A BRUTAL Viking torture ritual rubbished by researchers may have actually been a thing, according to a new study. The gruesome ...Blood Eagle' method is a real nasty way to go that's said to have been kept for their very worst enemies.
The process was depicted in Assassins Creed: Valhalla It has been shown in the Vikings TV series, horror film Midsommar as well as the Assassins Creed: Valhalla game but many believe it's just legend. Supposedly it involves slicing the victim's back wide open and excruciatingly cutting their ribs away from the spine. If that wasn't enough agony, the back stabber would then yank their ribs out creating a bloody mess. The final grim moment of the lungs fluttering is said to look like the movement of a bird's wings, which is where the name ...Blood Eagle' came from. 
Not a nice way to go... but scientists don't think anyone would make it through to the end But there's never been any archaeological evidence Vikings actually did choose such an awful torture. The only small sign it existed was from poetry of their time, which some historians have dismissed as a misunderstanding. So scientists decided to take another look at the idea \- and they came up with some surprising results. Rather than trying to determine whether the Vikings carried out the ...Blood Eagle', they've instead focused on whether it was even possible to do such a thing back then. Most read in Science STAR SHOW How and when to watch the final meteor shower of the year TONIGHT when it peaks OUTTA THIS WORLD Scientists baffled after recording eerie sounds coming from Jupiter's moon MILLI'S NOT MINI Armoured millipede as long as a Mini Cooper once roamed Britain CELLING IMMORTALITY Elon Musk's mission could defy aging by studying human cells in space TERRIBLE TWISTER Worst case US tornado may leave THOUSANDS dead, expert says PAYBACK Seals feed on SHARKS after scientists uncover evidence of bloody struggle And they concluded that yes, the Vikings would have been able to do it. Considering the tools they had in between the years 750 and 1050, scientists believe it would have been difficult but by no means impossible. However, researchers also think victims would have died very quickly from something so horrid, casting doubt on the signature fluttering bird wing effect at the end. ...I would have existed as part of a wider continuum of sociocultural praxis, and been employed to reclaim or secure the social status of the ritual's commissioner following the "bad death" of a male relative at the hands of the ritual's eventual victim,... scientists explain in The University Of Chicago Press Journals. ...The blood eagle was thus no mere torture: it had meaning.... 
Several characters in the Vikings TV series met a grisly ...Blood Eagle' ending In other news, iPhone owners are being driven up the wall by a potentially dangerous Bluetooth bug. People have been urged to be careful if someone has left their iPhone in the room as they could be using it to spy on you. And Pornhub has exposed what horny Americans and Brits have been looking for in the past year \- and there's a new favourite in town. We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk Source:
