Man's Body Thrown into Well According to Ancient Norwegian Tale Unearthed After 800 Years

norway - The body of a man, thrown into a well according to an ancient Norwegian tale, has been unearthed after 800 years. The saga of Sverris, which describes a twelfth-century battle, appears to be unusually accurate.

The saga of Sverris recounts in precise details the siege of the Norwegian king Sverre Sigurdsson's castle by troops from southern Norway known as the Baglers. They entered the castle through a secret passage while Sverre was in Bergen, surprising his men, the 'Birkebeiners' or 'birch legs.' They looted the castle, set it on fire, and threw a dead man headfirst into a well, filling it with stones.

The ruins of Sverresborg lie just outside Trondheim. In 1938, archaeologists discovered a water well there with a human skeleton seven meters deep under piles of stones. During World War II, the area was occupied by the German army, halting the excavations, leaving the skeleton in the well.

In 2014 and 2016, archaeologists resumed excavations, finding the skeleton under layers of debris dumped by the Nazis and seven meters of stones. The skeleton has since been analyzed using modern techniques, providing indirect evidence consistent with the individual mentioned in the saga's conclusion.

The man, aged between 30 and 40, approximately 1.75 meters tall, was found wearing only a leather shoe, missing a foot and his left arm, with a skull showing blunt trauma and sharp cuts likely inflicted before death. Carbon dating revealed the skeleton to be 940 years old, coinciding with the saga's timeframe. Despite unusable bone DNA, a tooth contained enough DNA to determine his genetic makeup. Surprisingly, his genetic profile indicated Southern Norwegian origin, contrary to assumptions of him being a Birkebeiner.

Researchers speculate this is the first instance of retrieving genetic information from a character in a saga, likely a real individual. Whether he was a Bagler or a Birkebeiner remains unknown, but the genetic data enriches history, aiding in separating facts from fiction.