The curious case of Norway’s demon wall (2021)
Too much effort to be a joke. I see several possibilities<p>1. Non deliberate poisoning<p>Meat is hard to find in war times. A diet with too much legumes or spinach is rich in vegetable toxins that the plants use as defense. Expecting humble substandard quality food seems appropriate when living in a small village vicar&#x27;s house, unable to even afford accurate heating in the church.<p>Meat is rich in zinc. If we combine a meatless diet with plant toxins that block zinc absorption and all of this with paint, we can end with paint poisoning. Calcium dust could raise the calcium intake and calcium competes with zinc absorption. Chrome salts in the paint may mess also somehow with the capability to absorb zinc.<p>Altered levels of zinc in the blood are directly linked with schizophrenia.<p>2. Revenge<p>Not the type of &quot;you scammed and didn&#x27;t pay me, so I will work for two years more in miserable conditions&quot;. Maybe a serious grunt or a strong dislike for the priest in charge would lead to a statement of &quot;this church is not a good place and is filled with demons forever now&quot;. The higher number of demons, the better. Could be related with something that happened to him, or to his son, or with some rumors circulating about the priest .<p>Is unclear how the priest would not notice even the bigger figures. Either the didn&#x27;t, or prefer not to sue him or disclose the case, for several reasons.<p>There are also other two hypothetical explanations, very unlikely but not impossible<p>3. Disguise<p>The draw is a disguise. Maybe with the complicity of the priest. The elaborate and dense figures in some places mixed with bigger and less dense figures in other would be hiding chunks of an hypothetical previous text that could be seen as a shame, politically dangerous just before 1940, or blasphemous but without destroying it entirely for a possible historical value.<p>Maybe a statement in jewish marking the church as a sanctuary place, or a few phrases in cyrillic, runes or other foreign language that would be not evident to spot for a non native. Some alphabet with a lot of pairs of circles that could be refactored logically as eyes. Lots and lots of them.<p>The priest would not want it disclosed as would harm his reputation as caretaker of an historical building or reduce his income, but just painting white over the previous religious picture would guarantee a lot of undesirable interest. Claiming that they were restoring it and drawing over it to achieve a grey effect would be a &quot;safer&quot; compromise solution.<p>4. Deliberate poisoning<p>By himself (Amanita mushrooms?) is unlikely as is an isolated case in his career and would not lead to such meticulous work. His son would have noticed also that something was not right. The figures are strange but still realistic and not distorted. If by a third part there is not an obvious reason to do it, and he would not voluntarily return to the place after this.