By author Mark David (author's homepage)
Okay, I admit a pun to the famous BBC crime series Waking The Dead. I love this TV-series because it works with:
1. A time perspective - time, place and people
2. Death
3. A story explaining the above requiring discovery by the investigating team
4. The use of modern techniques to discover information previously unavailable
Re. 1 - Time - here I mean the perspective that something that happened in the past is conditioning the present to inform the future.
Re. 2 - we as people like it or not have an obsession with death. We all know deep down, especially for us past the half-way stage that the clock is ticking ... tick tick tick
Re. 3 - Stories are those aspects of humanity that link us as people with our inner worlds and the inner worlds of our forefathers.
Re. 4 - The idea that techniques in forensices, scientific excavation, analysis, intelligence, image capture, CCTV - all play an increasing part in solving the case or mystery.
I am working with all of the above in The Elements. This blog really is the recording of my source material for sharing with anyone with an interest. The picture above is of my own construction, an artistic creation that combines two macabre aspects:
1. The x-ray of a bog body that has been mutilated with:
It is not intended to be taken literally, not with the wings of an eagle at any rate.
In The Elements I have constructed a story revolving around the discovery of a bog body. A perfectly preserved body that has also undergone the macabre ritual of the blood eagle, with the exception that the body is the murdered victim of more recent times. The body also happens to be dressed in the uniform of the SS. A preview of the opening scenes charting the discovery of the body and the characters assigned to discovering more of what is going on can accessed on Issuu. The book is nearly in place and called Naked Ground. It is also the first in a series of four books foreshadowing a great deal more to come. Anyway, back to the blog ...
The Viking blood eagle
Concerning the blood eagle, as far as I am able to tell, despite a certain skepticism concerning the validity of the blood eagle, the fact that the macabre ritual of carving an eagle on the back of a victim by blade before cutting the flesh from the back and hacking the ribs down the sides of the spine, pulled apart in the recreation of an eagle has to be believed. My argument rests with reference to the Wikipedia link above that too much is written in old Norse to vindicate that such practices did exist. Wikipedia also brings attention to the rock carving from Gotland, that supposedly shows a victim being laid over a stone prior to or in the process of having the blood eagle carved.
The image below is open to your own interpretation, and I for one see the form of the person over the chair or table as being that of the child. Hmm, a child being given the pleasure of having it's back cut open? On the other hand the eagle is present too, is it one of Odin's ravens, the other flying above? (There are always two, one called Hugin, one called Munin, fly away Hugin, fly away Munin ...)
Bog bodies
Then there's the discovery of bog bodies mostly in Northern Europe. The preservative conditions in the acidic air-starved boglands of Northern Europe are perfect environments for the preservation of skin and tissue. Over time, bone is dissolved, leaving the soft and most often flattened, dried tissue preserving skin, hair, and virtually everything else apart from bone. Of course, this is a time-consuming process, and many bodies going back over two thousand years are in an amazing state of preservation. It has been experience of seeing these bodies that has helped shape much of what is written in Naked Ground.
Tollund Man
The Tollund Man is the naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 4th century BCE, during the period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was found in 1950 on the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark, buried in a peat bog which preserved his body. Such a find is known as a bog body. The man's physical features were so well-preserved that he was mistaken at the time of discovery for a recent murder victim. Twelve years before Tollund Man's discovery, another bog body, Elling Woman, had been discovered in the same bog. Ancient bodies have been found in bogs in England and Ireland as well. Image courtesy of National Geographic.
Grauballe Man
I have been to see Grauballe Man at Moesgaard museum in Jutland, Denmark. The museum also houses the finds of nearby Illerup Ådal, or Illerup stream valley as the name can be translated. Moesgaard is also noteworthy for the setting for Europes biggest Viking festival and battle reenactments. For anyone interested, I can thoroughly recommend a visit. The market stalls alone are worth the time spent getting here and there is really something for everyone. But I digress. As can be seen in the body picture of Grauballe man above, the preservation of bogs is really remarkable. Witness the detail on the face of Tollund man:
Can you believe, this face is of a person who lived in the 3rd. century? BC. Stubble, every crease and wrinkle of his face preserved for eternity.
Reinventing the bog body requires not much imagination with the above examples to guide us along the way. Never the less, the idea of preservation and preservation of acts of violence in the act of ... murder, or sacrifice is something worthy of Waking the Dead.
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