Gruesome Viking ?blood eagle? ritual is anatomically possible, study finds

That's especially the case with the blood eagle ritual, which has long been dismissed as mere legend—whether because of repeated misunderstandings during translations of the poems or perhaps a desire by Christian scholars to portray the pagan Vikings as barbaric.(Warning: some graphic anatomical descriptions follow.)The blood eagle purportedly involved carving open the victim's back, cutting the ribs away from the spine, and then pulling out the lungs through the opening to display them on the outspread ribs. ("They caused the bloody eagle to be carved on the back of Ælla, and they cut away all of the ribs from the spine, and then they ripped out his lungs.")There are also two accounts of Torf-Einarr's execution of Halfdan Haaleg. The second account comes from Norse poet and historian Snorri Sturluson: "Afterwards, Earl Einarr went up to Halfdan and cut the 'blood eagle' on his back, in this fashion that he thrust his sword into his chest by the backbone and severed all the ribs down to the loins, and then pulled out the lungs; and that was Halfdan's death."Viking historian Luke John Murphy of the University of Iceland decided to enlist the aid of actual anatomical specialists to assess whether performing the blood eagle would even be feasible. Finally, it would be extremely challenging to reposition the ribs in the shape of an eagle's wings, and then pull the lungs through the opening.Per the authors, "holding a sharpened blade parallel to the underlying muscle layer, while making long cutting incisions just superficial to the muscles" would have made it possible to remove the outer skin and muscle. "Such a weapon might even be depicted on a stone monument found on the Swedish island of Gotland, where a scene carved into the stone depicts something that could have been a blood eagle or other execution."Finally, for the final stage of removing the lungs through the cuts along the spine, one would need to fold the ribs outward to create wings.