A grisly Viking ritual in which a victim’s back was cut open and their ribs and lungs pulled out of the hole to resemble wings was anatomically possible, a study found.
The ‘Blood Eagle’ is said to have been reserved for only the most hated enemies of the notorious Scandinavian raiders who lived from the 8th to the 11th centuries.
With no physical archaeological evidence nor contemporary written records, the ritual is known only from transcriptions of poetry and sagas