Recent contributions of poetry relating to Lindow Man seem to have struck a chord. Earlier this week I had a letter from the writer and artist, Eve Coxeter, who tells me she bumped into Joan Poulson and heard about the Lindow Man exhibition. Like Joan, Eve was inspired by the bog body phenomenon to do something creative and she has written a novel about Tollund Man. Eve visited Silkeborg some years ago to see his body and actually met P.V.Glob, who wrote the seminal work, The Bog People, with its beautiful black and white photographs of bog bodies and associated discoveries. Joan writes that Prof.Glob was elderly but still used his own plane to fly up to his farm near Silkeborg every weekend. There were even burial mounds on his property, she says. Eve’s novel was intended to bring Torlund (the medieval name) to life. Although it remains unpublished, the script can be accessed via Eve’s website, www.evecoxeter.com, and anyone interested can see the novel under ‘Novels:Torlund?’ . Eve has also kindly allowed me to post a copy of her poem on the Blog and reproduce her drawing and a sculpture of Tollund Man. So thanks a lot to Eve for that. What a talented person to be able to sketch, sculpt and write poetry!
TORLUND
THE MAN GOD
By
Eve Coxeter
Torlund
how sunken are you?
Dredged from the peat
where you have slept
through autumn mists.
fog sweep your soul
yet rise so whole
in face and foot
not man made flesh
but gods returned
your incomplete reality.
How past gives back
presents your face to man
in all but breath.
You speak
through humic acids
no words commune
unconscious host
fen sacrifice noosed
for a lost goddess
your sacred seed
germinating the archaic
silence in us all,
Convey, tell that which
human knowledge would compel
our hoped communication
divided from you at last
by the glass case
only of time.
Which reminds me that there is a copy of a novel Lindow End by local writer Christine Pemberton in Susan Chadwick’s section of the Lindow Man exhibition. This contemporary thriller involves ancient bog body DNA and a test tube baby. I don’t want to give anything away but I haven’t been able to look Christine in the eye since reading her book.
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
Lindow Manchester 