Editing Decapitation (section)

==== Nordic countries ====
In [[Nordic countries]], decapitation was the usual means of carrying out capital punishment. Noblemen were beheaded with a [[sword]], and commoners with an [[axe]]. The last executions by decapitation in [[Finland]] in 1825, [[Norway]] in 1876, [[Faroe Islands]] in 1609, and in [[Iceland]] in 1830 were carried out with axes. The same was the case in [[Denmark]] in 1892. [[Sweden]] continued the practice for a few decades, executing its second to last criminal—mass murderer [[Johan Filip Nordlund]]—by axe in 1900. It was replaced by the guillotine, which was used for the first and only time on [[Johan Alfred Ander]] in 1910.

[[Finland]]'s official beheading axe resides today at the Museum of Crime in [[Vantaa]]. It is a broad-bladed two-handed axe. It was last used when murderer [[Tahvo Putkonen]] was executed in 1825, the last execution in peacetime in Finland.<ref name="otonkoski-1">{{cite journal |last=Otonkoski |first=Pirkko-Leena |title=Henkirikoksista kuolemaan tuomittujen kohtaloita vuosina 1824–1825 Suomessa |trans-title=The fates of those sentenced to death for homicides in 1824–1825 in Finland |url=http://www.genealogia.fi/genos/68/68_55.htm |journal=Genos |language=fi |volume=68 |pages=55–69, 94–95 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101227081225/http://genealogia.fi/genos/68/68_55.htm |archive-date=27 December 2010 |access-date=14 December 2010}}</ref>