The Tollund Man

The Tollund Man
Seamus Heaney
Bog Bodies
The term bog bodies (or bog people) is used to refer to human burials, some likely sacrificed, placed within peat bogs of Denmark, Germany, Holland, Britain, and Ireland. The highly acidic peat acts as a remarkable preservative, leaving the clothing and skin intact, and creating poignant and memorable images of people of the past.
Violence in the Bogs

In 1904 two naked bodies were found in the southern part of the Bourtanger Moor in the Netherlands. Because one of them lays on the outstretched arm of the other, who is obviously male, it was long believed that the second body was that of a woman. We now know that this body is also male. Both men died between 160 B.C. and 220 A.D. The intestines of one body (right) protrude from a stab wound in his left chest. How the other man died is unknown.
In 1879 the body of an adult woman was found in a bog near Ramten, Jutland in Denmark. The body, known as Huldremose Woman, was very well preserved. The woman met her violent end sometime between 160 B.C. and 340 A.D. Her arms and legs showed signs of repeated hacking, and the diggers who found her body noted that her right arm was detached from the rest of her body. That arm was evidently cut off before she was deposited in the peat.
The mummified body of a 16-year-old girl was dredged out of a small raised bog near the village of Yde, province of Drenthe, Holland, in 1897. The body was badly damaged by the peat dredgers' tools. Yde Girl died a violent death sometime between 170 B.C. and A.D 230. The woolen band around her throat shows that she died from strangulation. A wound near her left clavicle was probably inflicted with a knife. With the girl were the remains of a large and rather worn woolen cloak.
Tollund Man was discovered in Bjeldskovdal in 1950. He lived in the third or second century B.C., and is thought to have died at 30-40 years of age, choked to death by hanging from a leather belt. He was found lying on his side with arms bent and legs drawn up, and he was naked except for a leather cap and belt. Much of his flesh had decayed, but his head was intact including the stubble on his chin. Analysis of his intestines indicates he probably had eaten a gruel consisting predominantly of barley and seeds available in winter or early spring.
Section 1
The description of the body creates a sense of poignancy and helps to humanise the man who was sacrificed. The seeds represent fertility.
Heaney shows his respect for the Tollund Man by saying that he will stand a long time, contemplating the thoughts and feelings of this Bridegroom to the goddess as he awaited his tragic fate as a sacrificed offering.
Violent sexual images describe the manner of the mans death. In the same way as the bodies of saints were preserved in the soil, Heaney reveres the body, preserved in the bog, as that of a saint, a martyr to a perceived common good.
Section 2
In Section Two, Heaney prays to the Tollund Man (even if that seems like blasphemy to Christians) to help make the deaths of four brothers murdered in Northern Ireland during the 1920s Troubles something from which a force of good could emerge.
Looking for a positive renewal from the violence of their deaths.
The religious references help to make the connection between ancient rituals and the sectarian murders in Northern Ireland.
The anger and revulsion of the poet, at the brutality of violence is evident in the description of the deaths of the brothers.
The atrocities of the 1920s are placed in the same context as the modern killings.
In this poem, the poet imaginatively delves deep into the layers of the past in order to understand the present.
The poem offers hope for the future of Northern Ireland because the Tollund Man is finally released from the grip of the goddess and now lies reposing in Aarhus.
Religion
Bridegroom to the goddess Heaney personifies the bog as the goddess of fertility, to whom these ancient sacrifices were made. Those dark juices working / Him to a saints kept body. The bog preserves the bodies perfectly. Here there is a suggestion that the Tollund man is like a saint in the Catholic religion saints bodies are said not to decay. I could risk blasphemy, / Consecrate the cauldron bog / Our holy ground Continuing from the previous quotation, Heaney suggests turning to an alternative religion, making the bog a new deity and worshipping that.
Politics
In these poems, Iron Age sacrificial killings are described. Heaney compares these killings with the violent, brutal deaths occurring in Northern Ireland at the time he was writing to show that violence is cyclical and human nature has not become anymore civilised we still seek revenge for betrayal, and kill in the name of religion.
History Irish
Out there in Jutland / In the old man-killing parishes / I will feel lost, / Unhappy and at home. This poem is about another bog body found in Denmark. Heaney empathises with the man, imagining something of his sad freedom. Heaney knows that if he visited the scene of the brutal sacrificial killing he would recognise traces of the same vengeful practices that violate his own society.

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The Tollund Man

Violence in the Bogs

Looking for a positive renewal from the violence of their deaths.

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