The Bocksten Bog

Halland · Schweden · Natural site

They drove three stakes through the body and sank it in the bog. Not to hide the murder – to stop the dead man walking.

In a small bog east of Åkulla near Varberg, a man was found in 1936 who had lain in the peat since the 1300s. He had been beaten to death, and over the body three heavy stakes had been driven – one through the heart, one through the back, one through the belly – pinning him down into the mire. The staking was not a way of concealing a murder. It was a revenant rite: a murdered man denied consecrated ground was believed capable of rising, and the stakes were there to nail him in place. The peat preserved his entire outfit – cloak, hood, hose and shoes – making the Bocksten Man the most complete surviving medieval costume in Europe. Who he was, nobody knows. What people feared he might become, we know very well.

FAQ

Wo befindet sich The Bocksten Bog?

The Bocksten Bog liegt in Halland, Schweden.