The thirteenth-century Eyrbyggja Saga was the story of several generations of Norse settlers in Iceland from their arrival in the late ninth century to the early eleventh century, when Christianity had finally taken a firm hold on Icelandic society. The ghosts in this saga are inconsistent in their behavior, as are the responses of the story’s protagonists. The specter of Thorolf was a malevolent presence until brave individuals built a wall around his grave to prevent his wandering and finally laid him to rest by burning his blackened corpse and spreading his ashes in the sea. By contrast, the ghosts of Thorodd and his drowned companions were much more civil. They attended their own funerary feasts (a good omen, according to Icelandic lore!), but when they lingered too long in their old abodes, their families compelled them to leave by charging them with trespassing and then banishing them completely through Christian rituals of purification. This story illustrated how the new laws of Icelandic society, both civil and religious, now held sway over the unruly ways of the pagan past.
After Thorolf died, a good many people found it more and more unpleasant to stay out of doors once the sun had begun to go down. As the summer wore on, it became clear that Thorolf was not lying quiet, for after sunset no one out of doors was left in peace. There was another thing, too; the oxen that had been used to haul Thorolf’s body were ridden to death by demons, and every beast that came near his grave went out of its mind and howled itself to death. The shepherd at Hvamm often came running home with Thorolf after him. One day that autumn neither sheep nor shepherd came back to the farm, and next morning, when a search was made for him, the shepherd was found dead not far from Thorolf’s grave, his corpse coal-black, and every bone in his body broken. They buried him near to Thorolf. All the sheep in the valley were found dead, and the rest that had strayed into the mountains were never seen again. Any bird that happened to land on Thorolf’s cairn dropped dead on the spot. All this grew so troublesome that no one would risk using the valley for grazing any longer.
At night the people at Hvamm would hear loud noises from outside, and it often sounded as if there was somebody sitting astride the roof. That winter, Thorolf often appeared on the farm, haunting his widow most of all. A lot of people suffered badly from it, but she was almost driven out of her wits, and eventually the strain of it killed her. Her body was taken up to Thorsardale to be buried beside Thorolf’s cairn, and after that the people of Hvamm abandoned the farm.
Thorolf now began haunting the whole valley, and most of the farms were abandoned because of it. His ghost was so malignant that it killed people and others had to run for their lives. All those who died were later seen in his company.
Everyone complained about this reign of terror and thought it was Arnkel’s business to put a stop to it. Those who thought themselves safer with Arnkel than anywhere else were invited to stay at his farm, as Thorolf and his retinue caused no harm when Arnkel was around. As the winter wore on, people grew so scared of Thorolf’s ghost that they were too frightened to travel, no matter how urgent their business.
So the winter passed. Spring brought fine weather; and when all the frost in the ground had thawed, Arnkel sent a messenger over to Karsstad asking the Thorbrandssons to come and help him carry Thorolf away from Thorsardale and find him another resting place. It was the law in those days, just as it is now, that everybody must help bury the dead if asked to give assistance. All the same, when word reached the Thorbrandssons they said they had no reason to help Arnkel and his men out of their troubles. But their father Thorbran said, “You ought to do whatever the law requires. You must not refuse to do what you’ve been asked.” So Thorodd said to the messenger, “Go and tell Arnkel that I will stand in for my brothers. I’ll go up to Ulfar’s Fell and meet him there.”
The messenger went back and told Arnkel. He got ready at once and set out with eleven men, a few oxen, and some tools for digging. First they went up to Ulfar’s Fell, where Thorodd Thorbrandsson joined them with two more men, then they all traveled together across the ridge into Thorsardale and up to Thorolf’s cairn. When they broke into the cairn they saw his body was uncorrupted and very ugly to look at. They pulled him out of the grave, laid him on the sled, hitched up a powerful pair of oxen, and hauled him up as far as Ulfarsfell Ridge. By then the oxen were so exhausted they had to get another yoke of them to haul the corpse west along the ridge. Arnkel wanted to take Thorolf all the way to Vadilshofdi and bury him there, but when they came to the end of the ridge, the oxen panicked and broke loose. They ran down the ridge, then north by the hillside, past the farmstead at Ulfar’s Fell, and so down to the sea, where they both collapsed. By now Thorolf had grown so heavy that the men could hardly shift him, but they managed to drag him up to a small knoll nearby, and there they buried him. This place has been known as Twist-Foot’s Knoll ever since. After that Arnkel had a wall built right across the knoll just behind the grave, so high that only a bird in flight could get over it, and here Thorolf rested quietly enough as long as Arnkel lived. You can still see traces of the wall.
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In the summer that Christianity was adopted by law in Iceland [c. 1000], a ship from Dublin put in at Snæfell Ness. Most of the crew came from Ireland and the Hebrides, but there were some Norwegians, too. They lay at Rif for a good part of the summer, then with a fair wind sailed up the fjord to Dogurdar Ness, where a number of people from the neighborhood came to trade with them.
There was a Hebridean woman on board called Thorgunna, and the crew said she had some valuable things with her, difficult to get in Iceland. When Thurid of Frodriver heard about it, she was very keen to see all this finery, for she was a vain woman and extremely fond of elegant clothes and rich adornment. She traveled to the ship to see Thorgunna and asked if she had something very special in ladies’ clothing. Thorgunna said she had nothing for sale, but added that she had plenty of fine things to wear herself, so that she had no need to feel ashamed to go to feasts and other gatherings. Thurid asked her to show her her things. Thorgunna did so, and Thurid thought them attractive and tastefully made, but not particularly expensive. Thurid made an offer for them, but Thorgunna refused to sell. Then Thurid invited her to come and stay with her, for she kept thinking about all the fine things she had seen and hoping she could get them from her later on.
“Yes, I’d like to stay with you,” said Thorgunna. “But there’s something you should know. I’m not all that keen to pay cash for my board and lodging. I’m still a strong woman, and I don’t mind working as long as I do not have to do heavy work. But I will make up my own mind about how much of my money I pay out.”
Thorgunna spoke very stiffly, but that did not prevent Thurid from urging her to come and stay with her, so Thorgunna had her baggage put ashore, a heavy trunk, which she kept locked, and a lighter one, and both were taken to Frodriver. As soon as she arrived, she asked to be shown to her bed, and was given a place in the inner part of the main room. She opened the big chest and took from it a set of bedclothes, beautifully made. She spread English sheets on her bed, laid a silk-covered quilt on top, then took bed curtains from the chest and a canopy as well. It was all so marvelous, no one could remember having ever seen anything like it.
“How much would you take for the whole set?” asked Thurid.
“I don’t care how refined and ladylike you are,” said Thorgunna, “I am not going to sleep on bare straw just to satisfy you.”
Thurid was far from pleased about this, and it was the last time she offered to buy Thorgunna’s things from her.
Thorgunna spent every day weaving, unless there was haymaking to do, and when the weather was good, she used to work at drying the hay in the home meadow. She had a special rake made for her, which she let no one else touch. Thorgunna was a massive woman, tall, broad built, and getting very stout. She had dark eyebrows and narrow eyes, and beautiful chestnut hair. Her manner was always very proper, and she used to go to Mass every morning before starting work, but she was hard to get on with and wasted little time on conversation. People thought she must be in her fifties, though she was a woman who still had a lot of life left in her.
By this time Thorir Wood-Leg and his wife Thorgrima Witch-Face had come to live at Frodriver, and soon there was trouble between them and Thorgunna. Kjartan the farmer’s son was the only one there Thorgunna took to, and she liked him a lot, but he kept his distance, which she found extremely irritating. Kjartan was thirteen or fourteen at the time, a big lad and very manly.
The summer was wet, but there were good drying spells in the autumn once the home meadow at Frodriver had been mowed, and nearly half of that hay was fully dry. One day was ideal for drying, calm and clear, with not a cloud in sight. Thorodd was up early that morning and arranged the work for the day. Some of the farmhands were to cart the hay home and others to stack it. He told the women to help with the drying of the hay, and shared out the work between them. Thorgunna was given as much hay to dry as would have been winter fodder for an ox.
Everything went smoothly to begin with, but in the early afternoon a black cloud began to form in the north, just above Skor, and soon it swept across the sky, making straight for the farmstead. It looked as if the cloud would bring rain, and Thorodd told them to start stacking the hay, but Thorgunna kept turning hers as hard as she could, and refused to begin stacking it even though she had been told to. The dark cloud raced across the sky, and when it was just over the farmstead at Frodriver, things were so overcast they could see nothing beyond the meadow, and hardly an arm’s length inside it. After that there was such a heavy cloudburst that all the hay on the ground was drenched. The cloud vanished suddenly, and when the weather cleared up again, they saw that the shower had been one of blood.
In the evening there was a fine drying spell, and the blood dried quickly, except on the hay that Thorgunna had spread. Neither this nor the rake she had used would dry.
Thorodd asked Thorgunna what this omen could mean, but she said she couldn’t tell. “Most likely it forebodes the death of someone here,” she said.
Thorgunna went home in the evening and straight to bed. She took off the blood-soaked clothes she was wearing, lay down on the bed, and gave a heavy sigh. People could see that she had been taken ill. The shower had fallen nowhere else, only on Frodriver. Thorgunna refused food that evening. The next morning Thorodd went to see her about her illness and to find out when she thought she might be feeling better. She said she believed this illness would be her last.
“I’ve found you to be the most sensible person here,” she said, “and that’s why I’m telling you what to do with the things I leave behind. You may not think much of me, but everything I tell you will turn out exactly as I say, and nothing good will come of it if you don’t follow my wishes. This first omen is a clear indication that something serious is bound to happen unless every step is taken to prevent it.”
“You’re probably not far from the truth,” said Thorodd. “I promise to follow all your instructions.”
“Here’s what I want,” said Thorgunna. “Should I die of this illness I want my body taken to Skalholt, because something tells me it will soon be the most venerated place in the land. I know there are priests there to sing Mass for me as well, and that’s why I want you to take me there. In return you can have sufficient of my belongings to repay you handsomely for all your trouble, but before you start dividing up my property, Thurid is to have the scarlet cloak. I’m doing this to make her less unhappy about the disposal of the rest of my things. Next, out of all the things I’m leaving with you, take whatever you and your wife want most, to cover your expenses. There’s a gold ring of mine that must be given to the church, but my bed and all its furnishings I want burned to ashes, for they’ll never do anyone much good. I’m not saying this because I begrudge these things to anyone who could use them, but I must be firm about it. I wouldn’t like to be responsible for all the trouble people will bring on themselves if they don’t respect my wishes.”
Thorodd promised to do all that she asked of him. Soon after, her illness took a turn for the worse and she lingered on only a few days before she died.
The body was taken to the church and Thorodd had a coffin made for it. Next day he carried the bedclothes outside, gathered some firewood, and made a bonfire. When his wife, Thurid, came and asked what he was up to, he said he was going to burn them, just as Thorgunna had asked.
“If I have my way,” she said, “I’m not having you burn valuable things like this.”
“She meant every word when she said it wouldn’t do to ignore her warning,” said Thorodd.
“It only goes to show what an envious woman she was,” said Thurid. “She was too mean to let anyone else enjoy them, and that’s why she told you to do it. Whatever we decide to do, I can’t see what harm can come of it.”
“I don’t think ignoring her wishes will do us much good,” he said.
But Thurid put her arms round his neck and begged him not to burn the bed furnishings. She kept pleading with him until he agreed only to destroy the eiderdown and pillows, while Thurid took the quilt, the bed curtains, and the canopy. All the same, neither of them felt really happy about it. After that they got ready to send the corpse off for burial.
For the journey Thorodd chose men he could rely on and gave them his best horses. The corpse was wrapped in an unstitched linen shroud and laid in a coffin. They set off, taking the usual route south across the moor, and nothing much happened on their journey till they came south of Valbjarnarvellir. As they crossed the sodden moorland there, the packhorse kept throwing off the coffin. On they went, south to the Nordur River, and crossed it at Eyjar Ford through very deep water. The weather was squally with sleet and heavy rain. Eventually they came to a farm called Nether Ness in Stafholtstungur and asked to stay the night, but the farmer refused to give them hospitality. It was getting very late, and they thought they could go no farther, as it seemed unwise to risk fording the Hvit River at night, so they unloaded the horses, carried the coffin into a storehouse near the door, walked into the living room, and took off their clothes, intending to spend the night there, without food if necessary.
The household went to bed before it grew dark. They hadn’t been long in their beds when they heard loud noises coming from the larder, and some of them went to see if thieves had broken into the house. When they came to the larder, there was a tall woman, stark naked, not a stitch of clothing on her, getting a meal ready. The people of the household were too scared when they saw her to come anywhere near. As soon as the corpse bearers heard about it, they went to see for themselves what was going on. The woman was Thorgunna, and everyone thought it best to leave her in peace. When she had finished doing what she wanted in the larder, she carried the food into the living room, laid the table, and served the meal.
“Before we part, you may end up very sorry that you didn’t treat us more hospitably,” said the corpse bearers to the farmer.
“We’ll gladly give you food and anything else you need,” said the farmer and his wife.
And as soon as the farmer had made them welcome, Thorgunna walked out of the room and didn’t reappear.
Now a lamp was lit in the living room, and the travelers were helped out of their wet clothes and given dry things. They sat down at the table and made the sign of the cross over the food, and the farmer had every corner of the house sprinkled with holy water. The travelers ate their food, and it did them no harm at all, even though it had been prepared by Thorgunna. They spent a very comfortable night there.
In the morning they got ready to be on their way, and the rest of the journey went without a hitch. Everyone who heard what had happened at the first farm thought it best to give them all that they asked for, and nothing else happened on the journey. They came to Skalholt and handed over the precious gifts Thorgunna had left for the church there, which the priests accepted with pleasure. So Thorgunna was buried, and the corpse bearers set off for home. They had an easy journey and got back safely.
The farm at Frodriver had a large living room with a bed closet behind it, as was usual in those days. In front of the living room there were two storerooms on either side of the door, one for dried fish and the other for flour. They used to have a great fire burning in the living room every evening, and people would sit beside it for hours on end before they had their evening meal.
The evening the corpse bearers came back [from burying Thorgunna], the people at Frodriver were sitting by the fireside when they saw a half-moon appear on the paneled wall. Everyone could see it. The moon kept circling round the room, backing from left to right, and stayed in sight as long as people remained at the fire.
Thorodd asked Thorir Wood-Leg what it meant, and Thorir said it was a fatal moon. “There’ll be deaths here,” he added.
It went on like this for a whole week; every evening the same weird moon appeared in the living room.
The next thing to happen was that the shepherd came home one day, badly shaken. He had little to say, but when he did speak, he was very ill-tempered. He avoided other people and kept muttering to himself, so everyone thought he must have been bewitched. This went on for some time. When two weeks of winter had passed, he came home one evening and went straight to bed and lay down. Next morning, when people went to see him they found him dead. He was buried at the church there, and not long afterward massive hauntings began at the place.
One night Thorir Wood-Leg went out to the privy to relieve himself, and when he was on his way back to the house, he saw the shepherd standing in front of the door. Thorir tried to get inside, but the shepherd barred his way. Thorir began walking away, but the shepherd came after him, picked him up, and threw him hard against the door. This gave Thorir a nasty shock and a good many bruises, but he struggled back to bed. Later he became ill, then died, and was buried at the church there. After that, the pair of them, Thorir Wood-Leg and the shepherd, were often seen together. As you might expect, people were terrified.
After Thorir’s death, one of Thorodd’s farmhands fell ill. He lay in bed for three days, and then he died. Soon people started dying one after another, six of them in all. This was just about the beginning of Advent, but in those days, people in Iceland didn’t observe the fast.
The storeroom was stacked so full with dried fish that the door would hardly open. The pile of fish went right up to the crossbeam, and people had to use a ladder to get at it from above. Then things started happening. Night after night, as people were sitting at the fire, they could hear something tearing at the dried fish, but when they went to look, not a living thing could they see there.
That winter, shortly before Christmas, Thorodd went out to Ness to get more dried fish for himself. There were six of them together in a ten-oared boat, and they spent the night at Ness. In the evening, after Thorodd had gone and the fire had been lit, people came into the living room and saw a seal’s head coming up through the floor. One of the servants was the first to notice this as she came in. She grabbed a club in the doorway and hit the seal on the head, which only made it rise up out of the ground a little more. Then it turned its eyes toward the canopy from Thorgunna’s bed. One of the farmhands came up and started hitting the seal, but it kept rising farther up with every blow, until its flippers emerged. At that the man fainted, and everyone was paralyzed with horror, except for young Kjartan, who rushed up with a sledge-hammer and struck the seal on the head. It was a powerful blow, but the seal only shook its head and gazed around. Kjartan went on hammering the head and driving it down like a nail into the floor until the seal disappeared, then he flattened out the floor above its head. Throughout the winter it was always the same story; Kjartan was the only one who could put fear into the ghosts.
The next morning Thorodd and his men put out from Ness with their dried fish, and they were all drowned off Enni. The boat and the fish were washed ashore there, but the bodies were never found.
When the news came to Frodriver, Kjartan and Thurid invited their neighbors to a funeral feast, at which they used the Christmas ale. On the first evening of the feast, when all the guests were seated, Thorodd and his companions came into the room drenched to the skin. Everyone welcomed Thorodd and his men, and thought this a happy omen because in those days it was believed that drowned people had been well received by the sea goddess, Ran, if they came to their own funeral feast. At that time a good many heathen beliefs still prevailed, though people were baptized and supposed to be Christians. Thorodd and his men walked across the main room, which had two doors, and into the living room. They ignored the greetings people gave them and sat down at the fire. The people ran out of the living room, but Thorodd and his men stayed on until the fire began to burn very low, then they went away. As long as the funeral feast lasted this continued: every evening the drowned men would come to the fire. It gave people at the feast plenty to talk about, but some of them thought it would stop once the feast was over.
After the feast all the guests went back home and the place seemed rather dull without them. In the evening after the guests had gone the fire in the living room was lit as usual, and as soon as it was ablaze, Thorodd and his companions came in, all of them soaking wet. They sat down at the fire and began squeezing the water out of their clothes. No sooner had they taken their seats than Thorir Wood-Leg and his six companions came into the room, all of them covered with earth. They started shaking the dirt out of their clothes and throwing mud at Thorodd and his men. The people ran out of the room, as you would expect, and that evening they had to do without light, heating stones, and everything else the fire provided. The next evening they lit a fire in another room, hoping the dead men would not come there, but things turned out otherwise. Everything happened just as before, and both parties came to sit by the fire. On the third evening, Kjartan suggested they should light a large fire in the living room, and another fire in a separate room for the household, so they tried that. As it turned out, Thorodd and the other dead men came and sat at the large fire, while the living sat at the smaller one, and so it continued throughout the Christmas season.
By that time the noises in the fish pile had grown much louder, and day and night people could hear the fish being torn up. Soon the time came for the fish to be eaten, and they had a look at the pile. Someone got on top of it and saw a tail sticking out. It had the look of a singed oxtail, but was covered with short seal hair. The man on the stack took hold of it. First he tried to pull it out himself, then called for others to come and help him. Several people, men and women, joined him on the stack and kept pulling at the tail, but they couldn’t budge it an inch. Everybody thought the tail was dead, but as they were struggling to get it out, the tail tore right through their hands, and the skin was ripped off the palms of those who had been pulling hardest. The tail was never seen again. They started clearing the fish out of the storeroom, and when they got down into the pile, they saw that all the meat had been torn off the fish and only the skins left behind, but no sign of a living creature in it anywhere.
Shortly thereafter Thorgrima Witch-Face, Thorir Wood-Leg’s widow, fell ill, and after a short spell in bed she died. On the very evening of her burial she was seen in her husband’s company. Then the sickness that had been raging when the hairy tail had made its first appearance broke out again, this time killing more women than men. Six people died one after another, and the hauntings and night walkings drove others away from the farm. There had been thirty servants there in the autumn, but eighteen of them had died, five more ran away, and by midwinter there were only seven of them left.
After these weird events had been going on for some time, Kjartan set off one day over to Helgafell to see his uncle Snorri and ask his advice about what should be done to put an end to them. At that time there was a priest staying at Helgafell, sent to Snorri by Gizur the White. Snorri asked the priest to go with Kjartan to Frodriver along with his son Thord the Cat and six other people. They must burn the canopy from Thorgunna’s bed, said Snorri, and then summon all the dead to a door-court.2 After that the priest was to sing Mass, consecrate water, and hear people’s confessions. They rode to Frodriver, and on the way there they asked the neighbors to come with them.
It was Candlemas Eve when they came to Frodriver, and the fire had just been lit. Thurid had been taken with the same illness as those who had died. Kjartan went straight into the living room and saw Thorodd and the other dead people sitting by the fire as usual. He pulled down the canopy from Thorgunna’s bed, plucked a brand from the fire, then went out and burned to ashes all the bed furnishings that had once belonged to Thorgunna.
Next Kjartan summonsed Thorir Wood-Leg, and Thord the Cat summonsed Thorodd for trespassing on the home and robbing people of life and health. All the dead ones at the fire were summonsed in the same way. Then the door-court was held and charges made, the proper procedure of ordinary law courts being observed throughout. The jury was appointed, testimony was taken, and the cases were summed up and referred for judgment. As sentence was being passed on Thorir Wood-Leg, he rose to his feet, “I sat here as long as people would let me,” he said, then went out through the other door where the court was not being held.
After that, sentence was passed on the shepherd, and he stood up. “I’ll go now,” he said, “and it seems I should have gone sooner.”
When Thorgrima Witch-Face heard her sentence, she stood up, too. “I stayed as long as you let me,” she said.
So they all were sentenced one after another, and as they were sentenced, they got up, made some such remark, and left the room. It was clear that none of them wanted to go.
Thorodd was the last to be sentenced. When he heard the judgment, he stood up. “There’s no peace here,” he said, “we’d best all be on our way.” And with that he walked out.
Then Kjartan and the others went back inside, and the priest carried holy water and sacred relics to every corner of the house. The next day he sang all the prayers and celebrated Mass with great solemnity, and there were no more dead people haunting Frodriver after that. Thurid began to improve and got well again. In the spring after all these strange events, Kjartan engaged new servants. He farmed at Frodriver for a long time, and people thought him a very courageous man.
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Thorodd Thorbrandsson was still farming at Alftafjord and owned the estates at Ulfarsfell and Orlygsstad as well. Thorolf Twist-Foot’s ghost haunted these farms in such a violent fashion that no one would live there. Bolstad was now derelict, for once Arnkel was dead, Thorolf had begun to haunt there, too, killing men and beasts alike, so that no one has ever had the courage to farm there since. After Bolstad was abandoned, Thorolf Twist-Foot moved on to Ulfarsfell, where he did a great deal of damage. Everyone on the farm was terrified whenever Thorolf Twist-Foot appeared on the scene. The farmer at Ulfarsfell was Thorodd’s tenant, so he went to Karsstad to complain, saying everyone felt that unless something was done, Thorolf would never stop until he had cleared the neighborhood of men, beasts, and all. “I can’t stay there any longer unless something is done about it,” he said.
Thorodd listened to his tenant, but was not sure how to deal with the problem. In the morning he had his horse brought along, told his servants to join him, and asked some of his neighbors to come, too. Off they went to Twist-Foot’s Knoll, where Thorolf was buried, broke open the grave, and saw Thorolf lying there, uncorrupted with an ugly look about him. He was as black as death and swollen to the size of an ox. They tried to move the dead man, but were unable to shift him an inch. Then Thorodd put a lever under him, and that was how they managed to lift him out of the grave. After that they rolled him down to the foreshore, built a great pyre there, set fire to it, pushed Thorolf in and burned him to ashes. Even so, it took the fire a long time to have any effect on Thorolf. A fierce gale had blown up, so as soon as the corpse began to burn the ashes were scattered everywhere, but all that they could get hold of they threw into the sea.