After a common feud between two men, a ghost was created to torment the people on Hleiðrargarðs farm. Thus, the Hleiðrargarðs-Skotta and her legendary haunting started, some say it even escalated in her starting a plague, killing both cattle and men. 

Around 1740 to 1770 there lived in the northern part of Iceland, at Árgerð a farmer named Sigurður Björnsson. People thought of him as a sensible man, although, it is said that once, in early summer of 1764, he went west under the Glacier to trade fish and got into trouble of the ghostly kind. . 

Read more: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

He met a certain man, often said to be Reverend Benedikt Pálsson in Miklagarðu, that he disagreed with about business and a quarrel arose between them, escalating into a fight. Sigurður was strong and forceful in his dealings, and he threw the other under him and gave him some blows. When the man stood up, he swore an oath against Sigurður and said he would repay him before the year was out before he left.

The Creation of The Hleiðrargarðs-Skotta

Since then they were great enemies and fought a fight no one was winning. Once Sigurður got the upper hand over the priest, and the priest took it very badly, and therefore once set out west to Hjarðarholt to visit his brother Gunnar. He was known as the most skilled in magic in the country at that time. Benedikt told him everything about his dealings with Sigurður Björnsson and asked for his aid. Gunnar promised him this, and after that Benedikt rode home. 

In the spring Sigurður moved to Hleiðrargarður, for he bore the priest’s oppression badly. That spring someone came to the priests window at Mikligarður and called the priest outside. Gunnar, his brother, had awakened a ghost three nights after she had died. She said he had signed her with the cross and given her the sacrament before she left home. She said she was 25 years old, but that it had been fated for her to live 100 years if all had gone as destined. She immediately asked him what she should do. He said: “Go to Hleiðrargarður and kill Sigurður Björnsson.”

Fylgur/Fylgja: The Old Norse Ghost

There were many different types of ghosts in Norse mythology and that the vikings believed in. One of them was the Fylgjur or Fylgja ghost, or Attending Spirits that we can find traces back in Iceland since the 12th century. These were originally a ghost of a very physical substance that interacted with the real world as if they were a part of it still. 

Read Also: Check out the Irish Fetch ghost, that has a huge resemblance to the norse Fylgja. 

Fylgja attached themselves to people that they haunted. They could also attach themselves to buildings or even entire towns. Many stories also talk about it being a generational haunting where the ghost decides to haunt all of the descendants of the original person it cursed. Most often the female line of the family. Perhaps because of its origin as a female spirit. 

In the Fylgjur stories from the middle ages, the spirits could be a beneficial one, almost like a messenger to help with the person’s path of life, some sort of totem animal or guiding spirit. But when the folklorist of Iceland started collecting old oral tales from farmers in the 17th century, the Fylgjur ghosts had drastically changed from its pagan old norse roots, throughout time, religious belief and superstition. 

One thing that really changed was the Fylgjur’s purpose of haunting the living, and it was rarely to be of any help. Many stories talk about how they were wronged and it caused their death. They then came back to take revenge and were dangerous, even deadly. 

Female Icelandic Ghosts

One of the popular names for the female ghosts was Skotta that really means to dangle, like hair or a tail. This comes from the traditional Icelandic headwear women wore together with the Faldbúningur dresses worn since the 17th century. Except the ghosts are said to have the headgear on backwards so it streams behind her like a tail. 

Skotta falls under the Old Norse Mythology of a Fylgja, that were supernatural spirits that followed or latched onto people. They could be animals, they could be goddesses or come in dreams. 

But the tales of the Fylga evolved and when we read about Skotta, they were not like totem animals or someone coming with your prophecy like in the old sagas. Icelandic ghosts are often described as being not like apparitions, but in real flesh that interacted with the living. And when we read about Skotta, the female version, she was highly dangerous and also deadly.

The Haunting of The Hleiðrargarðs-Skotta

At this time there lived at Krýnastadir, the next farm to Hleiðrargarður, a man named Hallur, called Hallur the Strong; he was second-sighted and had often seen ghosts and dealt with them. It is said that one evening in the autumn following the summer when Sigurður came back from the dried-fish journey, Hallur was standing outside in his farmyard. Then Hallur saw a ghost in the shape of a girl coming along the road; she was small of stature, in a red bodice and a brown skirt that only reached to her knees, with a tasselless cap and short clothing. When the girl saw Hallur, she meant to turn aside, but he stepped in her way and asked who she was. She said her name had been Sigríður Árnadóttir or Sigga. He asked where she came from and where she was going. She said: “To Hleiðrargarður.” “What are you to do there?” “To kill Sigurður Björnsson,” she said. In some versions Hallur struck her across the cheek so that she tumbled down. She then ran on her way, and sparks flew from her steps.

He was a man of great stature and very skilled in magic, but he was also a great enemy of his neighbor Sigurður. Hallur later said that Skotta would not have gone farther had he been a greater friend of Sigurður.

Hleiðargarður is the nearest farm to Sandhólar. One day, during a winter vigil at Sandhólar, a screen window was placed over the bed of an old woman who was in the bathroom. The old woman vaguely hears what is being said on the window and asks who is outside and she hears it said: “Sigga. Sigga” – and is asked at the same time: “Where is Hleiðargarður?” The old woman says that it is the next farm up the hill and then she takes the screen off so that she can see this Sigga. The moonlight was outside and the old woman saw that she was sitting by the window and was squinting at the moon.

That same evening Sigurður lay in his bed, and it so happened that there was a window above it. The other people in the sleeping-room were awake. Sigurður suddenly sprang to his feet and asked: “Who called me?” He was told that no one had called him. He lay down in his bed again and fell asleep, but sprang up again as soon as he had slept and said that surely someone had now called him. He was told again that it was not so. When he had lain a little while, people saw him look out the window and heard him say: “Ah! So that is how it is?” 

He went then to the door of the sleeping-room, lifted the open door with one hand, and turned himself aside at the doorway, and people heard him say loudly: “If there is anyone here who wishes to find Sigurður Björnsson, there he is,” and at the same time he pointed with his other hand at a foster-boy or shepard, Hjálmar, who was sitting and carding wool on the bench opposite the doorway. 

Immediately the boy was flung off the bench and onto the floor; he rolled about there with commotion and contortions as though he were being strangled. Then Sigurður demanded a whip and flogged the boy all around; then he calmed down a little and was laid up into bed again. His body seemed then swollen and bruised; he suffered such fits three or four times that night, and gradually from then on until early in the winter, when in one such fit the boy died. His corpse seemed greatly swollen and bloated, with plainly visible black finger-marks of the ghost.

After this the ghost followed Sigurður and his children and even all the people of Hleiðrargarður. She liked to walk around Hleiðarður with lighted torches looking for him, but for some years Sigurður avoided her. But he was never with the common people after she came to him. He was often seen in the summers alone walking around the field.

Often second-sighted men saw this girl who was called the Hleiðrargarð-Skotta, named after her cap from which the tail stood up from her head. She was most often seen peering up over some beam, especially in people’s doorways, and a cat was said to flee there at the same time. Sigurður always defended himself against her, but she killed his livestock little by little. Even the sheep at neighboring farms were taken and were so bruised and blue and entirely unfit to eat. She was credited with killing one man, Sigurður of Nes, a good farmer; he fell into epilepsy and died of it.

Binding the Skotta

When her violence began to grow so fierce, a beggar from under the Glacier came into the district, named Pétur and commonly called Glacier-Pétur. He was very skilled in sorcery, but always used his art well. Pétur said he would help him against this devil, and one night he went away, took the ghost with him, and bound it to a great earth-fast stone in a place between Strjúgsá and Vallir in Saurbær parish, which is called Varmhagi. There the ghost could do no harm for a long time, but its wailing was often heard at night, and men could not go near the place; they would then be struck with nausea, dizziness, and confusion, even in bright daylight. This was said to have been the beginning of the plague in Eyjafjörður. 

There is also a version that tells that a certain Jón in Kræklingahlíð promised to bind Skotta if he would marry Sigurður’s daughter. Sigurður promised so, and Skotta was bound in Varmhagi. In Varmhagi there were two grazing houses, one from Saurbær and the other from Háls. While Skotta was bound, cattle were killed in the grazing houses one after the other until everything was dead. 

Men say that Sigurður did not fulfill his promise to Jón, and therefore Jón loosened Skotta again. Others say that her bonds must have come loose of themselves, but some say that she is still bound as at first when Jón or Pétur bound her.

Between the years 1806 and 1810 the priest in Saurbær, named Reverend Sigurður, built a sheep-house not far from this place, for the grazing there was good. The first night sheep were housed in this building, one ewe was killed, and more afterward; people found on the sheep the same appearance and signs as on those that the ghost had previously harmed, and so they began to think that its bonds had begun to loosen. But whatever the case, sickness and death in the sheep began to spread gradually throughout Eyjafjörður, and it was called a plague, but for a long time now it has been instilled in people that it cannot have been caused by the ghost.

It is said that once a shepherd-girl from Háls went searching for sheep. She did not come home as usual. A search was made for her, and she was at last found up in the mountains. She was then all blue and bloody, but still alive. She was asked how she had been treated. She said that a woman had led her there. She described this woman so that all knew it was Skotta. Afterwards she died.

Skotta Catches Sigurður

It is said by some that Sigurður kept a covering over himself so that Skotta did not recognize him. Once he was in the trading town and was on his way home again. Someone then called him by his full name. Skotta was present and heard it. She then leapt onto the horse behind him and broke his back. Some say that Sigurður thus lost his life.

It is said that she follows the family of Hleiðrargarður, and some believe they still see her, but she is said to have greatly faded. Some say that ghosts grow in power during the first third of their lifetime, remain steady in the second, and fade in the third, and then die away when they have reached a hundred or 120 years. So perhaps they are finally free from her now?

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References:

Ísmús | Missagnir og viðaukar um Hleiðrargarðsskottu

Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri/Draugasögur/Hleiðrargarðs-Skotta – Wikiheimild

Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri/Draugasögur/Missagnir og viðaukar um Hleiðrargarðs-Skottu – Wikiheimild

Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri/Draugasögur/Hleiðargarðs-Sigga – Wikiheimild