I have a nagging recollection that some segments of the Norse peoples believed that a mutilated body would not cross over into the afterlife and would in fact haunt the region looking for its lost bits...
Yes. The idea of banshees and other entities have origination in such concepts of those who are unable to "cross over" due to their own acts or the acts of those who killed them. In fact, Norse mythology places this eternity in between life and the after life as a type of hell as they had no concept of "hell" as we think of it.

I also recall certain stories that had a viking cutting the hands off his opponent so he would be unable to lift a mug of ale at Odin's table in Valhalla. A terrible fate for eternity.