The Bog People of Denmark: Elling Woman
Author’s Note: This is Part 2 of my ongoing PhD research on the bog people of Denmark. See Part 1 here.
They say the best way to move on is to find something new. But I didn’t mean for it to happen like this. There’s hardly any room for “new” in academia even though we all purport to be searching for it.
“What are you thinking, mit æble?” the wisp asks me.
That beautiful wisp.
The soft-moving streaks of light and air only contain her essence, but that statement feels lacking — the word “only” undermining the palpability of a wisp’s essence. Many archeologists prefer to pair wisps with holographic recreations, but I find those dilute the source’s essence and color the research with an artificial bias. Though I have still somehow utterly failed to be unbiased.
Time slows as I sort through a catalogue of thoughts, deciding which to filter, and which to offer.
Our Experimental Wisp Protocol (EWP) research window will end soon, and I’ve spent more time falling in love than assessing for historical data. I am meant to formulate questions based on the existing records — mostly imagery. But I try not to look at the images.
I still can’t resolve her brutal demise and all but mummified remains with my affections. I’m no necropheliac. I love her essence, who she must have been when she was alive. Two thousand too many years ago.
I know from the digital histories that her hair has been hauntingly preserved. It’s an unmistakeable auburn now, but they say it was dyed that color by the bog. Elling woman was decidedly blond they say. When I look at the photos for work purposes, I have to compartmentalize her expertly and tenderly plaited three-foot braid with the fact that she was found with no organs, or face.
We love each other now, but I can’t help but wonder — can she truly love me back? Assimilation technology is too new to say. It is a misnomer to say assimilation is akin to Artificial Intelligence. Many people assume the wisps are an artificial recreation of their original source, but that’s only with the AI holography. The essence itself manifests from a folding of space-time to a nonlinear timeline through a molecular shift not yet understood.
Sígandrs mother seemed barely aware of me, answering my questions as if sending them to the ethereal space between us and allowing me to catch them. But Elling Woman (or Tairnel as I know her now) seems to be quite aware of me. Interested in me.
Tairnel’s wisp begins to sing. I close my eyes and can almost feel how soft her hair would have been after a dip in the Gudenå River, just outside of Silkeborg. I can see her stepping behind a tree, dressing herself in a sheepskin cape, maybe the same one she was found wearing when her body was discovered in 1938. I can’t help but wonder if she was hanged with the cape, or if they put it back on before burying her in the bog as a sacrifice.
This is the worst kind of love.
Or is it worse to worship and love mythological gods who demand the slaughter of sons and daughters, husbands and wives, and for what? The promise of a few inches of rain? The successful slaughtering of yet more children by a “blessed” army? To make up for Frederik down the village not wanting to give up his great-grandfather’s silver cauldron to honor Gefjun?
I open my mouth in an attempt to articulate an optimistic version of my thoughts, but all I can muster is:
“Nothing, mit æble. Nothing.”
I wonder if her essence can tell if I’m lying, but I’ll have to wait for another wisp to academically pursue that question.
Another wisp. Right. Our EWP days are numbered.
By Thor’s hammer, this is the worst kind of love.
