2000 years ago, “Tollund Man” met with the end of his life in a bog in Denmark with his eyes closed and a peaceful look.

Track: “Tollund Man”
Album: Sweden (1995)

A lot of these songs happen in California and Florida, but for “Tollund Man” we need to go back to Denmark in the 4th century, BCE. The real Tollund Man was hung in a bog for indeterminate reasons, though historians believe it to be a case of human sacrifice. He was found, nearly perfectly preserved, by peat farmers in 1950. The body was over 2,000 years old, but it was so well preserved that everyone believed it to be a recent murder victim.

“Tollund Man” the song describes the man’s last day. He eats a meal of “cooked wild grasses” and waits for his people to come and condemn him to death. It’s very simply laid out, but that doesn’t cut into the melancholia of “goodbye cold air, I am going away” or the final “goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.” It’s the perfect kind of tale: not fully decipherable as it is lost to history but clearly a sad end. Historians believe he was a sacrifice rather than a criminal because his eyes and mouth were closed. He looks at peace.

When the Goats play “Tollund Man” live they often add extra verses. That’s not uncommon for the band — for a bit the “alcohol” in “This Year” got replaced with “heroin” — but the “Tollund Man” additions are special. The Annotated Mountain Goats put together a good list, but my favorite is the excerpt from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73. I won’t be so bold as to interpret a sonnet here, but John belts out “there’s no mercy, which makes your love more strong // the love that, well, which you will have to leave before too long.” So many Goats characters can’t figure out how to deal in life, but possibly only Tollund Man found a way to leave this world at peace.