An ancient Norse text retelling the raid on a castle makes a passing reference to someone who didn't live to tell the tale: "They cast a dead man into a well, and then filled it up with stones," reads the 800-year-old Sveriss Saga. Now, scientists say they have found the "well-man" and learned more about him through DNA analysis, reports CNN. The study in iScience notes that workers first spotted the remains in 1938 while excavating a well outside a castle near Trondheim, Norway, per the Washington Post. But the remains stayed put and were largely forgotten for decades—in fact, the well was used as a trash dump for German soldiers in World War II.
New excavations at the site allowed modern scientists to retrieve the remains and study them, and they say their age syncs with an actual raid on the castle in central Norway in 1197—the one chronicled in the Sveriss Saga. Researchers know the man was in his 30s or 40s, with blue eyes, fair skin, and light blond or brown hair. Scientists say his DNA suggests he came from southern Norway, meaning he was likely from the raiding party. The best guess is that he died in battle, and his fellow soldiers pitched his body into the well in order to contaminate it.
"This guy is a marginal character," says study co-author Michael D. Martin of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's University Museum. "'Character' is not even the right word to describe the passing mention of this man." But "with this sophisticated analysis, it's possible to add new details to him. He actually becomes a character." The saga relating to the man's fate is named after King Sverre Sigurdsson, a central figure in the 12th- and 13th-century civil wars of Norway, per NPR. It was his castle that was attacked, while he was away. (More discoveries stories.)
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