Vocabulary in The Tollund Man

A rigid, twisted metal ring worn around the neck or wrist in ancient Celtic and Germanic cultures, often a symbol of status or ritual significance.

A low-lying, waterlogged area of marshy ground; here it refers specifically to the peat bog that swallowed and preserved the Tollund Man's body.

The acidic, tannin-rich liquids of the peat bog that slowly preserved and darkened the body over centuries, acting almost like a pickling agent.

A body that has been perfectly preserved over a long period, as a saint's relics are kept incorrupt — suggesting both physical preservation and sacred status.

Speech or action that treats something sacred with irreverence; here the speaker risks it by applying Christian holy language to a pagan sacrificial site.

To officially declare a place or object holy and set apart for sacred purposes, as a priest blesses a church; the speaker wants to grant the bog that same sacred status.

A deep, bubbling peat bog likened to a large cooking pot — emphasising the bog's dark, transformative power to dissolve and preserve what is placed inside it.

To begin to sprout and grow, as a seed does; the speaker prays that the Tollund Man's remains might cause new life — or resurrection — to emerge from the dead.

The mainland peninsula of Denmark where the Tollund Man was discovered; used in the poem as a flat, dark landscape that mirrors the speaker's own troubled homeland.

Small administrative or ecclesiastical districts; here used with bitter irony to describe local communities defined not by faith but by a long history of ritual and political killing.

Strange and foreign-feeling, belonging to an unfamiliar land; the speaker uses it of Danish place-names that sound alien yet oddly echo his own Northern Irish experience.

Familiar and comforting, like home; paired with 'outlandish' to capture the unsettling feeling that a foreign landscape can feel disturbingly like one's own.

A journey made to a sacred or significant place out of devotion or reverence; the speaker frames his planned trip to see the bog body as a quasi-religious act of homage.

A cloth or covering wrapped around a dead body for burial; here the peat itself acts as the shroud, encasing and darkening the Tollund Man's head.

Relating to bitter conflict between rival religious or political factions; in the poem it describes the violence of the Northern Irish Troubles that killed the four brothers.