Bog Bodies. "Sacrificial Executions".
by Evlampia Tsireli A mummy of 3,000 years old found in a boggy area of Ireland at the county of Lais, considered to be a king of the Iron Age who had been sacrificed by his countrymen. The multiple cutouts testified that the victim had been ritually cut, according to the "threefold death" in which the sacrificed person should die in three different ways successively: Hanging, usually of a tree, drowning and at the end the final injury with a spear or sword or hit with another kind of weapon. According to the Celtic tradition, these three different ways reflected the three different qualities of the god or goddess to whom the body was offered. The ritual sacrifices were performed by Druids and it said that they were a way to feed the earth goddess who constantly need new bodies. Regarding the sacrifices of kings in the ancient world, there was a tradition, according to which when a king was beginning to age, was ritually sacrificed to be replaced by a younger one.