Saxons? as it had been sixty years earlier by Allen Mawer in Tie Cambridge Medieval History. s Even the pro-viking opposition has been forced to concede that the torture 'was unhappily no fiction'. 6 'Bloodeagle' did not make the 1933 Oxford English Dictionary, but is nowalong with 'radical chic' and 'Rubik's Cube' -in the Supplement
Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Eagle · Rite · Theology · Geology · Historical and Archaeological Studies · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Paleontology · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.17 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2014 - 2015 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |