Norwegian scientists uncover disturbing details about 800-year-old corpse dumped in castle well

Researchers have unearthed new findings about a mysterious, centuries-old corpse that was dumped in a Norwegian castle’s well.

Most of what is known about Norway’s early history comes from the Sverris Saga, writings which follow King Sverre Sigurdsson’s reign through civil wars of the 12th and 13th centuries.

Believed to have been penned by a close associate of the king, it covers battles in-depth — including one in 1197 when Bagler fighters with Sverre’s enemy, the Roman Catholic Church, attacked a castle he was staying at in central Norway.

The saga says the Baglers, who came from the south, “took a dead man and cast him into the well, and then filled it up with stones,” potentially to contaminate the king’s water source.

It was assumed he was one of the king’s men but little else was known about the identity of “Well-man” until a partial excavation of the Sverresborg Castle well — in the modern-day city of Trondheim — turned up the remains in 1938.