THE UNCANNY NATURE OF BOGS.

THE UNCANNY NATURE OF BOGS. I posted here about how I believe that my Danish and Irish ancestors were bog people. I also believe that they lived in bogs because this was land that nobody else wanted. I had not realized that bogs were thought of as uncanny places to live until I read this article by Joshua Levine in the May 2017 Smithsonian (link via artsandlettersdaily). Levine dramatically presents the differences between bogs and the dense forests of northern Europe: “While most of Northern Europe lay under a thick canopy of forest, bogs did not. Half earth, half water and open to the heavens, they were borderlands to the beyond. To these people, will-o’-the-wisps—flickering ghostly lights that recede when approached—weren’t the effects of swamp gas caused by rotting vegetation. They were fairies.”