Was human sacrifice a common practice in pre-Christian Northern Europe?

Question

Or was there a lot of untrue propaganda spread about the pre-existing religions in an effort to discredit them? Were followers of earlier religions blamed for murders which were commited instead by perverts and crazy people? How do we know the bodies found in the Danish bogs were sacrifice victims instead of the victims of some ancient criminal gang?

Answer 1

The Celts do appear to have performed human sacrifice as part of their religious rituals too. And since the Druids were the religious/scholar/priestly social class they almost certainly would have participated in human sacrifices, and probably officiated at them.
Strabo and Julius Caesar both mention it in their writings. There is also a reference by Lucan, and the comments by later scholars as part of the Lucan scholia, in the Pharsalia, to three Celtic deities; Taranis said to have been propitiated by burning, Teutates by drowning, and Esus by hanging.
And more believable numerous archaeological findings confirm it. A late Iron age shaft with traces of human blood and flesh proving it had been used to impale people, a man and a woman found pinned together by a wooden stake...
Ugh...

Answer 2

There's a middling amount of surviving writings concerning, for instance, the Druids, and their practices.

However, if a person's inclined to discount evidence there's probably nothing likely to convince otherwise.

Fortunately, whether a person chooses to believe the Druids are just victims of historical propaganda, whether the Aztecs were a sick culture of bloodbath, whether the Inquisition didn't happen, in the end it makes little difference what we choose to believe.

Answer 3

Yes from what I've read it seemed quite common among tribal europe.There is an account of the Rus [vikings] from 921 CE which details a slave girl [slav] being sacrificed to follow her master into death.

"Then came an old woman whom they call the Angel of Death, and she spread upon the couch the furnishings mentioned. It is she who has charge of the clothes making and arranging all things, and it is she who kills the girl slave. I saw that she was a strapping old woman, fat and louring.

The girl slave who wished to be killed went here and there and into each of their tents, and the master of each tent had sexual intercourse with her and said, "Tell your lord I have done this out of love for him."


"Ibn Rustah makes mention of a professional priesthood of Rus (whom he calls attibah) who enjoyed very high status, and who had the power to select as a sacrifice to their gods whichever men, women or cattle they fancied."

"They would take the selected offering, whether human or animal, and hang it from a pole until it died"

Answer 4

the main properly-known and brutal human sacrifice on checklist grow to be Jesus Christ. there have been different cases while the Abrahamic god has observed as for human sacrifice besides to the consistent animal sacrifices he demanded. If the Abrahamic god is definitely all-powerful, there could have been no want for human sacrifice. He asked for it to get his jollies. a minimum of alternative religions had stable motives while a human grow to be sacrificed.

Answer 5

While some religions did call for human sacrifice, they weren't going around slaughtering each other in a perpetual, crazy bloodbath.

However, when Christianity was getting its (admittedly awesome) PR going around, it was a lot easier to keep people from converting from Christianity to a pagan religion when they thought they were going to get killed right away.

Answer 6

yes. it was a central part of some of the religions and is of course the foundation of christianity. No cruxifixion, no religion.

Answer 7

google it.