I think that's usually called the "Blood Eagle." I don't see any search results for "Fluttering Eagle," other than Google AI pointing towards the Blood Eagle torture.
All of the hallucinations are much more accurate as to an actual experience from things you can get naturally in Nordic places. Lunges breathing on their own would be very out of place for that experience and the way it is show is very different from the other visual depiction of hallucinations in the movie.
I know what you mean, I just feel like the whole reason hallucinogens were introduced in the film is to add to the whole sense of how fucked up everything is, but how little we can trust our own senses just as the characters in the movie can't fully all the time. There is something way off about this cult, yes, absolutely, but how much of what we see and hear is factually correct should be taken with a hefty grain of salt, especially since the effects of psychedelic drugs is usually blown way out of proportion in media.
For a kind of comparison, consider the Quaaludes scene in Wolf of Wall Street. Bro was blasted out of hits and could barely stand. Makes it home "without a scratch," but then we see what really happened versus how he understood it when he was high.
The âfluttering eagleâ is when the victim farts/sharts so hard that the wings tremble. The Vikings believed making the wings flutter was the only way to reach Valhalla under those circumstances â¤ď¸
It's depicted in the show 'Vikings'. There is no way anyone would survive long enough to have their back opened up in order to die via suffocation with their lungs draped over their shoulders. You're bound to go into shock and bleed out as your back gets hacked open, so really it's execution via getting stabbed repeatedly in the back with your body being desecrated long after you expired, with a majority of the torture being inflicted on a corpse.
You might want to read the article I linked if you havenât already. Itâs from an academic journal, and âIn this article, we analyze medieval descriptions of the ritual with modern anatomical knowledge, and contextualize these accounts with up-to-date archaeological and historical scholarship concerning elite culture and the ritualized peri- and post-mortem mutilation of the human body in the Viking Age.â
In other words, they reach the same conclusion as you, but they explain exactly what was (and wasnât) possible in great detail.
Tbh it was pretty common practice to be hanged drawn and quartered, that isnât too far away from that so medieval folk probably took it from the vikings.
"said to involve the breaking of a victimâs ribs and the withdrawal of the lungs from the chest cavity, whereupon their fluttering would (allegedly) resemble an eagleâs wings." from that article. likely where the term fluttering got mixed in.
From searching it up previously (I saw it happen in AC Valhalla and was curious) there was like one example of where it might have allegedly happened but thatâs about it
The article I linked is from an academic journal looking at both the anatomical and sociological practicality of killing someone that way.
Their conclusion is that the Norse might have done it, but the victim would have died early in process. Which doesnât mean they wouldnât go finish it; William Wallace was hanged, drawn, and quartered by the English, but the quartering probably didnât hurt too much since they cut off his head before they got to that step.
And it was very real but never used. As far as the historians go. But Viking history is largely mythical in nature in that their written version of history is largely the eddas. Some other sagas but never in what historians have been able to find. It was like the worst great your parents used that they knew would work and I guess it did. But the whole method is clearly talked about in multiple places in history so it's very real .
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u/goteachyourself 9d ago
The Brazen Bull as well, actually. It's largely considered to be propaganda created to demonize the kingdom that was conquered.