10 Creepy Secrets About the Bog Bodies of the World

Sacrificial Victims

Standard prehistoric burials– whether inhumation or cremation- involved the decomposition of the flesh in the belief this would release the spirit. However, ancient people knew that bogs were preserved, hence their use as a store for bog butter. Miranda Aldhouse Green believes that bodies were placed in bogs to preserve their flesh- and stop the spirit from moving on. The fact that many of the bog bodies were staked down reinforces this. Cashel man, Old Croghan man, and Clonycavan man were all buried along the borders of tribal boundaries within sight of the hills where tribal chiefs were inaugurated. This significant coincidence suggests that whoever they once were, the bog bodies were chosen to eternally guard these important areas.

The last meals of the victims were usually based on seasonal grains and vegetables, corresponding with late winter, early spring- lending credence to the belief of P V Glob that certain bodies were offerings to the earth to ensure a good crop in the coming season. Some of these meals also suggest the victims were sedated; an unusual kindness to a criminal. Lindow man’s stomach contained four grains of mistletoe, a substance known to act as a sedative. Graubelle man’s stomach contained traces of ergot, a grain blight that after prolonged ingestion resulted in convulsions, hallucinations and eventually death. Was he poisoned with ergot to ensure that he too, was insensible at his death?

Then there are the deaths themselves which often involved not one but several potentially fatal methods of dispatch. Lindow Man’s, in particular, suggests these deaths may have had a sacred element. He shows signs of ‘the triple death, a sacred from of sacrifice in which he was bludgeoned to knock him out, garrotted, his throat cut before he was pushed down into the bog to take his last breath.

So who were the people who were sacrificed? Perhaps they were criminals. Or, as seems more likely, perhaps they were specifically selected for the purpose of the sacrifice. The disabled Yde Girl and Kayhausen boy could have been sacrificed because of their youth or because their community was small or poor and could not sustain them when they fell on hard times. Those identified as of high standing, however, were probably offerings not for a single community but a whole tribe to mark a significant event. Old Croghan man is believed to have been a king, sacrificed for the good of his tribe. Suckling at the king’s nipples was a way of showing fealty in ancient Ireland. Old Croghan man’s nipples have been slashed- suggesting he was decommissioned, rather like the broken swords also found in the bogs.