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The Curse of the Hítardals-Skotta

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After old friends clash after falling out, a curse is put upon the other. For generations, the Hítardals-Skotta is said to have haunted their family and village, sometimes even said to be behind their deaths. 

Once there was a priest in Hítardal called Vigfús Jónsson, the one behind the first Icelandic children’s book in the 18th century. This is a valley west of Iceland and there is a priest residence there with the same name. Hítardalur became a vicarage and was considered one of the best in the country. Many prominent priests served there, some of whom were well-known scholars. The town of Hítardalur is known for being the site of the deadliest fire in Icelandic history on 30 September 1148 where more than 70 people perished. 

Read more: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

One time, one of his closest friends from his schooldays who also worked as a priest somewhere east was accused of a crime and disrobed at the Althing parliament. It isn’t really said what kind of crime it was. 

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Vigfús was present in the courtroom and watched his friend be sentenced and in the end he attacked his former friend. Perhaps he was drunk, or just upset about the crimes of the friend he thought he knew. He grabbed his sleeve and the friend also became angry. 

He said: You, who was supposed to be my friend, were the first to grab my robe. You might be regarded just as well as me in the near future. 

With these words, he cursed his old friend and a Skotta was sent on his behalf as a vengeful spirit to haunt him and his family.  

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. 

Icelandic Ghosts and Ghouls: Fylgja or the draugr ghosts 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. // An illustration to the Icelandic legend of the Skeleton in Hólar Church (Beinagrindin í Hólakirkju). From Icelandic Legends : Collected by Jón Arnason, illustrated by Jules Worms.

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. 

The Haunting Begins

After this it went all downhill for Reverend Vigfúsi who ended up not taking care of his children as they were promised to die young because of the ghost haunting them. Together with his wife,  Katrin Thordardottir, they had at least five sons and a daughter. One by one they died at the hands of the curse, materializing as a female figure with a spear on her head and a hook looking at them as they died.

This caused Reverend Vigfús and his wife a lot of grief, but nothing could be done about it as the ghost they named Skotta harmed both men and beast in Hítardal where she followed the people of the village with bright lights and ill intentions.

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. 

The Skotta Ghost: Icelandic woman in the 18th century faldbúningur with the spaðafaldur cap that the Skotta often are described wearing.

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.

People Chosen to be Haunted

In Reverend Vigfús’s home they had a son named Eiríkur. He grew up and never had Skotta with him and it was never noticed that Skotta followed him or any of his descendants

Eiríkur later became a clergyman at Reykholt and seemed to have been at peace. But Hítardal and the home of the priests seemed to be forever haunted. After Reverend Vigfús Jónsson’s death at 69 on 2. January in 1776, the ghost followed the place throughout time of the next tenants like Reverend Halldór and Reverend Björn, and then Reverend Björn’s sons, Ólafi in Ferjukot and Reverend Benedikt 

Especially the farmer Hannes at Hamrend in Miðdálar seems like he was particularly bothered by the ghost. Hannes was suffering from a terrible illness for a long time, which led to his death, and the Scots were supposed to have played various pranks on him. Then when Hannes died, blaming the ghost, his brothers were invited, but they left immediately and the funeral was outside, mostly at the urging of Ólaf’s wife Sigríða. 

As the funeral procession for Hannes happened, there was a worker in Hamraendi at the time called Þórhalli. He suddenly felt that his hand was being taken, and this was accompanied by such a strangeness that he became very uncomfortable and ill. From then on it seems that Þórhalli didn’t fare well, although when the first written stories about this ghost were collected, he was still alive. It seems that by then, she is starting to fade and that she has almost nothing to wear.

The Ghosts Teams Up

Once both names, Hítardals-Skotta and Hvítárvalla-Skotta, came together at a wedding. One of the invitees who was there saw that they took the food from the plates of the guests during the party without them being aware. But because the man had something with him, he wounded them both outside the door and left them standing there and you could see, but none of the few dishes were finished, and on top of that he made them spit in front of each other for mockery and laughter in front of the guests. to others. In the second time, they fought names for tricks, but it is not mentioned how that game ended.

Read also: Hvítárvellir-Skotta comes to Haunt a Family for over 120 Years

The Last Story from Hítardals-Skotta

Another live witness to this story when it first was written down was from a Margrét in Selárdal. Apparently, when you ride south from Hítardal over the so-called Bjúg, you go right by the meadows in Selárdal. Now it so happens that when one rides south from Hítardalur over the so-called Bjúgur, one passes right by the meadows in Selárdal.

One summer Benedikt, as so often before, was mowing the meadows with his people, while the livestock grazed just in front. Then he says: “Now soon someone will be coming from Hítardalur,”—something he had often been in the habit of predicting, and it had always come to pass. Immediately after he says: “I wish that she, that wretch over there, wouldn’t kill my sheep,” and at that very moment he flings away the scythe, and the sheep are startled, with one ewe leaping into the air. Benedikt runs to the river and drowns her in the stream that flows nearby, and then mutters a little over her. Did he finish the ghost off? Or perhaps she is still roaming the rugged hillsides and wanders along the windy shores?

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References:

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

Bryan—Icelandic Fylgjur Tales and a Possible Old Norse Context

Rev Vigfus Jonsson (1706–1776) • FamilySearch

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Móhúsa-Skotta and her Haunting Companions in the Cold Winter Nights

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After dying a cold winter night, a young girl died and rose as the terrifying ghost now known as Móhúsa-Skotta. Together with her companions she was said to be behind terrible accidents, and even deaths.

A ghost said to have plagued Iceland for ages as well as teaming up with other ghosts to create havoc, the legend about the Móhúsa-Skotta has become one of the more well known ghosts in Iceland. 

Read more: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

Móhús is a small farm in the Stokkseyri district of Eyrarbakki on the south coast of Iceland. Jón ríki Þórðarson (Jón the rich) lived close to the small fishing village. He was famous in the South for his wealth in the late 18th century, and also being the target for the haunting said to be going on in the neighborhood. 

When Jón was young, he was very poor, but grew incredibly rich with little money when he managed to buy land at a very low price only a year after coming to Stokkseyri. Because of how quickly he went from rags to riches, people started to think he had made a deal with the devil to get rich and there is a completely separate legend about some magical pants made of human skin that gave him the money.

But let’s focus on the night the haunting started. Jón first lived in Refstokkur near Ferjunes (Óseyrarnes). At the time when the story was written down in the 19th century, it was deserted. 

One night, a young girl came to him and asked for a place to stay the night. No one knows who she was, where she came from or where she was going. The wind was howling, the night was black and she was both hungry and cold. Jón turned her away and she had to spend the night outside in the cold. She died this night, but although her mortal life was ending, another haunted one was just about to start. After her death, she walked back to Jón’s house and followed him for a long time as a ghost haunting him known as Móhúsa-Skotta.

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. 

The Skotta Ghost: Icelandic woman in the 18th century faldbúningur with the spaðafaldur cap that the Skotta often are described wearing.

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.

Icelandic Ghosts and Ghouls: Fylgja or the draugr ghosts 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. // An illustration to the Icelandic legend of the Skeleton in Hólar Church (Beinagrindin í Hólakirkju). From Icelandic Legends : Collected by Jón Arnason, illustrated by Jules Worms.

The Ghost that Followed

She was called Móhúsa-Skotta because of the place where she haunted, and spent her time tormenting him and playing tricks on him as revenge. After Jón moved west to Móhús, she spoiled everything for him as much as she could and killed livestock both for him and others right in front of him. 

She was so close to him that she gnawed apart one by one the socks on his hamstrings and the laces of his shoes, and it was to such an extent that even though he put on new socks in the morning, they were in pieces by evening. 

At the same time, Jón only wore short ties or strings around his neck as it was said that he did it so that Móhúsa-Skotta would be less likely to strangle him because she would grab the string, not his throat.

It was also attributed to Móhúsa-Skotta that she had made a man go insane in broad daylight in Ranakoti in Stokkseyri. He was found dead and strangled there in a well nearby. Still, they thought of her as tolerable until she teamed up with Sels-Móri, another local ghost that was sort of said to have been her husband.

The Sels-Móri Teams upp with Skotta

In Eyrarbakki in Árnessýsla there is a ghost called Sels-Móri.A Móri is a male ghost in Iceland. When a male is raised from the dead for such a purpose like vengeance, he is not called a ghost, but a Móri. Often the term Fylgja ghost was used interchangeably with the Draug ghost. The female version of this vengeful ghost was called Skotta. Móri means rust brown in Icelandic and the ghosts were named so because of the color of their clothes.

A man named Einar lived in Borg in Hraunshverfi in the late 18th century. He used to give shelter to boys who had come wandering like many other people at that time from the east of Skaftafellsýsla after the Skaftá Fire raged there. This is a multi-year eruption of the volcanic system that began on June 8, 1783. 

It was winter, but when one of the boys asked for lodging, Einar turned him away, just as Jon had once done to the little girl. The boy was both hungry and poorly clothed and stayed outside during the winter night not far from Borg. The next morning he was found dead in a pond or ravine called Skersflóð. 

Although the boy was properly buried, it gradually became clear that he followed Einar and his descendants. It is said in particular that he followed Þuríð and Salgerði, Einar’s sisters’ daughters who lived in Efraseli for a long time. Because he was there the longest, he is called Sels-Móri. 

Read More: Sels-Móri in this story has the same name as another unfortunate soul who ended up haunting for generations. Check out The Sels-Móri or Ghost of Þorgarður Haunting for Generations for the whole story.

Who became a ghost first is uncertain, but when they found each other and teamed up, havoc and unrest ensued. It is not mentioned that he killed any men while he was alone in the heat before he came to the throne of Móhúsa-Skotta as mentioned earlier. 

Sels-Móri and Móhúsa-Skotta Takes Tomas With Them

One winter a man named Tómás in Norðurkot on Eyrarbakki went east to Stokkseyri for Christmas. For the feast he bought smoked meat and by nightfall he was heading home, but stopped somewhere along the way for some reason. 

The next morning he was found dead, dismembered, blue and bloody. He was found in Arnhólma, not far from where Sels-Móri had originally died from exposure. Because he was found ripped to pieces, all blue and bloody, the villagers thought that Sels-Móri and Móhúsa-Skotta had made up their minds to make him like them. 

After that, people saw the three ghosts traveling where before there were only the two, Sels-Móri and Móhúsa-Skotta, and people believed that Tómás had become their third companion. People of Stokkseyri never wanted to go out after twilight in fear of encountering one of the three ghosts that were tormenting the living. Besides, no one wanted to become the fourth ghost. 

Móhúsa-Jón felt the need to intervene in this as far as Móhúsa-Skotta was concerned, who was always considered the worst of the three and was haunting the place because of his actions. He had to get rid of them somehow. 

The Exorcism of the Ghosts

That winter Móhúsa-Jón wrote to Jón Magnússon who worked as a farmer at Þykkvabæjarklaustri, a 10th century cloister. The monastery, which was of the Augustinian order, survived until the Reformation and was long wealthy and influential.

Although the monastery was closed off for centuries already, Jón Magnússon tended the land and knew a thing or two about these kinds of hauntings and how to get rid of them. He was offered thirty government rigsdaler to come from the farm at Eyrarbakki and end the haunting. 

Móhúsa-Jón paid him half of the prize in advance when he arrived and Jón Magnússon set out to vanquish the ghosts. During that trip, it is believed that Cloister-Jón managed to destroy or exorcize Móhúsa-Skotta and Tómási, because they were never seen on Eyrarbakki after that. 

However, some say that Cloister-Jón took Móhúsa-Skotta east with him, and she almost drowned him and all the crew members who at that time were being transported across the Þjórsá on the Sandhóla ferry. But Cloister-Jón claimed that Móhúsa-Skotta really had been eradicated during his mission. 

But he didn’t manage to do anything about Sels-Móri and because of this, Móhúsa-Jón did not initially want to pay him the remaining half of the salary. According to Cloister-Jón, Sels-Móri was nowhere to be found and that his good name should be enough to believe his words. Móhúsa-Jón didn’t care about all of it anymore, or at least wanted it all over and paid him, although they parted with it no more than contentedly and never reconciled.

But what happened with Sels-Móri? There are those that say that he didn’t get cleansed from the earth and people say that he is alone wandering around Bakkann, howling in the cold wind that killed him, knocking on doors, asking if anyone is willing to let him in. .

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References:

Móhúsa-Skotta – An Icelandic Ghost Story | Your Friend in Reykjavik 

https://cleasby-vigfusson-dictionary.vercel.app/word/skotta

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

Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri/Draugasögur/Sels-Móri – Wikiheimild 

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The Hörghóll-Móri Raised from the Dead to Kill

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A particular violent ghost from Icelandic ghost stories was called The Hörghóll-Móri. Once a drowned man, he was raised from the dead to be sent on a revenge mission to kill a certain farmer. And legend goes, he didn’t stop until he succeeded. 

A man named Jón, son of Símon, lived at Hörghóll in Vesturhóp village. He had a son named Kristján, who was a grown man when this story took place. The hill called Hörghóll can translate into “shrine hillside” and might have been a place of worship for the pagans. In any case it became the location for a violent haunting some centuries ago. 

Read more: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

One summer Jón the farmer hired a laborer from west of the glacier, named Ívar, and paid him his wages in the autumn. The laborer thought the pay was meager and poorly handled, but there was no changing it. The next winter, Jón’s son Kristján went fishing under the glacier and stayed at the same farm where Ívar was living. One winter’s day, Kristján’s mittens disappeared and could not be found despite much searching. Kristján accused Ívar of causing their disappearance and struck him hard across the face. Ívar took it seemingly calmly and said, “It will be bad for you if I neither repay that blow nor the wages.”

Vesturhópsvatn: Source

In spring Kristján returned home to Hörghóll and stayed with his father the following winter unaware of the plans Ívar had put in motion. Early that winter, many boats were lost under the bay by the glacier and many lost their lives. One day Ívar was walking by the sea where he found a drowned man washed ashore. Some say that the man was only half dead

He cut off one of the man’s arms and raised the dead man back as a revenant, as a Móri. He commanded him to go north to Hörghóll. “What am I to do there?” asked the revenant. “Kill the farmer’s son Kristján and give no one peace at the farm,” said Ívar. Then the ghost vanished and went to follow his new master’s command.

The Undead in Icelandic Folklore

A Móri is a male ghost in Iceland. When a male is raised from the dead for such a purpose like vengeance, he is not called a fylgja or draugr ghost, but a Móri. Often the term Fylgja ghost was used interchangeably with the Draug ghost. The female version of this vengeful ghost was called Skotta. Móri means rust brown in Icelandic and the ghosts were named so because of the color of their clothes.

Icelandic Ghosts and Ghouls: Fylgja or the draugr ghosts 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. // An illustration to the Icelandic legend of the Skeleton in Hólar Church (Beinagrindin í Hólakirkju). From Icelandic Legends : Collected by Jón Arnason, illustrated by Jules Worms.

That evening the ghost came north to Hörghóll, where the lamps were lit. Kristján sat on a bed opposite the entrance to the living room, eating his evening meal from a wooden bowl. They heard something climbing onto the roof outside. Suddenly, Kristján hurled his bowl away and collapsed onto the floor, and all the lamps went out. They tried to relight them with tinder with a wax candle, and succeeded; this time the light held and they saw the horror before them. 

A brownish boy crouched over Kristján as he lay on the floor, but he had only one arm. The ghost glared at the light with dreadful eyes and drew back when the people approached. Kristján then leapt to his feet in a frenzy. An old woman at the farm, named Vigdís, was able to stop him from going after him. Kristján now told about his quarrel with Ívar the winter before, and said Ívar must have sent this haunting against him.

The Hörghóll-Móri Haunting Kristján

At Böðvarshólar, the next farm over, lived a farmer known as a wise man, as many were in those days. Kristján was sent there to be kept safe from the ghost. While he stayed with that farmer, the ghost could not touch him for some reason. 

But then the ghost began wreaking havoc back at Hörghóll, killing livestock and spoiling food. The vengeful ghost rampaged openly through the farm and grew so malicious that everyone fled except the old woman Vigdís. She said she would not bother fleeing from such “dust” and the ghost didn’t harm her. She tended the cows and they were left alone, but other farmers had to care for the sheep, and the ghost preyed upon them. This lasted until the days grew longer and the nights lighter, at which time the sheep-killing ceased.

Now the people sought advice from the priest at Breiðabólstaður about what to do. The priest advised that everyone return home at Easter; he himself would come then and hold household devotions to see how matters stood. 

Fighting the The Hörghóll-Móri

On Easter Monday the people returned, and the priest came, bringing with him the farmer from Böðvarshólar. The priest began to read, but when he finished the gospel, the ghost attacked the house so furiously that the beams creaked. The priest stopped reading, and he and the farmer from Böðvarshólar went outside. They saw the ghost moving about; he avoided them and drew back. 

They pursued him up to the ridge above the farm, called Kjölur. There they caught him and wrestled with him for a while. They could not subdue him entirely, but after that he was much diminished and did no harm, so that people could live at the farm again.

Kjölur: Source

It is also said that the The Hörghóll-Móri weakened after his encounter with a man called Þórður the Strong at Bjarnastaðir. It is said that they fought all night and tore apart a new bridge. Þórður could not get a hold of The Hörghóll-Móri anywhere because he was most like a tangled woolen fleece. Þórður was never the same after that.

Kristján, the farmer’s son, returned home and lived there many years, married, and took over Hörghóll after his father. He could never be left alone, for the ghost always pursued him. Once he was alone on a journey and was later found dead on Vesturhópsvatn, the lake near Hörghóll. 

People attributed his death to the power of the ghost. Since then, the ghost has harmed no one, though people have often thought they saw him, and those from Hörghóll have often been troubled. 

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References:

Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri/Draugasögur/Hörghóls-Móri (2) – Wikiheimild

https://ismus.is/tjodfraedi/sagnir_aevintyri/1223

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The Hörgsland-Móri Haunting Foss á Síðu as a Dog

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By the fantastical waterfall Foss á Síðu, south in Iceland, there are rumours about a ghost in the form of a dog that has been haunting a family for nine generations. Although the haunting of the ghost called Hörgsland-Móri started a long time ago, there are still tales about seeing him in the area. 

Foss á Síðu is а historic farm in Iceland with rich history and folklore dating back to the country’s settlement erа in the 9th century. Behind the farm there is the majestic waterfall that people travel long to see. The water flow can be so thin that Foss á Síðu becomes one of Iceland’s upside-down waterfalls on a windy day. One legend around these parts is about а ghost dog named Móri. Some locals believe thаt Móri has disappeared, while others claim thаt the ghost dog still wanders аround the farm аnd waterfall.

Source

A Móri is a male ghost in Iceland. When a male is raised from the dead for such a purpose like vengeance, he is not called a ghost, but a Móri. Often the term Fylgja ghost was used interchangeably with the Draug ghost. The female version of this vengeful ghost was called Skotta. Móri means rust brown in Icelandic and the ghosts were named so because of the color of their clothes.

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

The ghost in Síða in Skaftafellssýsla southeast of Iceland is called the Hörgsland-Móri or Bergs-Móri. This is not because he was originally sent to Hörgsland, nor because of Reverend Bergur, the person he ended up being linked to, but because he is thought to follow the Berg family. Reverend Bergur was the last of them at Hörgsland and the ghost is said to have followed him from there. The origin of the ghost goes back further and is therefore somewhat unclear.

The Hörgsland-Móri Cursed to Haunt a Family like a Dog

It is said that there was a priest at Arnarbæli (1676–89) named Oddur Árnason. His wife was Katrín, the daughter of Reverend Jón Daðason, who had served there before him. Oddur and Katrín had at least two children, a boy and a girl named Ingibjörg. One winter, the priest had ridden across the ice, and the boy, who was very fond of his father, ran after him, fell into a hole in the ice, and drowned. 

“Reverend Oddur found no joy in being there, besides other things that displeased him,” says Dean Jón Halldórsson. Both rumor and record suggest that the “displeasure” at Arnarbæli was that his wife had previously been betrothed to another man, but had broken her promise to him and chosen another. Because of this, the man she betrayed sent her a curse: a ghost in the form of a dog named Móri, who was to haunt her and her descendants to the ninth generation. 

In some versions it is actually the Reverend Oddur who sends the ghost after Katrín allegedly divorced him after their son’s death where the man was never the same. Was it actually their son they raised from the dead who came back to haunt his own family?

Reverend Oddur later received the parish of Kálfatjörn south-west in the country, where he remained until his death in 1705. 

The Mori Haunting his Descendants

His daughter Ingibjörg married Jón Ísleifsson, sheriff in Skaftafellssýsla (1721–26), a well known scoundrel. 

Their daughter Katrín married Reverend Jón Bergsson the elder of Kálfafell in Síða, dean of the western part of Skaftafellssýsla from 1754 to 1773. It was believed that Móri caused his death, for stories claim that Reverend Jón died suddenly at Eyrarbakki.

Icelandic Ghosts and Ghouls: Fylgja or the draugr ghosts 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. // An illustration to the Icelandic legend of the Skeleton in Hólar Church (Beinagrindin í Hólakirkju). From Icelandic Legends : Collected by Jón Arnason, illustrated by Jules Worms.

Their only son, Bergur, was later minister at Kirkjubæjarklaustur, and he also lived at Prestbakki and Foss, but in the end he was at Hörgsland, where he died and where the ghost got his most well known name. 

It was said that whenever quarrels arose between Reverend Bergur and his wife, Móri was seen at the farm, and people thought he was the cause of their disputes. After the couple’s deaths, he followed their daughters; as soon as the eldest died, the next inherited him, and she soon became half-mad. He had many daughters, and Móri followed all of them, and still follows them, according to local tales. 

The Fading Ghost by Foss á Síðu

The story was first written down as the ghost reached the fifth generation of the family haunting, after attaching himself to their ancestress Katrín, their great-great-great-grandmother although there aren’t many stories told about his time then.

One of the sisters, Þorbjörg, was married to a man known as the hospital-keeper. It is said that she “portioned out” food to Móri. People claimed that at holiday feasts, when she served, she would slip whole sides of mutton down by her thigh; they were never seen again, and it was believed that Móri took them all.

Image: Mathieu Poumeyrol/Wikimedia

Before the ghost reached the ninth generation of haunting, the people of Síða said he had grown so faded that he looks from behind like nothing more than a wisp of steam. Because of this, opinions are divided as to whether he will endure as long as was foretold. There are no remarkable stories of his doing harm outside that family, but he has sometimes been glimpsed when one of their kin was on the road. He is not accused of having killed anyone for a long time, except possibly members of the family itself, and it is widely said that he caused madness among many of them.

So the question is, did he finally reach the ninth generation, or did he simply fade away? 

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References:

Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri/Draugasögur/Hörgslands-Móri – Wikiheimild

Scholars’ Mine Icelandic Folklore and the Cultural Memory of Religious Change

Explore Foss Á Síðu: Iceland’s Majestic Waterfall аnd Tranquil Farm Right by the Ring Road – Buubble

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Hvítárvellir-Skotta comes to Haunt a Family for over 120 Years

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How long can a ghost linger? Some Icelandic ghost stories claim it is for 120 years. But if we are to believe the legend of Hvítárvellir-Skotta, she has been haunting a particular family for much longer. Perhaps even today?

Hvítárvellir is an old large farm and mansion in Borgarfjörður at the mouth of the Hvítá River west of Iceland. The land was considered one of the most valuable lands in the country and was, among other things, one of the largest salmon fishing grounds in Borgarfjörður.

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

The family living there centuries ago was plagued by a ghost said to have been raised from the dead and sent as vengeance after a woman chose to marry someone else. Some say that the descendants of the family are still haunted. 

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. 

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. 

Icelandic Ghosts and Ghouls: Fylgja or the draugr ghosts 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. // An illustration to the Icelandic legend of the Skeleton in Hólar Church (Beinagrindin í Hólakirkju). From Icelandic Legends : Collected by Jón Arnason, illustrated by Jules Worms.

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. 

The Ghost Stormhöttur Haunting Hvítárvellir

At Hvítárvellir in the 18th century, Sigurður Jónson was sheriff in Borgarfjörður county (1704–1738, or perhaps rather until 1741). He had married Ólöf, daughter of Jón Magnússon the elder of Eyri in Seyðisfjörður to the west, and Ingibjörg. The wife of Dean Páll, mother of Ingibjörg, was named Helga and was the daughter of Halldór, the woman from the witchcraft persecutions in 1669. 

Ólöf Jónsdóttir had grown up in the west with her parents. She was a beautiful and popular woman that many men wanted to marry. Sigurður Jónsson was the lucky one though and won her hand after her first husband died in Stórabóla of 1707, a smallpox epidemic that wiped out a quarter to a third of Iceland’s population, only days after their wedding. 

It’s speculated that the rejected suitors grew hateful toward the married couple, Sigurður and Ólöf, although no names are mentioned. According to stories, they raised a ghost and sent it to her, saying that it should follow her. Many Icelandic ghost stories begin when the living raise the undead to do their bidding. 

Hvítárvellir: The Farm in Borgarfjörður around the turn of the century in 1897, which WG Collingwood drew during the summer when he was traveling around the country.// Source

This ghost was male, and it was called Stormhöttur who followed Ólöf for a time and became quite famous. Sigurður hated the ghost and quickly gathered some men to deal with it. Stormhöttur was confined in the Heggstaðir ridges a short distance southeast of Hvítárvellir and never appeared again, though those ridges are always thought to be haunted.

Others tell of Stormhöttur’s fate differently, saying that Ólöf went outside the first time he came to Hvítárvellir and met him in the yard, but when she knew his errand she said to him: “Go to the devil, north to the hayfields,” and that it is the same ghost that lies on the hay there so that it does not break apart. This is also told as a completely different ghost story that had nothing to do with Ólöf, but haunted the farm and is mostly known as The Ghost of the Hay Field. 

Hvítárvellir-Skotta is Sent to Haunt them

When word came west that Stormhöttur had been dealt with, those who had sent him felt themselves badly treated and sent a new spirit against Sigurður himself that would ruin him completely. They raised a woman from her grave, giving her dark powers and sent her to bring misfortune to Sigurður. 

Once Sigurður was traveling with another man west of the Hvítá when they saw a reddish-brown fox running after them. The fox spoke to them and asked where Sigurður of Hvítárvellir was. The sheriff suspected what the fox really was and told her that Sheriff Sigurður was down at Álftanes. The fox then turned aside and hurried off there, while the sheriff continued homeward as quickly as he could. But when he had just come home and was taking off his coat he was violently attacked and thrown to the floor of the main room as the Skotta could not be fooled so easily.

Sigurður was a courageous man, but needed help against this ghost. When she wrestled with Sigurður she had cast off the fox-skin and was then in the form of a woman. Her clothing is described as a black cloak-frock with an old-fashioned head-dress, but the end of the head-dress hung back on her neck like a tail, from which she took her name and was called Skotta. And because she was sent to Hvítárvellir she was called the Hvítárvellir-Skotta, and that name is very common, though later she received other names which will be mentioned still.

Another story is that Skotta caught Sigurður at the ferry across the Hvítá together with one of his farmhands, who was both strong and clairvoyant. He saw and recognized Skotta trying to get onto the boat and he grabbed the sheriff’s saddle and flung it at her. Skotta took the saddle and rode astride it along the western bank of the Hvítá, though it was slow, until she came upon another man who did not see her but recognized the sheriff’s saddle and picked it up. He was then ferried across to the south and brought the saddle to Sigurður, saying it must have been left behind in the west. But Skotta used that opportunity to get across the river without being noticed by anyone in the ferry.

The Danger of a Skotta Haunting

There’s no clear account of Skotta’s malice while she followed Sheriff Sigurður, but it was often said that ill befell wherever he went. Cattle, cows, and horses were found dead or crippled, and people attributed that to Skotta; and Sigurður often had to make compensation because of her.

When Sigurður and his wife were elderly he gave up the office of sheriff. One night after Þorri (1751) the farm at Hvítárvellir burned down, and it is said that it came from the fire of a tobacco pipe. Their son Páll was able to save them from the fire, but he himself burned inside with five other men. 

Some attributed that fire to the ill-will of Guðríðr Hinriksdóttir, sister of the brothers Ólafur and Sigurður Hinriksson, who had been farmhands at Hvítárvellir and died there, because Sheriff Sigurður had refused to grant her inheritance after them, having taken the farm of Hvítárvellir into his own hands. Others attributed the fire to Skotta. After the fire Sigurður went west to Setberg to his relatives.

Skotta Haunting the Decendants

The sons of Sheriff Sigurður and Ólöf were Páll, who burned at Hvítárvellir, and Jón, pastor at Hvammur in Norðurárdal (1752, †1780). He was married to Kristín Guðmundsdóttir, sister of Lady Þórunn and Eggert of Álftanes. Reverend Jón Sigurðsson and his wife Kristín had a daughter named Ragnheiður. She married Jón Jónsson the younger, pastor at Gilsbakki (1771, †1796). Their children were: Reverend Jón at Bergsstaðir (1826, †1838 or 1839), the housewives Kristín of Víðidalstunga, and Halla, first wife of Jón of Leirá. Ragnheiður Jónsdóttir lost her husband and married again, to Einar Guðbrandsson, assistant pastor at Hvammur in 1801, and they lived at Brekka in Norðurárdal. At that time the pastor at Hvammur was Þórður Þorsteinsson.

Hvítárvellir around 1900: Then used as a dairy school in what was called the Baron’s House, which is on the far left in the picture. The building was moved in 1925 to Hvítárbakki, Borgarfjörður.

There are few stories of Skotta from this period, but she did follow the couple at Gilsbakki, and people thought they saw her skipping ahead of Reverend Jón when he rode to the annex at Síðumúli. She was always in the meadow at Síðumúli when the pastor was seen on the Háafell slopes, Háafell being the outermost farm in Síðumúli parish.

After Lady Ragnheiður married Reverend Einar and they moved to Brekka she was called the Brekka-Skotta. Few deeds of hers are recorded there, though she was said to have killed a farmhand at Brekka named Gunnar. He had gone into the cowshed in the evening, either to carry water for the cowshed hand or to see how things were, but in any case he was found dead in the cowshed passage, while the cowshed hand heard, at that very moment, the sound of hide being dragged behind him along the cowshed ridge. 

Once Reverend Þórður of Hvammur was riding through his parish. He had gone down into the valley on his business, and his path lay along the banks between Brekka and Hraunsnef, called Pálsengi. The pastor then saw Skotta come to him. She did nothing but sit up behind him on the horse. The pastor was a resolute man and did not let it shake him. He quickly leapt off, cut the girth, and pulled the saddle back off. Then he mounted again and rode home bareback, while Skotta was seen sitting on the saddle for a long time that day, beating the stirrup-leathers.

After the death of Lady Ragnheiður, Skotta followed her children. Her daughter Kristín married Jón Friðriksson Thorarensen, a student, in Víðidalstunga. He considered Skotta no welcome guest in his family and wanted to be rid of her. Skotta was then grown old and weak in the knees, as was to be expected, since few had been able to harm her. They met when Jón returned from a journey south and was riding north over Arnarvatnsheiði. He asked Skotta what journey she was on, and she said she intended to visit his wife. But since Skotta was sore-footed and Jón wished to be rid of her, they agreed that she should leave his family in peace if he would give her something for her feet. He then took off his strong riding-boots, iron-shod, and threw them to her, and she put them on at once and disappeared.

There are no stories of her following Jón, pastor at Bergsstaðir, but people believed that she followed his son Jónas, who was a farmer at Arnarholt in Stafholtstungur, and he is often thought to bring misfortune wherever he comes. After Jón in Víðidalstunga and Skotta parted, people say that she chiefly stayed with Halla, first wife of Jón of Leirá, and she played him many tricks, killed livestock, and such things. Jón spent the first years of his farming at Kalmanstunga in Hvítársíða. From there he moved to Leirá, and after that Skotta was called the Leirá-Skotta, which name she still bears, and she follows the children of Jón’s first wife at Leirá. There is little to be told of her deeds since, for she is very old and worn, so much so that she herself is reported to have said that she could only drag herself by crawling on her knees, and she has long surpassed the usual age of ghosts, 120 years.

Even so, the people of Leirá are always thought to bring misfortune wherever they go, and men often think they see her at Akranes, since both farmhands from Leirá row there and come on various errands, but always she seems to be noticed before them.

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References:

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

Hvítárvellir – Wikipedia, frjálsa alfræðiritið

Stórabóla – Wikipedia, frjálsa alfræðiritið

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The Half-Dead Írafells-Móri Haunting For Generations

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Although not even completely dead, an unfortunate boy was resurrected as an undead by a sorcerer to avenge an entire family. For generations the Írafells-Móri plagued, harassed and also took care of the family he was sent to destroy. 

There was a man named Kort, the son of Þorvarður Möðruvellir in Kjós. He was a juryman and a well respected farmer. He was also known to be an extremely haunted man. The ghost that ended up haunting him and his family descendants are mostly known by the name Írafells-Móri. Not only did the ghost haunt the family, but their friends, neighbours and just unfortunate people crossing his path. But seeing that including every instance of haunting and haunted, this article will solely focus on Kort, his children and grandchildren. 

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

Kort was married twice. First to Ingibjörg, and the latter Þórdís Jónsdóttir. Ingibjörg was from the north and many had tried to propose to her before Kort, but she refused them all. The suitors became angry when she chose Kort over them and the men in the north went to a sorcerer to curse both Kurt and Ingibjörg. To do this, the sorcerer resurrected a ghost that would do their bidding called a Móri.

A Móri is a male ghost in Iceland. When a male is raised from the dead for such a purpose like vengeance, he is not called a ghost, but a Móri. Often the term Fylgja ghost was used interchangeably with the Draug ghost. The female version of this vengeful ghost was called Skotta. Móri means rust brown in Icelandic and the ghosts were named so because of the color of their clothes.

Raising the Dead for Vengeance

The sorcerer chose for this a young boy, of whom the story says that he had died of exposure outdoors between the farms. When he rose from the dead, he was warm and not even completely dead before being resurrected, and was sent out, ordered to haunt the couple at Möðruvellir and their descendants for nine generations.

The many men who saw the Írafells-Móri described him so that he wears gray trousers below and a brownish coat on the body, with a black broad-brimmed hat on his head, and there was a notch or large gap in the brim above the left eye. When Móri came south he attached himself to Möðruvellir as instructed and killed livestock and spoiled food. But there are no examples of Móri directly killing people.

Icelandic Ghosts and Ghouls: Fylgja or the draugr ghosts 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. // An illustration to the Icelandic legend of the Skeleton in Hólar Church (Beinagrindin í Hólakirkju). From Icelandic Legends : Collected by Jón Arnason, illustrated by Jules Worms.

One winter, Kurt and his wife had two calves that the Írafells-Móri drove over the cliffs the following summer, and they were found dead below. Another time, Kort had a mare and a foal grazing in the home pastures at Möðruvellir. Late in the summer men saw the foal running as if it had gone mad around a stone, and then it fell down dead. When they came to it the foal lay dead with its behind, caught its rectum on the stone and tore all its guts out. This was attributed to Móri.

Unlike most ghosts, the Móri was thought to have not been completely dead before being turned. Because of this, the ghost needed to eat and was even rationed food at both Möðruvellir and when he went to live at Írafell to haunt their son, Magnús Kortsson.

Móri would sometimes sit on the barn floor and gnaw on the milk troughs with his paws or knock them down, splash curd both on Ingibjörg and all over the rafters, or throw turf and stones into the food wherever it was, spoiling it with it if he wasn’t fed. Once they forgot to feed Móri in the evening and in the morning, they saw him sitting in the barn with his hands down in each cheese barrel, both munching on the cheese and sprinkling it with crumbs. After that, they were careful not to forget to feed him.

After this Kort moved away from Möðruvellir and went to Flekkudal in Eyjafjörður, but Móri followed them there and plagued them no less than before until his death in 1821. 

The Haunting of Magnús Kortsson

After the death of Kortur Heitin (1821), Móri first followed his eldest son Magnús, who lived for a long time on Írafell, as mentioned above, and because Móri was the longest attached to it, he was called Írafells-Móri, and that name has since stuck with him.

It seems that there were fewer evil visits before Kort the Elder than to some of his children and grandchildren from his first wife, whether it is because it has been longer since he was alive and those stories have therefore faded from people’s memory or Mór was more concerned with the visits when he began to follow Kort’s children or the third thing that some think is most likely is that he did not dare to wade as much while Kort was alive as after he died.

Írafell in Kjós//Source

It wasn’t just food that Móri needed; he also felt he needed to rest like anyone else, and it is said that after he started following Magnús Kortsson to Írafell where he got his name, he always had to leave a bed space empty for him opposite his own. No one except the ghost was supposed to lie in it. It also had a separate food supply.

Once people needed a place to stay for the night at Írafell. Later that evening, a boy came to the house and asked to stay there. Magnús said he could stay in the house, but had no place but the floor to sleep unless he dared to sleep in the ghost’s bed. The boy accepted and braved himself to get into the bed, but when he fell asleep, something terrible stirred him in his sleep and woke him up. He was unable to sleep well that night.

The next day the weather was bad so that the guests could not travel and had to stay at Írafell another night. That evening, some boys who lived at Írafell and knew Móri and had often been in a fight with him came and stuck knives all around the bed so that the points stuck out everywhere. That night the boy slept soundly and the men were grateful that Móri had not dared to attack him because of the knives.

Once Magnus went to Seltjarnarnes when there was a lot of fishing there, but since he had no regular place on any of the boats, he sailed with them all and sat in different places every day. For two days, he got a seat at farmer Sigurður’s in Hrólfskáli. They all noticed that Magnus was never alone, and on the third morning and they set sail, they started whispering about seeing something looking like a russet wool or ball of hair coming with Magnus. Because they didn’t want to bring any bad luck with them to the sea, and asked him to leave the boat. 

The Haunting of Björn Kortsson

It said Björn Kortsson had twice suffered grievous affliction like his other brothers. Once a man met Björn traveling north, and when they meant to ride past each other his horses shied, and it was the belief of men that they had seen the ghost and feared him, though the man himself did not see him. 

On another occasion it was that the farm at Mýdal in Mosfellssveit stood open one winter evening in moonlight and fair weather. One of the household came from somewhere, and when he came into the doorway he saw a boy further inside the door whom he did not recognize, but thought to himself that this must be Írafells-Móri, from the description he had heard of him. The man now thought to corner Móri inside to handle him and shut the door. Then he let his hands sweep through the doorway and felt as though something came against him, but when he meant to seize it, it slipped away from him again so that he could not grasp it. But early the next morning Björn Kortsson came to Mýdal.

Björn was, like all that family, a good-natured and well respected man. It is said that he was popular with the ladies and at least three sought after him when he was a young man at Hjálmholt. He used to joke that it was Mori they were after, as everyone knew that he was followed. 

As time went on though, Björn joked less and less as madness afflicted him in the later years of his life, and it wasn’t easy to live with him. It seems that a lot of the family members had this mental illness that often accompanies stories of ghosts haunting families. The illness was not seen as natural though, and was blamed on Móri.

The Haunting of Einar Kortsson

Einar Kortsson, who had been living in Tjarnarhús near Lambastaðir for a long time, once left home and was going up to Kjós to find his relatives there. It was early in the winter and when he arrived there it was getting dark. He continued on foot, and arrived after the vigil at Skrauthólar in Kjalarnes. Although Einar was not entirely unfamiliar with the place, he did not want to cause any trouble or wake people up when they were all just asleep. So he decided to look in the barn to see if he could find a place to stay for the night. 

The next morning he excused himself to the townspeople who welcomed him. They did however think that the Mori had made way for their master, as the night before, a cow had broken its neck and was found dead in the same stall Einar went to sleep in. The Mori was also thought to be behind the death of Einar’s favorite horse. One morning late in Einar’s time, Gráni lay dead in the air so tightly in front of the farm door in Tjarnarhúsi that no one could get in or out of him until the door was taken off its hinges. This was thought to have been caused by Móri.

Móri played various other tricks on Einar while he followed him. One was that Einar sometimes became like a disfigured man in the face or like a leper, with eruptions of scabs and boils and scratches as if a cat had clawed him, but if he was asked how he had gotten them he would say nothing about it. At times these eruptions disappeared again, and this was counted among other strange things that are said to follow the Kort family and be attributed to Móri. 

Men also often saw Móri riding around the houses at Einar’s, both the farmhouses and also a shed that he owned, and it was believed that Móri stayed often down by the sea, for many times the dogs there went mad and broke out in barking and noise around the shed, though no men nor animals were seen moving near it.

The Haunting of Kort Kortsson

Not many stories have gone about of hauntings before Kort Kortsson the elder, but men still believe they can fully say that Móri followed him so that harm came both to others and to himself. In the winter of 1833 it so happened that Þorsteinn, a farmer at Þúfukot in Kjós, rowed the winter fishing season at Kjalarnes and went home at Easter, as is the custom of many fishermen whose homes are not far away. 

On that same day Kort Kortsson in Uppkot in Eyrarhverfi also went home, for he too was rowing that season at Kjalarnes. Since Kort was on foot he asked Þorsteinn to carry a few things for him. One of these was a sheepskin coat which Þorsteinn tied behind him. Þorsteinn then continued his way until the roads divided to Þúfukot and Uppkot. Þorsteinn meant to go straight home without stopping at Uppkot, but when he turned his horse onto the path that led home to Þúfukot it seemed to him, and he even thought he heard, that someone seized the sheepskin coat behind him, and in that same moment the horse fell down dead under him. This was blamed on Móri, that he had crushed or killed the horse because he had wanted Þorsteinn to return the sheepskin coat home to Kort.

Kort was like many of his siblings, half-crazed in mind, so that often care had to be taken that he did not do himself harm, which he often tried when he was in such a state. In one such fit he got hold of a knife and cut himself straight across the neck, but then someone came to him and the knife was taken from him. He was then brought to a doctor who healed him and sewed the wound, but since the stitching had been done badly, there was always something odd in Kort’s throat when he swallowed. People believe he died of this wound, which he was continually reopening when madness came over him.

The Haunting of Solveig Kortsdóttir

Solveig, daughter of Kort, married Magnús, a farmer at Hjallasandur on Kjalarnes, and they have lived there for most of their farming life. People say that Móri follows her, as with the other siblings. 

Magnús and she had kept a maidservant named Sigríður. She was once in the kitchen in the evening doing some household work. Then the maid said to her mistress: “What is crawling there on my back?” and looked back over her shoulder at the same time. The housewife said that nothing was crawling on her. But in that same moment the maid fainted where she stood. Then the household came and carried her to her bed. Afterwards the fainting passed off, but then she was seized with terrible vomiting. And just about when the vomiting eased, there was a knocking at the farmhouse door. A farmhand heard it further inside the house and said: “Be off, whoever you are,” for he thought that it was the one who had attacked Sigríður the maid. Then they went to the door, and there was Solveig Kortsdóttir, asking for that same maid who had fainted, for she had some errand with her. People think this was the ghost of Solveig, Írafells-Móri, who pressed so hard upon Sigríður.

Kort’s Grandchildren and the Continuing Haunting of their Family

Magnús at Írafell had four children: two named Guðrún, Guðríður, and Guðmundur. Once, Guðrún fell ill, and Móri came to her where she lay in a single-room dwelling and knocked down all the sets of cups she owned from a shelf above the window in the same room where she lay, and they went, as one might well imagine, into a thousand pieces. 

The other Guðrún married her father’s workman, named Ólafur, and they have long lived at Reykjakot in Mosfellssveit. She was often ill both in mind, as so many of the Kort family have been prone to, and also in body. She has also lost a number of children, and that may well be in part the cause of her ailments. It is said that Móri, especially after the death of Magnús, took up his lodging with the couple Ólafur and Guðrún and that he keeps to himself above a large floor-vat which is sunk halfway into the pantry floor. When Guðrún is ill so that others must take charge of the cooking, it is said that Móri sets a dog’s head upon himself and is ashamed to take his food from any other than Guðrún.

Magnús of Írafell’s son Guðmundur was haunted by Móri no less than his sister Guðríður. One winter, Ásgeir the farmer at Lambastaðir had sent his son Þorvaldur to Reynivellir for instruction under Reverend Ólafur Pálsson, now provost of Gullbringu- and Kjósar-sýsla. Þorvaldur went home shortly before Christmas to spend the holiday with his parents, and it had been arranged that he would be fetched afterwards if anyone happened to travel from Kjós.

One evening at Lambastaðir, Þorvaldur and his mother Sigríður were the only two sleeping in the house. It was late at night and the lights had been put out, when Sigríður suddenly felt unwell and asked her son to light them again. Þorvaldur did so, and when he was finished she asked him to fetch her some water to drink, and to take the light with him so he would not stumble anywhere, although Þorvaldur, though only twelve years old at the time, was not afraid of the dark and did not need it for that reason.

So he went for the water into the kitchen, leaving the lamp in the parlor and the parlor door open, so that the glow reached into the kitchen. He filled a glass and was about to go back when, as he turned around, he saw a strapping boy come out of the anteroom into the kitchen, though neither of the doors there had been closed the evening before. The boy stood in the glow of the lamp bareheaded, with a broad-brimmed hat in his hand, wearing a brownish coat, raising his eyebrows roguishly and grinning at Þorvaldur. They looked one another in the eyes for a short while, for Þorvaldur said he had not been afraid of him but studied him closely, and he still remembers how it seemed to him that the boy’s whole face was covered with hair. But when Þorvaldur took his eyes off him, he was overcome with dizziness so that the water spilled from the glass.

Then a sheepdog that had been lying in the parlor leapt up with a terrible barking, running through the kitchen and out into the home-field, and several other dogs joined in, keeping it up for a long time. The next day two men came down from Kjós to fetch Þorvaldur, and one of them was Guðmundur Magnússon, who was then living at Káraneskot. People then felt sure that it had been Írafells-Móri whom Þorvaldur had seen that night.

Einar Kortsson had four daughters; two of them are normal, one suffers from a limb-wasting disease, and the fourth is thought not to be quite right in the head. Her name is Guðrún, she is sixteen years old, and until now nothing had been found amiss with her. She often complains that “the wretch Móri” is teasing her, pinching her, or otherwise tormenting her. Recently she developed an ailment in her knee which lasted a long time, and she herself said that it had come about because Móri had shoved her so that she fell on a stone with her knee. And just as she blames Móri for all these mishaps of hers, so there is talk that he is also the cause of the girl’s want of understanding, since she is considered little more than a half-wit, and this is thought to be in keeping with various other assaults of Móri against members of the Kort family.

Descendants of Kort: The picture above shows Kristinn Magnússon, Guðrún Pétursdóttir, his wife, and Pétur Kristinsson, their son. // Source

Kristinn Magnússon (1827-1893) was the son of Solveig Kortsdóttir (1796-1865). Kristinn was a well-known shipowner and shipbuilder. Móri, never did anything horrific when they tjey reached this part of the descendants. He was more of a nuisance to the family according to Kristinn. He told people they had to feed him like they would any other adult and as his ancestors had done before him. He would spill his food and make a big mess as per usual. Kristinn spoke often of the boy, as he called him. He never seemed to bother him, but his presence was often with Kristinn and if we are to believe the legends, perhaps still are, although in a more faded presence in the family members branching out in Iceland like a tree.

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References:

Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri/Draugasögur/Írafells-Móri – Wikiheimild

Sagnaþættir úr Engey – Heimasíða Benedikts Jóhannessonar

Írafellsmóri – Ferlir 

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The Sels-Móri or Ghost of Þorgarður Haunting for Generations

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A family cursed by a ghost called Sels-Móri was said to be haunted for nine generations in 18th and 19th century Iceland. Targeting the women in the family, it is said that it was the ghost that drove them all mad. 

What sticks out from Icelandic ghost stories, was that often, the ghost was not just a shadow or whisper, creaking in the walls or lurking in the corner of the eyes. The Icelandic ghosts were often like flesh and blood and dangerous. Not only could they hurt you, they could follow you and your family, plaguing them with misfortune, and like the ghost story of Sels-Móri or the ghost of Þorgarður, was behind madness that seemed to be passed down in the families. 

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

A ghost story spanning over generations as well as travelling over the entire country is the story of Móri of Sel, where the story was said to have started. The story features an Icelandic ghost called a fylgja from 19th century Iceland, that has roots back to the Viking age. And to understand the concept of this rather long family saga, it could be helpful to how the fylgja evolved and operated through time. 

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. 

Icelandic Ghosts and Ghouls: An illustration to the Icelandic legend of the Skeleton in Hólar Church (Beinagrindin í Hólakirkju). From Icelandic Legends : Collected by Jón Arnason, illustrated by Jules Worms.

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. 

Sels-Móri or Þorgarður

The story starts with a completely different family than the one that ended up being cursed. It starts with the life and death of the ghost itself. There once was a married couple that lived at a farm near the river Elliðá, not too far from Reykjavik. 

The story was compiled by Jón Árnason from stories circulated in the southwest of Iceland). Valgerður Jónsdóttir (1771–1856) and Hólmfríður Þorvaldsdóttir (1812–1876) are also listed as sources. There are at least 18 people by name, and at least 15 are verified historical people.

The farm had a worker named Þorgarðurand it was rumored that the wife had an affair with him. The farmer often had to go out for trivial tasks while Þorgarður was back home alone with her and this got people talking.

One winter night there was a horrible storm when the farmer was out working and tending to his livestock. He didn’t come home the following night and a search party was put together. The next morning they went to look for him and found him dead in the river and it  looked like a murder.

Elliðaá: The salmon river near Reykjavík from ca 1900 where the whole story about the Sels-Móri started.

Þorgarður was immediately suspected of this because of his reputation, and most believe that he actually did it. Even though he denied that he had killed his master, he was sentenced according to what the story says, either death by hanging or paying up with some fines and he should be allowed to redeem his life with a sheep fee. However, he didn’t have the money. 

At that time there lived a man named Jón at Seli in Seltjarnarnes east of Reykjavik, known as a diplomatic statesman with a kind heart. Þorgarður went to Jón and begged him to save his life and get out of the sentence. 

Jón was reluctant to do so at first, but Þorgarður vowed to serve him and his descendants as long as he had the strength and age. Jón, touched by the man’s plight, agreed to help and began to count the ransom on the table that Þorgarður needed to escape hanging.

When Jón counted the money, his wife Guðrún entered the living room and asked what he was doing with all the money. Jón said he was going to save the life of the man. She asked him not to do that foolish thing and swept up all the money in her apron with one hand.

Jón changed his mind and agreed with his wife. When she walked out of the room with the money in her apron she looked at Þorgard and said: “Let each one suffer for his actions.” 

Þorgard answered: “There will be no parting with us here; therefore it is no more than for me to see that my farewell follows you and your family to the ninth point.”

Then Þorgarður went away and was captured by the authorities, either in Iceland or abroad. It is believed that he was hanged in Kópavogur and that after his death, he immediately went back and sought out the Selsjóns as a fylgja ghost. 

The Hauntings for Nine Generations

As he had promised, he followed them wherever they went, especially the wife. Guðrúna was then both despondent and delirious and haunted for the rest of her life. Because this ghost was attached to Sel for a long time, he was called Sels-Móri. 

A Móri is a male ghost in Iceland. When a male is raised from the dead for such a purpose like vengeance, he is not called a ghost, but a Móri. Often the term Fylgja ghost was used interchangeably with the Draug ghost. The female version of this vengeful ghost was called Skotta. Móri means rust brown in Icelandic and the ghosts were named so because of the color of their clothes.

Sel in Seltjarnarnes: Source

The Selsjóns couple had one daughter named Þorgerður that would be the next victim of Sels-Móri’s haunting. She married Halldór Bjarnason, a prominent farmer in Skildinganes. As well as inheriting her parents’ estates, she also inherited Sels-Móri of her family they called ættarfylgja, meaning something like an ancestral ghost.  

They had a son, Bjarni í Sviðholt, and it looks like the Sels-Móri skipped the male descendant of the family and he lived in peace. He was probably one of the members of the legal court whom the law speaker Magnús Ólafsson appointed later to the Alþing of Öxará, 1798.

He had many children and was known to be friendly and a good guy, thinking perhaps that they were free of the haunting. They still knew about the Sels-Móri, and he was in those days often called Sviðholt’s ghost, but very often he was still associated with the name Þorgarður. But the ghost returned to haunt the female descendants. 

Bjarni’s second daughter, whose name was Úríður, married Benedikt Björnsson, a student from Hítardal, who has been a priest in Fagranes for a long time. She was the greatest clairvoyant, but such adversity came upon her that she became half-crazy and sometimes angry with everything and difficult to live with. Although the ghost of Sels-Móri was almost part of life in Icelandic folklore culture, her insanity was too much for her husband.

As a result, she divorced her husband and her sister Ragnheiður took her in who was married with a school teacher at Bessastaðir called Jón Jónsson. The teachers and families of Bessastaðaskóli often lived in or close to the school. Today this is residence of the President of Iceland and has always been important in the history of the nation and has always been the seat of chieftains and high officials.

Read more: Another famous ghost is said to still linger at Bessastaðir. Check out Apollonia Schwartzkopf the Ghost at Bessastadir

Úríður died there after a time of unstable paranoia. She would claim that a viper was stinging her and that another woman called Ingibjörg was stabbing her with a cobbler’s needle. This was believed to refer to a woman who lived with her and her husband before they separated. This woman actually became his second wife after the divorce, so it begs to question what really happened before she was sent to her sister.  

Bessastaðir, Álftanes.// Source

They all believed that their ancestral ghost Sels-Móri who was the one behind her insanity. Úriði is said to have said during her fits of insanity that she should have said: “My sister, it’s better to stab me,”

It looks like her sister, Ragnheiður, was mostly free of the haunting, although the Sels-Móri was blamed when he caused the destruction of a mail boat that was lost in 1817 because her first husband sailed with it. Sels-Móri was also the cause of the late Þórður Bjarnason’s death, in Sviðholt; it is still said that he had haunted the children of Ragnheiður, especially her son, Björn.

Ragnheiðar’s children, Especially Bjarna Rector

It should be mentioned here at the same time that Bjarni Halldórsson in Sviðholt had a sister named Jórunn who seems to have had almost a parallel haunting in addition to her ancestral one. She was very fair and beautiful and a man in Álftanes asked her to marry him. But she thought that he was beneath her and she rejected him. She would however never be rid of him.

He promised he would cling to her and her family, even if he was unable to get to her as a wife. She married one named Eyjólf, and had a baby girl. They hadn’t been together for long when it became apparent that Jórunn had mental issues, which only increased as time went by, and in the end, she went completely insane. This was believed to be because of the curse of the suitor she rejected as well as the curse their family already was struggling with. 

Her daughter Þorgerðr grew up and married Eggert Bjarnason, who was at that time the priest at Snæfoksstaðir (Klausturhólum) in Grímsnes. She then went east with him and they had children together and it seemed to be fine. Perhaps they had escaped the curse by moving away? 

Time passed until Jórunn, Þorgerðr’s mother, died. There was no evidence of that illness in Þorgerði during her mother’s lifetime, as she had never come south since she went east, and it is said that Reverend Eggert was warned not to let her go south and never come beyond Sog or Álfvattan and would not blame her then. 

But when Jórunn á Skógtjörn died, it is said that Þorgerður begged her husband to go south with her to mourn her mother and he finally agreed. They had come south over Hellisheiði, south into Fóelluvötn above Helliskot when the curse hit her. According to the stories she was struck with a a dizzy spell and that she was never the same again. She had inherited Sels-Móri. They also believed that her mother’s ghost and fylgidraugur, had met her daughter there and followed her from then on as long as she lived

Breaking the Generational Curse and Haunting

She didn’t live very long however, and she died shortly after going south. The children of Reverends Eggerts and Þorgerður didn’t fare well with either, and two of their daughters were also said to have gone crazy, as so many of the women in their family line had done before them. 

But Sels-Móri made a promise all those generations ago, and after the ninth generation, the curse was lifted and the family line, if there still is someone around, is said to be finally free from it. 

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References:

Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri/Draugasögur/Sels-Móri eða Þorgarður – Wikiheimild 

(PDF) Icelandic Fylgjur Tales and a Possible Old Norse Context 

Chapter 3 The Fylgjur of Iceland: Attendant Spirits and a Distorted Sense of Guardianship

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The Vampire Secrets of Glamis Castle: Bloodlines and Bloodlust in Scotland’s Haunted Fortress

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In one of the oldest inhabited castle in Scotland, Glamis Castle is said to be filled to the brick with ghost stories and legends. According to the stories though, there is seemingly something more monstrous and more blood thirsty said to be sealed inside of the bricked up secret chambers, waiting to get out. 

Standing in stoic grandeur amidst the rolling Angus countryside, Glamis Castle has long held a reputation for secrets, shadows, and spectral figures. Known as the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Glamis or Glammis Castle, in Forfarshire, the seat of Lord Strathmore, is steeped in royal history and ancient nobility — but its corridors also echo with stories far darker than those found in any history book.

Of its many chilling legends, two vampire tales rise above the rest, hinting at unnatural bloodlines and eternal imprisonment behind stone walls. These stories, passed down for generations, have become the cornerstone of Glamis Castle’s macabre mythology.

The Vampire Child: The Sinister Family Secret

At the heart of Glamis Castle’s vampire lore is the enduring whisper of a “vampire child” — a secret so terrible, it was said to be known only to the laird, his heir, and one trusted family retainer in each generation. According to the legend, there is a secret chamber in the castle where the vampire child was placed. There is an old story that guests staying at Glamis once hung towels from the windows of every room in a bid to find the bricked-up suite of the monster. When they looked at it from outside, several windows were apparently towel-less. Though this is more likely due to the owners removing them in order so that the guests would not find the rooms, according to several relatives of the family.

The lords of Glamis. who, according to legend, were drinking and gambling, losing their family fortune. By the mid-17th century, the castle was in ruins. It was inherited by Patrick Lyons, who rebuilt the castle and rehabilitated the family, for which he was made the earl of Strathmore.

According to lore, in the early l800s the first son of the 11th earl of Strathmore was born a hideously deformed, egg-shaped monster with no neck, tiny arms and legs, and a large, hairy torso. According to legend, the child was once born into the Bowes-Lyon family with monstrous characteristics: deformed, unnatural, and blood-hungry. This child, believed to be a vampire or some other unholy being, was hidden away in a sealed chamber within the castle — a room known only to a few and never spoken of publicly.

In fact, there was a son born, Thomas Lyon-Bowes, the first child of Thomas Lyon-Bowes, Lord Glamis, and his wife Charlotte Lyon-Bowes née Grimstead. He is however recorded born and died in October 21, 1821. The stories about the child being “a monster” allegedly started when the unnamed midwife retold it in the local village. 

The castle was given to the second son, unlawfully, and the creature, after so many years away became mad. It reportedly died in 1921 or 1941. 

Some versions of the tale go further, suggesting that the “secret of Glamis” is that in every generation, one such child is born — cursed or blessed, depending on the point of view — with vampiric traits. Another legend tells that the monster is in Loch Calder near the castle. These children, it is said, never die, but are locked away, immortal and unseen, sustained through blood or other unknowable means. Over time, the corridors of the castle have become riddled with rumors of bricked-up rooms, hollow walls, and windows that can be seen from the outside but do not exist within.

Searches for the supposed secret chamber have never revealed definitive answers — only more questions. But for those thinking that concealing a child inside a room seems to harsh about this family, just think about the tragic case of Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon, cousins of the queen, listed dead for years, but turned out to live in Earlswood Hospital for mentally disabled people in 1941, classified as: “imbeciles”. 

The Blood-Sucking Woman: The Servant Entombed Alive

A separate legend, no less disturbing, tells the story of a serving woman who was caught engaging in a grotesque act of vampirism. According to lore dating back several centuries, the woman was found leaning over the corpse of a fellow servant, her mouth stained red, drinking the blood from the lifeless body.

Horrified, the castle’s occupants did not attempt to destroy her in the traditional methods associated with vampires — no stake, no fire, no silver. Instead, they condemned her to a crueler fate: she was bricked up alive within a hidden room, left to die in solitude, possibly in the very act of waiting for another victim.

Some stories say she remains alive to this day, an immortal vampire trapped inside the walls, forever hungry and vengeful. Those who work at Glamis today have reported unexplained cold spots, sounds of scratching, and even soft crying from behind thick stone walls — perhaps signs of the entombed servant still begging for release.

The Secret Chamber

This part of a secret chamber being haunted is told by many and could have sprung out from an older legend. The origins of this story go back hundreds of years, to an age when the Lyon and Lindsay clan were engaged in a bitter, ongoing feud. 

On a cold snowy night, there was a group of Lindsays on the run from other clans and they went to Glamis to seek refuge. Some say it was the Ogilvie who was trying to escape the clutches of their enemies, the Lindsays. 

The Earl promised them his protection, but trapped them in a room where he looked inside. Some say that the Earl was working with the Lindsays and caught them and imprisoned them. He never let them out of the  16 feet thick room, and for years, there were banging from the walls, screams and noises coming from them. Even after they were dead and long gone fro hundreds of years, you could still hear their cries through the castle. 

The sitting Earl decided to put a stop to the haunting and went into a room where no one went. He opened the door with a key and he was frozen with terror. He closed the door, bricked it up and never spoke about what he saw ever again. 

A Castle of Secrets and Shadows

Glamis Castle is no stranger to the paranormal. In addition to its vampire legends, it’s also home to numerous ghost stories — from the Grey Lady thought to haunt the chapel, to the Earl Beardie, cursed to play cards with the Devil for eternity. Yet none are as unsettling — or as persistently whispered about — as the vampire tales that seem woven into the very walls of the building.

Read More: Glamis Castle is filled with ghost stories. Read more about them in Lady Janet Douglas, Ghost of Glamis Castle

Visitors often speak of a strange feeling of being watched, even in empty rooms. Some claim that doors open and close on their own, or that footsteps echo down halls long after the castle has closed for the night. Could one of those footsteps belong to the vampire child, still pacing in darkness? Or is it the blood-sucking servant, endlessly circling her unseen prison?

The castle may gleam proudly by daylight, but as night falls, the questions it refuses to answer begin to stir. And somewhere, in one of its sealed rooms, the undead may still be waiting.

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References:

Monster of Glamis Fireside Companion | Vault Of Evil: Brit Horror Pulp Plus!

Glamis Castle – Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

Glamis Castle – Wikipedia

Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon – Wikipedia

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The Curious Legend of Dracula’s Bride: The Tale of Sarah Ellen Roberts

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In the shadowy annals of vampire lore, where myths and reality intertwine, one woman’s haunting tale stands out— Sarah Ellen Roberts, an unassuming woman from Blackburn, England, who would become immortalized as Dracula’s Bride in the unlikeliest of places: Pisco, Peru.

In the long, eerie catalog of vampire lore — from the misted Carpathians to the cobbled streets of Whitby — few tales are quite as strange, or as oddly international, as that of Sarah Ellen Roberts, a woman born in Blackburn, England in 1872, who died in obscurity yet rose to legend as Dracula’s Bride in Peru. 

On June 9 in 1993, her 80th death anniversary was in Pisco, Peru where she is buried. The locals feared she would return for her vengeance. Pregnant women fled the town, hundreds of anti-vampire kits were sold and street vendors were selling t-shirts and keyrings as television and radio broadcasted it all live. They were all fearing and awaiting the return of Dracula’s bride. 

The Life and Sinister Reputation of Sarah Ellen Roberts

Not much is historically documented about Sarah Ellen’s early life in Blackburn. She was born Sarah Ellen Gargett and was born March 6 in 1872 in Burnley. She was one of four children of the coachman, William Gargett and Catherine Abbott.

She grew up in Blackburn, England and married John Pryce Roberts in St. John’s Church in 1892, both working as weavers, raising their two sons, Frank and William born in 1892 and 93 on Bolton Road in Blackburn. 

Sara Roberts: Before Sarah became a vampire legend, it seems like she lived a normal working class life in England. Here, a weaver working a mechanical loom in Home mill at the end of 19th century.

Seemingly a humble and innocent life, so how in the world did she end up buried in Peru with a reputation of being a vampire?

John had a brother who left to work as a manager at Nab-lane in a weaving mill in Lima, Peru in 1901. He must have been successful as he traveled first class back. John himself went to Peru at least two times in 1912 and 1913. He brought Sarah with him and left their children in England with Sarah’s aunt, Lily Gargett. But Sarah would never return to England the last trip they took. 

On the 9th of June in 1913 she died of unknown cause in Pisco, Peru, 200 km south of Lima. Her obituary in the Northern Daily Telegraph simply read: 

On the 9th inst., at Pisco, Peru, Sarah Ellen, the beloved wife of John P. Roberts (formerly of 25 Isherwood-street, Blackburn.) In her 42nd year. Deeply regretted.

John Roberts returned to England and ended his day as a weaver, opening a grocer’s shop he ran until his death in October 1925. 

The Legends Of Sarah

As mentioned, little is known about her life except the skeleton we can read about through wedding dates in the church register or the census records. but what lingers in local memory is the rumor that she dabbled in the dark arts. Accusations of witchcraft, murder, and even vampirism followed her like a shadow. Folklore claims she was suspected of being one of the undead — a creature cursed to drain the life from others in order to sustain her own. In Victorian England, where superstition clung tight even as the Industrial Revolution steamed ahead, such rumors could be a death sentence.

According to the rumors, Sarah was sentenced to death in East Lancashire after the accusations of her being a witch, vampire and murderer. Legend has it that, in 1913, she was chained, nailed inside a lead-lined coffin, and left to die. And as she died, she vowed to return for revenge.  

England, it is said, refused her burial — no hallowed ground would accept the restless corpse of a vampire. Desperate to find his wife a final resting place, John allegedly wandered the globe for four years with her corpse, encountering refusal after refusal from fearful communities in all of Europe as well as Chile and Argentina. A sailor told him to go to Peru as “everyone knows Peru is the land of witches.”. It wasn’t until he reached Pisco, a small port town in Peru, that he found a people willing — or perhaps sufficiently unaware — to allow her burial. There he bought a tomb for five pound and laid his wife to rest. 

Thus, Sarah Ellen was laid to rest in Cementerio General de Pisco, far from the foggy moors of England. But death would not be the end of her story

The Night of Dread and Disappointment

As midnight approached on 9th June 1993, nearly one thousand people gathered around Sarah Ellen’s grave. The date of her resurrection had been from Cuban talk show host, Cristina Saralegui on her program, a self proclaimed vampire specialist. 

Cristina Show 1992 Intro: Was this how the world was introduced to the legend of Sarah?

Some came out of morbid curiosity, others driven by genuine dread. As mentioned, pregnant women fled the town as they were afraid that her spirit would be reborn as their child.

The crowd included witch doctors and spiritualists, eager to ward off whatever horror might claw its way from the earth.

The grave was doused with holy water and protective rites were performed, sprinkling flower petals as well as blood on her grave, welcoming her back. Local shamans chanted, crosses were brandished, and prayers filled the night air thick with incense and anticipation as people had armed themselves with crucifixes, holy water, stakes and garlic. Midnight struck, and… nothing.

Source

The grave remained undisturbed. No spectral figure emerged. No pallid hand tore through the soil. The townsfolk, some relieved, others a little disappointed, slowly dispersed into the night and the broadcasters packed up their equipment with little to report on.

Local witch doctors claimed victory over evil; skeptics chalked it up to superstition’s last gasp. In 2007, a massive earthquake hit Peru that killed hundreds and destroyed a lot of the city, including the cemetery that her grave was. Her grave was undamaged and people speculated that this was a sign that she really held powers, even in her grave. Even today, some believe the rituals merely postponed the inevitable, and that Sarah Ellen Roberts still waits.

Source

An Enduring Enigma

Fact and fiction blur at the edges of Sarah Ellen’s tale. Historical records of her existence are scant, and little in England officially documents the accusations against her. There were also versions of the legend where she was one of the three “brides of Dracula”, together with the sisters Andrea and Erica. They were executed in Blackburn and buried by John Roberts in Mexico and Hungary or Panama, as the legend varies. This thing comes from the Cuban TV personality. The question is: was the tale even a thing in Peru before this broadcast?

According to this variation, she and her sisters had gone to Transylvania and met Dracula himself who had seduced her and made her his lover, biting her and making her a vampire. 

Another tale was that she gave birth to a son as soon as she arrived in Peru and died six days later. After this, stories about a pale foreign woman were seen in town as she fed on the blood of animals and young children. This creature was known as the Vampira de Inglaterra. 

Yet in Peru, her grave remains real, and her legend persists.

Over the years, her story has appeared in Peruvian newspapers, paranormal documentaries, and folklore anthologies.

Final Thoughts from the Crypt

In the grand pantheon of vampire legends, Sarah Ellen Roberts stands out not for bloody deeds or midnight prowls, but for the sheer, gothic absurdity of her story: an accused vampire from industrial England buried in coastal Peru, with an apocalyptic prophecy attached for good measure.

Historians have several times debunked the story, although tourism still thrives on it. If it was so that she was convicted for witchcraft, there would only be a prison sentence as well as more press like the last woman convicted for witchcraft in the UK made. 

Read More: Spiritualism and the Occult: The History of Ectoplasm and Gooey Ghosts

What happened when she died? Was it a traveling man with his wife in a coffin, trying to get her back to England that gave rise to the myths? Was it something that happened before she left for South America that gave a lingering impression on those who crossed her path?

Source

Her grandchildren were unaware of the vampire legends that existed about her until 1993 and that the legend had more with a 60% spike in tourism in the Pisco area after the incident. Some believe that she was no vampire at all, but a saint, leaving her flowers on her grave and asking for miracles today. 

And while she didn’t rise in 1993, one can’t help but wonder if perhaps — in true vampiric fashion — she’s just biding her time.

After all… some graves are better left unvisited.

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References:

Sarah Ellen – Latin Folktales 

Sarah Roberts (subject of vampire legend) – Wikipedia

Vampires – Sarah Ellen Roberts

 Sarah Ellen (1872-1913) – Find a Grave Memorial

‘Vampire’ haunting Peruvian village is unmasked… as a tragic British holidaymaker | Daily Mail Online

La leyenda de Sarah Ellen, la ‘mujer vampiro’ que aterrorizó Pisco y el misterio que oculta una tumba que nadie se atreve a abrir – Infobae

Sarah Hellen: el mito de la mujer vampiro que fue enterrada en Pisco Drácula | Respuestas | La República

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The Ghostly Tales of Kona Sheraton: Hauntings on the Big Island on Hawaii

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Thought to be struck by an ancient curse because they didn’t respect the holy locations around the hotel when building, the Kona Sheraton Resort was believed to be haunted from the start. Strange occurrences and unexplained accidents and injuries plagued the Big Island hotel for years. After making amends, can they now invite guest back?

On the coastline of the Big Island in Hawaii, Keauhou Bay sits glittering. It is here we find the Kona Sheraton, a luxurious resort that offers stunning views of the Pacific Ocean and a relaxing tropical escape. However, behind its serene facade, the Kona Sheraton hides a darker, more mysterious side. 

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For years, guests and staff alike have shared eerie stories of paranormal encounters, making this hotel one of the most haunted locations on the Big Island. Some even go as far to say that the hotel holds a curse from more ancient times.

Kailua Kona

A Haunted History for the Kona Sheraton

The Kona Sheraton or the Kona Surf hotel, as it was once known as, has undergone multiple transformations and renovations throughout its history. It opened in 1974 and has ever since been deemed haunted.

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Despite its changing exterior and updated amenities, one thing has remained constant—the ghostly tales that have haunted the hotel for decades. The resort stands on an ancient Hawaiian battleground, a site where many warriors are said to have lost their lives in brutal conflicts and that the very land is cursed because of it. 

The Keawehala Pond

When constructing the hotel, the developers destroyed the Keawehala Pond where people believed two twin sisters with powers lived close to the Mākole‘ā Heiau. This was a women’s heiau named after ali‘i wahine Mākole‘ā at Keauhou.

According to the lore, the twins protected the pond and kept the water clear and fresh. They were also said to be able to change into 30-foot lizards people called mo’o wahine or “beings from deified fetuses”. 

The Mo’o: Mele Murals in Waimea depicting the moʻowahine of Kohākohau stream. //Source

Most of the Mo’o were female and amphibious creatures living in ponds around the Hawaiian islands and were often said to have power of water as well as weather. It was said that when a mo’o died, the body of the lizard, gecko or even human shaped creatures became petrified and one with the landscape.

According to lore, the Mo’o Twins were also said to reside in the nearby Punawai Spring.

The Haunted Remains of the Heiaus

As well as destroying the pond, the nearby heiaus temples were filled with concrete, glass and disturbed by the construction, thought to anger the spirits. For a long time, it looked like a pile of rocks without meaning, but this has luckily changed as there have been restoration done to the holy site in the last decades. 

At the site there is a temple known as luakini, a place for human sacrifices according to the stories. The structure was built of volcanic rocks and stood 7-feet high. The luakini was called Ke’eku Heiau and is thought to date back to the early 1400s after carbon dating it.

Ke’eku Heiau

This was where the Maui chief, Kamalalawalu was sacrificed to the war God Ku around the 16th century after he invaded the place and lost. He was the first-born son of Kiha-a-Pi‘ilani, Kamalalawalu succeeded his father as mo‘i (king) of Maui. Some say that he was impaled on the heiau and eleven days went by before he died, and then taken to a nearby flat rock and butchered. Some say that the body was then towed to sea behind a canoe as shark food. It is said that his spirit as well as many others are still lingering in the place. 

As well as the king himself, it is said that his two big dogs died and were buried under the heiau luakini platform as well, howling and roaming around, searching for the underworld as well as their master. 

This blood-soaked history may explain the strange, supernatural occurrences reported by those who stay and work at the hotel.

Paranormal Activity Rooted in History

Given the hotel’s location on an ancient battleground, it is not surprising that the Kona Sheraton is a hotspot for paranormal activity. The restless spirits of warriors who perished in fierce battles, their souls still wandering in search of peace, are said to roam the grounds. 

The tragic history of the land seems to seep into every corner of the resort, with visitors and staff experiencing unexplained phenomena, from flickering lights to sudden drops in temperature and even a sense of being watched.

Ghostly Children in the Hallways

One of the most common complaints from guests involves the sound of little girls playing noisily in the hallways late at night. Frustrated by the sounds of laughter, giggles, and tiny footsteps echoing through the halls, guests frequently call down to security, demanding that the children be quieted. However, the hotel guards can only offer an apology and an explanation that chills guests to the bone—the children are ghosts.

These spectral children are said to be seen fleetingly, dressed in old-fashioned clothing, their faces partially obscured by the dim lighting of the hallway. They vanish around corners and dissolve into thin air when approached. Despite numerous sightings, their origins remain a mystery, but many believe they could be spirits of children from a bygone era who met a tragic fate on the grounds long before the hotel was built.

The Cliffside Specter

Another ghostly presence frequently spotted at the Kona Sheraton is the apparition of a figure standing at the edge of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Staff members report seeing a shadowy silhouette lingering near the edge, as if contemplating the deep blue waters below. The figure disappears the moment one looks away or tries to approach, leaving no trace behind. Some believe this could be the spirit of a warrior or a former guest, eternally bound to the cliffs where they may have met their end.

Lava Rocks in Kailua Kona

The cliffs themselves, with their dramatic drop-offs and sweeping views, hold a deep spiritual significance in Hawaiian culture. Some speculate that the spirit could be one of the many who lost their lives on these cliffs in ancient times or perhaps a ghost still drawn to the natural beauty and solemnity of the place.

The Accidents at the Kona Sheraton

Throughout its time as a hotel, the spirits are said to have been behind more than one accident. Construction workers experienced strange things and accidents that gave them concussions, fractured bones and hurt them. People started to blame spirits. 

The hotel staff were attacked by trays and dishes shattering towards them by an unseen force and the doors kept slamming behind them, almost like a warning. According to former employees, most of them left because of the hauntings. 

The worst thing that happened was when an 8-foot wooden ki’i fell over and killed a 4 year old child in August 1986 according to the ghost tours that had this as one of their stops. 

All of this contributed to the hotel’s reputation and the hotel closed in 1988. But even though the hotel closed down and was abandoned, there were still things happening according to the security staff. 

The Following Haunting

For years it was abandoned and boarded up, the former resort now covered in graffiti. In 2002 when people started to think the only way to deal with it was to demolish it.

Security guards hired to watch the property when the 462-room hotel closed in 1988 were frightened at night, said Joe Castelli, who lives at the neighboring Keauhou Kona Tennis and Racquet Club.

“They told me that they would see lights up there and hear Hawaiians singing and talking,” Castelli said. “…But when they got there, they didn’t find anything. So they said they just didn’t go anymore.”
Source

In addition, the haunting seemed to move as well to the Keauhou Beach Hotel next door. The former hotels are both demolished now, first the Kona Lagoon Hotel in 2004, then the Keauhou Beach Hotel in 2019. But what happened to the haunting then?

Today the area has been reclaimed and the site is now called Kahalu’u Ma Kai. Kahuna priests have blessed the land and the heiaus have been restored and recreated back in 2007. Only teachers and students can see the place today, and if these measures have had any effect is still to be seen.  

A Chilling Invitation

The Kona Sheraton on the Big Island may have offered luxury and relaxation, and perhaps it will do so again. After it reopened as OUTRIGGER Kona Resort & Spa, it remains to see if the land is now content after the blessings or if the haunting will continue as a new business takes over the land yet again. 

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References:

The Most Haunted Hotels in Hawaii | Haunted Rooms America

The Cursed Kona Lagoon Hotel 

Kona Lagoon Hotel may be torn down | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii’s Newspaper

Haunted Hawaii-Ghosts, Spirits, Night Marchers and more – 365 Kona 

Moʻo – Wikipedia

Ka Po‘e Mo‘o Akua: Hawaiian Reptilian Water Deities 9780824891091 – DOKUMEN.PUB

Hapaiali’i and Ke’eku Heiau, Big Island

King Kamalalawalu | Lovingthebigisland’s Weblog