All in all, I found this book to be a good, informative read. I truly appreciated the numerous pictures throughout the book. Some of the science may be a bit dated as the book was originally published 40 years ago, but it is certainly a good introductory book for people interested in the subject.

One thing I did not like is the fact that the majority of the materials referenced in the bibliography section were in Danish, which means that for someone like me, they are inaccessible as far as original source materials go. ( )

A classic in bog body genre.

Okay, there's no such thing as the bog body genre, but there should be!

This was probably one of the first books written on bog bodies, back in 1965. The beginning is quite good, with descriptions of how the bodies were found and how they were investigated and preserved. And lots of photos! The majority of the book is concerned with Danish bog bodies, though a number of German ones are mentioned also. (The author was Danish, so I think that's fair. Besides, at that time, Denmark had produced the largest number of bog bodies found.) However, I think it falls apart at the end, in which the author theorizes about why the bodies were there, and what the ropes around their necks meant and all that stuff. I found some of those theories to be laughable. (Mind you, I do understand that in forty years, I could be looking back at current bog body theory and wonder how I could have believed any of it.) One theory is that the people--their hands generally showing they were unused to manual labor--were sacrificed to the Earth Mother. The universal mother goddess worshipped all over the place. Er, um. I don't know much about Danish or Germanic Iron Age beliefs, but I'm pretty sure they had individual gods and goddesses they'd sacrifice to (I know the Celts did, and bodies of water often had their own individual goddess, as did each tribe). This theory comes from a description by Tacitus of a Germanic religious ceremony. The goddess would be brought out in a wagon, only the priest allowed to convey her wishes. Lots of sex with village men seemed to follow and she would be driven back to her temple. (Anyone more familiar with Tacitus, please feel free to elaborate--I haven't read even part of The Germania in about fifteen years.) Glob theorized that the priest was then consecrated to her by tying a rope around his neck and drowning him in the bog. The consecration was symbolized by this rope. The rope obviously represented the torc shown on all images of mother earth. Um. Why couldn't the rope symbolize strangling? Or why couldn't it have been a collar that was used to lead the victim into the bog? The all seem to have had long leads. And Glob himself mentions some more violent sacrifices. Windeby Girl, who had a broken leg (and her arm detached, but that could have happened after death) and part of her hair shaven off. A common punishment for adultery. But what led her to be buried in the bog? The Weerdinge Couple, who have been shown to be two men thanks to DNA testing. The bodies staked down so their spirits wouldn't rise. (Cool anecdote: a village had been troubled by a ghost of sorts--some even called it a vampire. The local priest knew his job was to get rid of it. He took a birch stake and wandered around on one of those mysterious hills that dot the landscape in a lot of Europe and then stuck it in at a particular spot. The village was troubled no more. Upon later excavation, a skeleton was found in the mound, and the birch stake had been stuck into him. I know it sounds really folklory, but it's also a fun story.)

Anyway, the Celts extended so far east at one point that I don't doubt they had rituals that influenced later groups and the bog body sacrifice may well be one of them. I do believe in the triple death theory--the number three was always so important. And I'm certainly not panning the idea that some of the sacrifices were holy people and/or people of rank. Some of the more deformed bodies point to that as well. Cause the deformed and the mad are closer to the gods--their infirmities gave them some special connection. Or so the theory goes. I like that one as well. I'm close to that one in a small way--the whole scoliosis thing. And it often seems that the divine touch would run in families--like some birth defects (like scoliosis).

I'm certainly not unhappy I read the book. It's not only a good look at the early science of bog bodies and the history of them (the first recorded bog body found was in 1740--who knows how often they were found before that) but a good look at the way theories evolve over the decades. On the whole, though, I prefer Miranda Green's Dying for the Gods, even if there aren't nearly so many pictures. ( )