I mentioned that I had a recollection of a viking movie where a warrior king faced with certain defeat, opened his stomach , ripped out one end of his intestines attached it to a spear stuck in the ground and ran of a cliff.
someone else said that the only honorable way of a viking to die would be death by battle.
but wasn’t hanging yourself…like Wodan/Odin and the world tree also acceptable?
I tried googling it and the only cite I can find is my own post in the IMHO thread
5 bonus points if you can name the movie where I got the viking-hara-kiri image
I know of no tradition for honorable suicide in the Norse culture, apart from symbolic euthanasia, stabbing a dying man a little with a spear so he’ll get to go to Valhalla.
Anyone not dying in battle went to dreary Hel for an eternity of suckitude.
Odin hanging himself isn’t really a suicide, it’s a ritual sacrifice.
I’ve never seen that scene as you’ve described. However, in “The Long Ships,” there are two scenes that everyone who’s ever seen the movie remember, even though they rarely remember the name: It has something to do with a giant golden bell, and something known as “riding the steel mare,” basically sliding belly-first down a giant sword.
Hapless Sidney Poitier seems to think he’s playing Othello in this movie. Richard Widmark, on the other hand, knows it’s just a cartoon with live people, and is obviously having a ball.
The Viking Sagas? Not exactly a good movie, but fun nevertheless. I seem to remember something like that happening, don’t remember if he went off of a cliff. It was just called “the Walk,” if googling is piquing my memory the right way.
Sounds out of character, although of course reliable sources are few and far between.
If the (real, Icelandic) sagas and Edda are anything to go by, suicide wouldn’t add to reputation - and that was one thing the vikings were almost obsessed with. A viking for whom defeat was certain would be more likely to face his enemies and utter something suitably stoic, hoping his final deeds would be long remembered.
Skarphedinn, son of Njal, is a seriously heroic character in the saga named for his father. He dies in the face of overwhelming odds when his enemies burn down the house around him, and he’s defiant throughout. He jokes when they light the fire (“Are you doing some cooking?”), sees to it that his friend gets first chance at escape - and when there’s no way out, he finds a spot to die standing up, singing a verse promising revenge as his last act. (And he’s taken care to drive his axe deep into a plank, so the steel won’t soften.)
Not exactly a suicide candidate, and this was a guy held up as an example.