War: L'Aigle de Sang

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Scholars dispute whether Blood Eagles were ever actually performed; it could be a myth based on misinterpretation or mistranslation of Viking poetry, or a symbol for death by defeat in battle (causing one's back to be scored by eagles)

The Blood Eagle would have been a method of execution. It was performed by cutting the ribs of the victim by the spine, breaking the ribs so they resembled blood-stained wings, and pulling the lungs out through the wounds in the victim's back. Salt was then sprinkled in the wounds.

-Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, after the Viking invasion of 865: "They caused the bloody eagle to be carved on the back of Ælla (king of Northumbria), and they cut away all of the ribs from the spine, and then they ripped out his lungs."
-Knútsdrápa by Sigvatr Þórðarson (between 1020 & 1038):
Ok Ellu bak,
At lét hinn’s sat,
Ívarr, ara,
Iorví, skorit.

And Ívarr, the one
who dwelt at York,
had Ella's back
cut with [an] eagle > as in by an eagle, or in its shape.

-Orkneyinga saga: "Earl Torf-Einarr took to saying these words: 'I know not what I see in Rinansey, sometimes it lifts itself up, but sometimes it lays itself down, that is either a bird or a man, and we will go to it.' There they found Halfdan Long-leg, and Einar made them carve an eagle on his back with a sword, and cut the ribs all from the backbone, and draw the lungs there out, and gave him to Odin for the victory he had won"

-Norna-Gests þáttr, section 6, "Sigurd Felled the Sons of Hunding":
Nú er blóðugr örn
breiðum hjörvi
bana Sigmundar
á baki ristinn.
Fár var fremri,
sá er fold rýðr,
hilmis nefi,
ok hugin gladdi.

Now the blood eagle
With a broad sword
The killer of Sigmund
Carved on the back.
Fewer were more valiant
As the troops dispersed
A chief of people
Who made the raven glad.