The Bog Body and the King

A little over two weeks ago, on the evening of August 10th, a young Irish heavy-equipment operator spotted what he thought was an old leather car seat jutting out of the drained fields of Cashel Bog. Jason Phelan was nearing the end of a long day on a harvester, a giant machine that slices peat from drained bogs and rakes it into piles for garden compost. But Phelan knew that Ireland’s bogs occasionally cede strange treasure. So he hopped down from the cab to take a closer look.

The object, half-buried in the turf, was chestnut-brown. It looked like old leather, a piece of something–something, on closer inspection, that was definitely not a car seat. Phelan puzzled over it, considering the possibilities. Then he took hold of it and gave it a tug. A pair of ancient, twisted human legs slipped loose from the turf.

Read the rest at Last Word on Nothing.

Photo courtesy Sergey vyaltsev