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Furthermore, some findings from the Viking Age can be interpreted as evidence of human sacrifice, including children as young as four years old. [51] Sagas occasionally mention human sacrifice at temples, as does Adam of Bremen. Also, the written sources tell that a commander could consecrate the enemy warriors to Odin using his spear.
In almost all instances, human sacrifices occurring in the context of the Old Norse texts are related to Óðinn. [14] Criminals and slaves are the humans being sacrificed in the majority of cases which has been compared to modern executions. [15] Scholars doubt the reliability of some claims of human sacrifice.
The funeral ritual could be drawn out for days, in order to accommodate the time needed to complete the grave. These practices could include prolonged episodes of feasting and drinking, music, songs and chants, visionary experiences, human and animal sacrifice. [13]
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/priestly figure, spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein a monarch's servants are killed in order for them to continue to serve their master in ...
Old Norse religion, also known as Norse paganism, is a branch of Germanic religion which developed during the Proto-Norse period, when the North Germanic peoples separated into a distinct branch of the Germanic peoples. It was replaced by Christianity and forgotten during the Christianisation of Scandinavia.
In the 1970s, Alfred Smyth supported the historicity of the rite, stating that it is clearly human sacrifice to the Norse god Odin. He characterized St. Dunstan's description of Ælla's killing as an "accurate account of a body subjected to the ritual of the blood eagle". [14]
An image on the picture stone Stora Hammars I is usually interpreted as depicting a human sacrifice. [418] Scene from the picture stone Stora Hammars I, from Gotland, Sweden, dating to the 9th or 10th century CE. [419] The image is generally identified as depicting a human sacrifice, with a hanging from two trees and a sacrificial altar. [418 ...
The reference to the change in sacrificial ritual may also reflect some historical memory. There is archaeological evidence for an increase in human sacrifices in the late Viking Age [15] though among the Norse gods human sacrifice is most often linked to Odin.