The Bog People: from Archeology, May/June 2010

I have a fascination with the Bog People. I am hungry for every bit of news about them. I'm in good company. Seamus Heaney, the noted Irish poet and writer, thinks one of the Bog People looks like his uncle.

I blog about the Bog People. I write essays about them. A lot of people feel the same interest, as evidenced by the many articles I find in magazines and other publications.

In the May/June 2010 issue of ARCHEOLOGY magazine is an article called “Bog Bodies Rediscovered”. The facts uncovered about the Bog People lead me to suspect that the pagan people of Europe, including the British Isles, were closely connected to each other by belief and customs, these connections being reinforced by the constant traveling, visiting, trading, and interaction of cultures.

Tollund Man, who appears on the cover of the magazine, was found naked as a stillborn child in the fetal position except for his hat, a “two-strand leather rope” around his neck that seemed to be the instrument of his murder, and a leather belt. This bog person has the most preternatural look of peace on his face, a curious thing for a strangled man to have. The article says “It was as though the dead man's soul had for a moment returned from another world, through a gate in the western sky.”

That's the thing about the bog people, they appear so strangely real, despite the strange coloring that the tobacco-brown peat juices give to their bodies. It makes time-traveling seem almost possible.

I had seen the Windeby Girl, another Bog person, before in photographs in books, and I always thought, no offense meant, that she must have been, well, a somewhat unattractive girl. It turns out that there is a good reason for that. The Windeby Girl is actually a boy. It is suggested that what appears to be a blindfold was probably a headband that has slipped down due to shrinkage and was probably used to keep his hair from his eyes. The Windeby person has his hair “half-shaved” on one side and the probably reason given for the lack of the other half to is “natural process of decay from greater exposure of oxygen on one side of her head than the other, or of trowel damage...”.

If you can see the little whisker hairs of Tollund Man still intact, isn't it possible to tell if the head of the Windeby Girl was shaven or not? The reason I ask is that there was a pagan goddess named Hel who had one half of her face shaded and one half in light, much like the faces shown on the cover of the Beatles' Meet The Beatles Album.

In the Scottish Outer Hebrides, the bodies at Cladh Hallan seems to give proof that they were deliberately mummified in a bog and then retrieved and buried elsewhere. If true, that would mean that not all the corpses found in the peat bogs were accidental victims who fell in due to bilberry intoxication. The article suggests that the burials give evidence of ancestor worship. One of the bodies seems to be a composite of several bodies, which fact gives rise to a lot of other questions.

I have a question about Red Franz on page 26 of the magazine. If he died as a young man, what is with his eyebrows? He has the eyebrows of an eighty year old man. It was interesting that he has “'riders' facets'” on his thigh bones. These are described as “protrusions caused by the increase of the muscles and connective tissues of the hip, which can occur from constant horseback riding.” Another question: Since it was discovered that “after decades of being displayed on his back, they turned him over onto his abdomen” and found his throat had been cut, what took them so long to roll him over?

More questions arise on reading page 28: Did you notice that some of the figures, both interior and exterior, on the Gundestrup Cauldron have their hands up as if the police had yelled “Freeze right there and keep your hands in the air”? Page 29 shows the partial torso and arms of a bog person called Old Croghan Man in just the same posture. There may have been ritual postures that signified different facets of pagan religious rites, and that may be one, just a gangs and secret societies today have secret signs and handshakes. Of course, there are also unicorns on the inside of the cauldron. Incidentally, this bog person as well as Clonycavan Man had their nipples pinched and cut off. Various speculations are thrown about.

The Clonycavan Man has a skull that had been opened with an ax and had also been clobbered in the nose, probably by the very same ax. This puts the theory that bog people were hopelessly lost in the bog or intoxicated and accidentally fell into the bog waters. They were undoubtedly murdered, possibly ritually. Clonycavan Man has combed his hair into a twist, thrown forward up onto his head and cemented with an "organic" hair gel. He is described as six and a half feet tall and a regular eater of meat. You can probably piece a picture together of this man and his personality.

“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread...”

When I was reading Timpson's Country Churches, I came across a photograph of a stone on which was carved with what looked like a sheaf of wheat, or a piece of rope that was unraveling, or maybe the stylized figure of a man. The Steyning stone is 5' 8" tall, a good height for a man back then.This stone is kept at St. Andrew's Church, Steyning, England.

There is also a statue of St. Cuthmann in Steyning. A copy of the standing stone rests on the ground next to a seated figure of St. Cuthmann. Britain is filled with carved and standing stones from antiquity. Stones were apparently worshiped back then. In fact, the Standing Stones o' Stenniss in the Orkneys reinforce this idea.

A source alludes to the possible underlying paganism of the stone at Steyning. "One author tells us of a legend that St. Cuthman brought down a pagan stone that the people here were worshipping, but that may be a modern legend derived from the analysis of the place name (Candlin 1985 p.55). "

A description of the photograph from the book Timpson's Country Churches explains that “The name of the village comes from the Saxon word Stenningas meaning 'the people of the stone' - and this could be the stone” (Timpson, 97).

The text explaining the origin of St. Andrew's, Steyning, formerly St. Cuthmann's, tells the legend that St. Cuthmann, seeking a place to build a church, pulled his invalid mother in a home-made handcart with a rope fashioned into a yoke around his neck. Please remember that this is a legend. Realistically, the yoke would be placed in such a way that most of his mothers' weight would have been on his shoulders and chest, however strong his neck might have been. Besides, a rope around the neck is not a pleasant image.

The wording of this legend suggests a connection to the pre-Christian and pagan cult, in which the 'hanging god' is obliquely mentioned. The rope around Cuthmann's neck broke, and as in the case of a condemned man, if he lived through the hanging because the rope broke, he was allowed to live.

Cuthmann made a “handle” of elder branch to pull the handcart, but that also broke. Perhaps the broken rope and elder branch indicated that the situation had gone far enough. It is said that St. Cuthmann vowed to build his church when he could go no further.

As for the carving on the stone in the church, it was no doubt symbolic of ideas important to the stonemasons who carved it, in this case probably the Saxon people who established the village, or perhaps an even earlier settlement of people from whom the Saxons borrowed their symbolism. Does the fact that Stenningas means the people of the stone indicate the particular stone at St. Andrews or does it have some older and deeper meaning? Even if it refers to that particular stone, what does the carving upon the stone mean?

The Saxons, having converted to Christianity, may have been referring to Jesus' quote to St. Peter, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church”. This is commonly believed to be a pun on Peter's name that is linked to the word petros, rock, having the meaning “You are Peter (stalwart as a rock), and you will be the foundation of my church.” This quote can be compared with Jesus' parable about the man who built his house upon the rock which survived the flood waters that destroyed all the houses not having a solid foundation. The Saxons might have been referring to the fact that they belonged to the Christian Church founded by St. Peter. Most probably, they applied this meaning after their forced rejection of paganism.

What was the significance of placing the stone inside St. Andrew's? Many of the English churches in Timpson's book feature art that is distinctly pagan, renewed in a Christian context. They were probably having a hard time giving up their pagan ways.

Another example of pre-Christian imagery is in St. Mary's church, Happisburg, which contains, “The fifteenth-century font with its club-wielding wodehouses, traditional wild men”. That motif is linked to legendary wild men of the forest who were part of the cult of Odin (Norse) or Wodin (English). The current generation has no idea how wild some of the men of England once were.

These carvings were familiar symbols to the stone masons and woodcarvers who helped build the early churches. The name Happisburg indicates the meaning of the apis village, or bee village, beehives also being an ancient symbol. Bakers' ovens were once constructed in the shape of large beehives.

The pagan symbols and customs of harvest time were remembered and used by converted pagans. Bread, corn, sheaves, and harvesting implements figured in lore so old that people eventually forgot their origin even though they continued to celebrate the custom, such as in the case of Halloween. All Hallow's Eve was once a time filled with superstition and dread but is now viewed as a frolic for children and adults alike.

The appearance of the figure on the stone at St. Andrew's is somewhat rune-like and could be mistaken for a stick-figure of a man, the center section of the figure being the torso and the top and bottom sections being the arms and legs respectively. The figure is headless. It might also be seen as a braided piece of work of two strands, or as a sheaf of wheat.

A photograph from the book Timpson's Country Churches, shows the Steyning stone kept as an artifact of antiquity at St. Andrew's Church, Steyning, England. The wire around the top does not appear to be holding the stone to the wall but is merely looped around the place where the head of a figure might be, were it symbolic of a man.

In the book Baking with Julia, written by Dorie Greenspan, there might be an answer as to what the figure on the stone represents. In the chapter titled "Artisan Breads Crusty and Rustic", the photographs of braided bread and the braided dough for Wheat-Stalk Pain de Campaign, risen and ready for baking, closely resemble the carving on the Steyning stone in St. Andrew's.

A photograph from the book Baking with Julia, shows an illustration of how to form the braid of the Braid-and-Wheat Pain de Campagne. The finished bread has a braided corona (couronne or crown) around the perimeter of the round loaf and a pattern of wheat stalks on the top of the bread. The braid is formed by lining up parallel elongated pieces of dough and starting the braid in the center.

In Pain de Campagne the author says “this loaf is made by the centuries-old chef-levain method, which depends on capturing and nurturing airborn wild yeast...To straighten out terminology, the chef, or chief, is a mixture primarily of flour and water that is allowed to ferment over a period of two days, after which it is 'fed' with more flour and water...the Pain de Compagne can be made using the fountain method...The large round loaf can sport an outer braid and a decorative bouquet of wheat stalks...or the grape cluster and star-shaped breads...”

Many of the terminologies of bread-making involve actions similar to harvesting corn and grain in the days before modern farm machinery. They sometimes sound violent, such as “slashing the batard...hold the razor almost parallel to the loaf and make three cuts..Slash the others and get them into the oven as soon as possible.”

The photograph from Baking with Julia shows the completed Braid and Wheat Country Bread.

Baking With Julia also dispalys a collection of rolling pins for related chores like “butter bashing”. It admonishes cooks to choose the French pin if only one can be had because it has no handles. (Remember that St. Cuthmann, made a handle from an elder branch for his handcart.)

The couronne or crown is a ring-shaped bread reminiscent of the halo in both Christian and pre-Christian symbolism. The bread has a hole in the center and resembles the ring-shaped rocks called logans that children were passed through in pagan times to heal them. Oddly enough, the book shows a technique for putting a hole in the dough: “Plunge your elbow into the center of the dough to make a hole.”

They actually plunged in their elbows. There is a photograph to show the correct technique.

The Book of Irish Verse
Irish Poetry From The Sixth Century To The Present
edited by John Montague
published by Bristol Park Books, New York, 1998

OLD MYTHOLOGIES

The poem CORMAC MAC AIRT PRESIDING AT TARA, version by Douglas Hyde, describes an ideal king. “Beautiful was the appearance in that assembly. Flowing and slightly curling was his golden hair.”

This first sentence is followed by a long passage describing the appearance and dress of Cormac in that assembly. The description of his appearance is followed by a last sentence telling why he was considered beautiful, “ And he was himself, besides, symmetrical and beautiful of form, without blemish or reproach” (Montague, 50).

Symmetry was the defining quality of beauty. The importance of symmetry and balance is a point I make in parts of my research essay about John Millington Synge's play Riders to The Sea.

Not only does the passage in CORMAC MAC AIRT PRESIDING AT TARA give a description about the subject of symmetry, but the written form of the passage is symmetrical in that the first and last sentences balance each other, with a lavish description in between.

Another example of balance and symmetry in Irish poetry is found in THE ALPHABET CALENDAR OF AMERGIN, version by Robert Graves. The poem, in three stanzas, begins with “I am” in every line, followed by a noun, separated from the description by a colon. For example:

“I am a stag: of seven tines.” The right side, after the first line, can be read as a continuous flow, “I am a stag of seven tines across a plain on a deep lake the Sun lets fall, above the cliff beneath the nail among flowers, who but I Sets the cool head aflame with smoke? (Montague, 45).

The form of this poem is perfectly balanced, with the colon acting as a fulcrum between the two sides. It also hints that each side of the equation might contain its own story and logic apart from each other, just as the human brain has two hemispheres that work in unison but also contain their own separate left brain – right brain functions.

The poem THE PLAIN OF ADORATION, version by John Montague, describes a vile idol once worshiped in pagan Ireland. It is a poem of seven stanzas, the first being “Here was raised/ a high idol of cruel fights:/ the Cromm Cruaich-/ The King Idol of Ireland.”

The poem goes on to tell: “He was their Molech,/ this withered hump of mists,/ dominating every harbour,/ denying the eternal kingdom.” Calling to mind stone circles like Stonehenge, The third verse says, “In a circle stood/ four times three idols of stone:/ to bitterly enslave his people,/ the pivot figure was gold.”

The ancient festival of Samhain is brought to mind with these words, “In dark November/ when the two worlds near each other,/ he glittered among his subjects,/ blood-crusted, insatiable.”
The fifth verse states that “To him without glory,/ would they sacrifice their firstborn;/ with wailing and danger/ pouring new blood for the Stooped One.”

The sixth verse is this, “Under his shadow/ they cried and mutilated their bodies;/ from this worship of dolour/ it is called the Plain of Adoration.”

The final verse compares the two halves of the Irish belief system. “From the rule of Eremon/ well bred and graceful Goidels/ worshipped such stones until/ the coming of good Patrick to Armagh” (Montague, 48-49).

In my research essay Riders to The Sea, I discuss the festival of Samhain in connection with the character Maurya who talks about the dark days of Samhain. There is also a brief statement about the struggle between the old religion and Christianity. The stones were apparently symbolic of the King who was symbolically compared to the god Molech. It was to this idol that human sacrifices were offered, particularly the sacrifice of the first newborn child of the adherents. The Old Testament of the Bible contains laws stating the proscribed sacrifices of herd and crops. The “first fruits”, the best of everything, were to be offered to God through the Levitical priesthood. The Bible specifically denounces the human sacrifices to Molech, who is mentioned specifically.

In Leviticus 18:21 it states: “You will not allow any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, thus profaning the name of your God. I am Yahweh” (The New Jerusalem Bible or NJ version).

Leviticus 20:2 repeats the command, “Anyone, be he Israelite or alien resident in Israel, who gives any of his children to Molech, will be put to death...” (NJ). 1 Kings 11:7 states, “Then it was that Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, on the mountain to the east of Jerusalem, and to Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites (NJ).

Footnote b of that page explains “'Milcom' Gk; “Molech” Hebr.”, or in other words, Milcom was another designation for Molech. Jeremiah 32:34-35 shows the reason why Molech was a debased god, “Instead, they set up their horrors in the Temple that bears my name to defile it, and built the high places of Baal in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, to burn their sons and daughters alive in honour of Molech: a thing I have never ordered, that had never entered their thoughts- that they would cause Judah to sin by anything so loathsome" (NJ).

Although the poem THE PLAIN OF ADORATION is listed under the section called Old Mythologies, it is clear from Biblical history that the Israelites faced the same set of circumstances in opposing the worship of Molech as did the new religion, Christianity, when Saint Patrick forbade converts to continue sacrificing their children to Cromm Cruaich.

THE HAG OF BEARE is a poem from the ninth century. This poem gives good examples used in ancient times as motifs and archetypes. One example was the Hag motif. In mythology, the Hag could appear at any stage of life. In spring she was a beautiful maiden. In winter she was old and ragged. She typified the agricultural year that was linked to various fertility gods and their rites. She was also an archetype of mother and goddess. The poem is twenty-nine verses in length.

The poem describes life from an old woman's viewpoint. She discusses her youth and how things were better in the “good old days”. There are several correlating points to my essay about Riders to The Sea. In the play, Maurya is an old woman who recalls the days when her husband and sons were all alive and providing for the family as fishermen. After their deaths she speaks of the poverty facing her and her daughters.

In THE HAG OF BEARE, the speaker introduces herself in the second stanza, “I am the hag of Beare/ Fine petticoats I used to wear/ Today, gaunt with poverty,/ I hunt for rags to cover me” (Montague, 71).

Toward the end of the play Riders to The Sea, a group of woman mourners come to Maurya's cottage wearing red petticoats, a garment common on the Island where Synge lived for a time.
The speaker in THE HAG OF BEARE states another motif that could be linked to Odin, “And my right eye has been taken away/ As down-payment on heaven's estate...”

An integral part of the mythology of Odin is the belief that he lost an eye as the price of learning sacred secrets. This woman may have lost an eye after a lifetime, but it is more likely an allusion to the worship of Odin. Since Odin was a trickster and shape-shifter, the poem also inherently asks the question if he might have also been a cross-dresser in one of his disguises.

THE WARP-SPASM, version by Thomas Kinsella, contains a long description of the physical changes Cuchulain experienced when he grew angry with battle furor. “He sucked one eye so deep in to his head that a wild crane couldn't probe it on to his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek (Montague, 78).

Unlike Odin and more like The Incredible Hulk, Cuchulain returned to his normal form after he recuperated from the effects of his anger.