Cromulus wrote:

Originally, the village raiding scenes were all a lot more graphic. There was a bloody detailed decapitation of the Father's head by the Vanir. And the Mother's head shot was different, where you see her tongue falls out of her mouth before her head slides off. You also see the heads of the Cimmerian people being cleaved off and hung on wooden pikes, in detail. But we only see a slim shot of this in the movie, in passing. Milius was said to be unhappy with the way the mechanical mechanism of the Mother's head worked. Finally, it worked right at the end. But Milius eventually dropped the scene, to tighten the narrative of the film. So it ended up the shorter version that we see in the movie. But all the other heads looked great, and were to be seen at one point in close-ups and all that. I read there was lots of blood on the set, with crew members becoming sick to their stomachs.
Conan's Mother was also cutting down a Vanir raider (as you said, this explains the blood on her sword). That's why she was surrounded and encircled, she was supposed to be sort of like Valeria. Which would be another reason for Conan's attraction to Valeria when he first saw her as a pit-fighter. By the way, I don't exactly call her death an "honor thing": Thulsa Doom killed her via mind control. He's a coward, who later tries pulling the same shit with Conan.