section_path: Culture and religion/European paganism
section_name: European paganism
paragraph_text: European paganism
  
  Among the Germanic tribes, blood was used during their sacrifices; the Blóts. The blood was considered to have the power of its originator, and, after the butchering, the blood was sprinkled on the walls, on the statues of the gods, and on the participants themselves. This act of sprinkling blood was called blóedsian in Old English, and the terminology was borrowed by the Roman Catholic Church becoming to bless and blessing. The Hittite word for blood, ishar was a cognate to words for "oath" and "bond", see Ishara.The Ancient Greeks believed that the blood of the gods, ichor, was a substance that was poisonous to mortals.
  
  As a relic of Germanic Law, the cruentation, an ordeal where the corpse of the victim was supposed to start bleeding in the presence of the murderer, was used until the early 17th century.