The Tollund Man

The Tollund Man - Seamus Heaney

• Tollund Man - 4th century BD - sacrifice to the god of nature - 'naked except for/ the cap noose and girdle'
• Brutual incident of murder of the 4 catholic brothers in the 1920's by loyalist paramilitaries. 'o four young brothers trailed/for miles along the lines'
• violence and conflict - highlights the conflict and violence of the divided society of Northern Ireland
• community - divided community of N.I and the violence that comes from it, vanished community of the ancient civilisation.
• likened to a marriage ceremony, 'bridegroom to the goddess' - sexual
• personifies the earth referring to it as 'the goddess'
• political, controversial, human reality of violence
• old meaningless futile sacrifice compared to recent brutal sectarian killings -> highlights the futility of it - Tollund man killed due to ignorance of society of his time, as with the "four young brothers"
• violence - "man-killing parishes" both sacrifice young men in the name of religion (Jutland and Ireland)
• Tollund mans death - calm peaceful imagery, united his community, 'sad freedom'
• Brothers- brutal, divided and destroyed any hope of community solidarity, 'scattered' 'ambushed'
• In these "parishes" where men were killed and sacrificed in the name of some ancient relg, the poet will feel a sense of familiarity because he too is from a community where young men are sacrificed in the name of relg
• he would like to go to the bog and 'pray' to the tollund man asking him to make something positive grown out of the violence and bloodshed in NI - 'pray/him to make germinate' paganism - not praying to god - religion as a source of conflict 
• religion
• sense of place - affinity with jutland and the tollund man
• language - matter of fact, 'last gruel of winter seeds/caked in his stomach' metaphor - 'peat brown' (head) 'mild pods' (eyelids) personifies the bog, gentle language (first section)
• 2nd section - use of religious connotations - 'blasphemy' 'pray' 'holy' - disorder - lines run into each other unlike measured pace of first section
• 3rd section - soft s sounds, long vowels, convey sadness of tollund mans final journey