Here’s a suffering solstice sacrifice. She’s be up as long as the sun is up. Do you think she will survive?
as usual 'it depends'
Right now the temperature is just about at freezing in Reykjavik where at solstice a day is quite short.
That's of course thanks to the influence of warm ocean currents.
In a continental climate quite a bit further south, where the day is both longer and much much colder ... not a chance.
I do like the idea of sacrifices as 'ordeals' where the life/death outcome is a relatively even chance.
It is both a sacrifice, offering up suffering, as well as a divination.
Obviously the ideal outcome is hard suffering that is survivable, as this is a good omen for the coming year
-- any tests and tribulations sent by the gods will be manageable.
Now of course making the challenge too easy to survive would be cheating,
the gods do not like attempts at cheating them,
and so we might have some adversarial interests at play
-- a king might wish to have a good show with a surviving victim,
so that there's trust in his governance continuing to deliver good times.
A section of the priesthood will be devoted to making the suffering as severe and authentic as possible,
so as to please the gods, though of course they also can't afford season after season of doom-prophecy.
Finding the right balance probably includes ... a lot of training with 'volunteers' ...
that would be young members joining the priesthood,
who accept this in the hope of so qualifying themselves for higher clerical ranks.