Place-lore concerning bog bodies and a bog body concerning place-lore

Abstract

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to introduce what kind of place-lore concerning bog bodies can be found in Estonian folklore. How could this place-lore be used by archaeologists? There is folklore describing people buried in swamps and bogs and drowning in wetlands. Moreover, some place-lore mentions finds of human remains from wetlands, which refers to incidents where bog bodies were found in the past but of which we do not have any knowledge based on archaeological records. The case-study presented in this paper illustrates the complex relationship between an archaeologically documented find, the Rabivere bog body and place-lore. There are various stories about the Rabivere bog body, and this place-lore has been used to interpret the bog find. This paper gives an example how folkloric information can provide a rather different picture about the past in comparison with archaeological data, bringing out the possibilities and difficulties of this kind of interdisciplinary approach.