#bog bodies
I’ve been thinking about adding some historical illustrations to my portfolio, so I used the unfortunate Bockstenmannen as a test subject. He’s currently residing in the Halland Museum of Cultural History in Varberg, Sweden, where they’ve had a lovely reconstruction done of how he may have looked in life. I based the colors of his clothing off the information on their website, as the preserved garments have been turned yellow-brown by the bog.
Post link
I feel like some of the discussion of Morrigan tends to lump her in with European or Norse ideas of war deities and she’s just so different. She’s arguably not even a war deity in the traditional sense.
The Morrigan rarely fights herself. She’s a talker and a planner and a prophet and poet.
She inspires heroes and sets up leaders.
She’ll go in disguise to judge your merit.
She’ll appear like a monster to test your resolve.
It’s not a case of not fighting, but choosing the moment carefully.
She crosses between this world and the next. She knows death, knows what the cost of fighting can be.
She knows the power of words in battle.
There’s also the demonization issue and how much does the war thing reflect the original cult figure.
The character starts out in the 8th battle of moytura involved in kingship rituals like a soveregnty figure but she’s called a Lamia. A demon that torments humanity.
The next time we see her is the 12thc Tain and she’s an antagonist tormenting the hero of our national epic. She takes on the horrific crow form to perch on the dead boy heros shoulder.
By the 16th c morrigna is just another word for other battlefield demons like genits, bananachs. Airborn demons.
Definitely, though I have thoughts on the relationship between Cú Culainn and the Morrigan in the Táin. I’m not sure it’s as simple as the demonisation Morrigan faced post-christian period. It fits with common folklore themes of test in disguise of a hero. When a potential hero is unkind/unreceptive to the goddess/fairy character in disguise (as old woman) then he is doomed to fail.
Now the Táin is a much larger more complex story then those smaller morality type tales but still, Cú Culainn does ultimately fail and the Morrigan returns to prove it.
Looking at that relationship in the tain
Queen Maeve is a cautionary tale about women crossing gender boundaries. Could the morrigan be a similar cautionary tale about sovereignty Queens.
Say when the Morrigan meets cu chulainn as the beautiful daughter of Buan she’s a sovereignty queen offering the kingship to a member of the derbhfine. He refuses and as a result she turns nasty.
Possibly, especially with all things we don’t know about Iron Age and early medieval kingship in Ireland, the selection process and consequences.
If I remember you don’t like the sacrifice theories Nick Kelly based the bog body exhibit around very much? But that’s also a potential element here. If he’s seen as a failed candidate for kingship (due to refusing to try).
That’s me. Im not a big fan of Ned as a human either.
<Rant= “He used to literally stare at the door to his office until someone opened it for him. No good mornings, no eye contact, just entitlement.
Even taking the civil service culture as an excuse he is still the irish embodiment of the cambridge school theory he got king sacrifice from”>
Like I think the kingship sacrifice thing is a leap from the evidence we have, but I thought it was an interesting thought exercise.
I’m really into the boundaries element of it, you see. I’m not particularly interested in kingship but land and boundaries and sacrifice maybe?
I like the boundaries thing too. Since they’re buried on the fringes of the community maybe theyre criminals.
The Cillins have been brought up because of the referendum. Still born babies and secret pregnancies are buried in them. But so are strangers and taboo breaking adults.
yeah….but two of the bodies show evidence of being really well groomed, manicures or hair-gel, right before being killed and submerged. That doesn’t scream criminal to me, I knew that’s hardly conclusive, just a gut feeling that there’s more at play.
