Mound People



All text and images sourced from The Mound People: Danish Bronze Age Man Preserved by PV Glob first published in 1974.

“They were clad in their everyday clothes and richly supplied with ornaments and weapons of gold and bronze. Their sophisticated culture covered the whole of Scandinavia and much of northern Europe. Their sudden decline remains a mystery”

Coffin packed with eelgrass sword rested on his chest by the scabbard lay a leather sack filled with incredible objects Small conch shell a cube of wood a piece of bark different dried roots tail of a snake a falcon’s claw small slender pair of tweezers Charcoal and a young squirrel’s jaw amber beads and scraps of bronze leather case bound with a thong horse head handle razor Inside a woman’s belt box of the kind held on their back two horse teeth some weasel bones the claw joint of a cat A wire bent to form a hook a yellow lump of clay pyrite and quartz pebbles a few snake vertebrae A bird’s windpipe half an inch long a twig of mountain ash and on the box and fastener a moon and star pattern Carved on the side of the stone coffin two men beating a hanging drum bird-like figures walk in procession toward a man who holds a square Carved on the side of the stone coffin chariot races stallion fights a ship to carry the dead chieftain to a kingdom beyond the sea Brewed from wheat and mountain cranberries the pollen of a flowering lime tree a fruit wine yarrow in the summertime laid the blossoms carefully by her hair and feet By her side wrapped up in the cowhide the burnt bones of a child age eight or nine bark from tree little heather moss and leaf a horn comb with twenty well cared for teeth Water filled the coffin all that remained inside a fatty mass of soft brown flesh wrapped up in cowhide His bones a pale blue powder his hair still in its cap a bronze sword in a wood scabbard by his feet in a large basket



Folklore 1979

All text and images are taken from Folklore Volume 90 1979 ii

FOLKLORE is the journal of The Folklore Society

Founded in 1878, the Folklore Society are one of the oldest organisations in the world devoted to the study of folklore in all its various forms

My father’s sheep is dead honestly I swear by Dumazi father’s sheep is dead honestly is a great mystery father’s sheep they have no wool black sheep make rain clouds full black millipede, goat and ram I play my flute conjure lightning My father’s sheep is dead honestly I swear by Dumazi father’s sheep is dead honestly it is a great mystery rain is falling we are going to eat watermelon rain is falling we are going to eat a pumpkin we’ve been longing for rain we are going to eat sugarcane Ten thousand years ago Equus disappeared here in North America at the end of the Ice Age along with mammoths, mastodons, camels and other large herbivores and one of the great mysteries is, is why here is North America a group of animals like the horse that was so successful for so many millions of years disappeared and yet it was able to survive in Eurasia. American mustangs only descend indirectly from their original American ancestors and this was through the horses which migrated to Asia and onto Europe two million years ago only to return to the North American continent with the help of man five hundred years — The legend of the pacing white mustang
Half human half snake asleep inside of the egg waking in anger he broke the egg with hammer when his body died the sun pulled from his left eye right became the moon his teeth and bones turned to jewels breath became the storm and his voice became thunder Half human half snake crouched down and dug out of clay naked as they were many dolls to dance around her rope dripping with mud and taught to bear children stone laid on alter for the matchmaker snake tattoos snake skin twinning tails with the first sovereign Arthur dreamed that from his chest issued out a serpent all the babies born the first of May are put to sea with Mordred Oengus Tuirmech thought it hard his own daughter to bear a son in a one hide boat with a purple cloak his own Fiacha Fer Mara King Balor locked his daughter in a tower with twelve attendants within the year they all gave birth all drown but Lui Lavada I saw a fig tree covered with rag offerings, calico cloth hearing as a boy that the bloodroot’s juice was the dead man’s blood black cedar’s fruit lapis-lazuli world egg sits on a branch of the tree sword is thrust deep in the beam I saw a fig tree covered with rag offerings calico cloth hearing as a boy that Christ sits top of the Jesse Tree child was born out of the peach branch when cut complains and bleeds the dead speak through the leaves