University of Tasmania
Browse

File(s) under permanent embargo

Human sacrifice in Viking Age Britain and Ireland

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-20, 06:37 authored by Shane McLeod
Human sacrifice, as part of pre-Christian religious rites, is one of a number of violent attributes commonly associated with the Vikings both in post-Viking Age medieval written and visual sources and in popular imagination, the latter perhaps best exemplified by the 'blood eagle' as performed on Jarl Borg and King AElle of Northumbria in the popular television show Vikings. But is there any unequivocal contemporary evidence for human sacrifice? This paper will briefly discuss the problems of interpreting the evidence for human sacrifice, before concentrating on the evidence from Britain and Ireland. Despite the silence of contemporary insular written sources, it is found that there is one certain and other probable examples of human sacrifices in the archaeological records of England, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ireland. Amongst the probable examples is a new suggestion that human sacrifice occurred at Whithorn, the site of a Northumbrian bishopric and monastery, but now in southern Scotland. Discussion of Whithorn will be the focus of the article. The evidence for human sacrifice will be briefly discussed with regard to the active practice of Norse religious beliefs in Britain, and in the Scandinavian acculturation to indigenous practices, including Christianity, in the ninth and tenth centuries CE.

History

Publication title

Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association

Volume

14

Pagination

71-88

ISSN

1449-9320

Department/School

School of Humanities

Publisher

Australian Early Medieval Association Inc.

Place of publication

Australia

Rights statement

Copyright 2018 The Author and Australian Early Medieval Association

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Understanding Europe’s past

Usage metrics

    University Of Tasmania

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC