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The Sea Draug: The Ghostly Fisherman of the Norwegian Coast

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Thought to be haunting the dark seas of the north, the Sea Draug is a ghost of the drowned fishermen’s and other unfortunate souls who perished on the waters. 

Along Norway’s rugged coastline, where the sea has always given both life and death, sailors have long spoken in hushed tones about a terrifying apparition known as the sea draug. As a place where the sea claimed hundreds of lives every year, no wonder that a particular sea ghost started haunting the shores. 

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Norway

Originally, the word draugh simply meant ghosts, and there are stories about them across Scandinavia since before the Viking area. This ghost is not the same creature as the draugr of the Viking sagas, the corporal ghost even though they share a name. The sea draug belongs to coastal Norwegian folklore and is shaped by centuries of fear, loss, and respect for the unforgiving ocean, especially along the coast of western Norway stretching up to the north, the draug is almost always a ghost from the sea.

The Norse Draug: The word draug itself is derived from the Old Norse word draugr , which originally could mean the ghost of any deceased person. The draugen was originally a dead person, either living in a mound (in Old Norse called haugbúi ) or going out to haunt the living. They were corporal ghosts.  // Illustration: Kim Diaz Holm

A Spirit Born of the Sea

In later folklore it became common to limit the figure to a ghost of a dead fisherman who had drifted at sea and who was not buried in Christian soil. Later the word has mainly come to mean a spirit at sea in Norway. This development is partly due to the many and popular folkloric tales of Jonas Lie in the 1870s , 80s and 90s, based on superstitions from Northern Norway. In other Nordic countries though, the word draug, often means the ancient and corporal ghost from the graves. 

The Sea Draug: Fairy tale artist Theodor Kittelsen’s The Sea Troll from 1887 shows a creature that has several features in common with the drowned ghost, the draug. Kittelsen also has his own drawing of the draug as a drowning man in a fisherman’s boat.

It is often said to look like a fisherman still dressed for work, wearing oilskins or old sea clothes soaked through and clinging to a bloated body. Its skin is pale and water-swollen, and its eyes may glow faintly, lit by an eerie shimmer like moonlight on kelp.

Seaweed is frequently described as tangled in its hair or beard, drifting and moving as if still underwater. In some stories, the draug’s presence is announced not by sight but by sound. The creak of oars, the slap of waves against wood, or a strange voice calling out across the water can signal that it is near. When it cried out at night, it sounded like a cry for help from people in danger.

The Fear of the Draug: An incident from Nesna where two men had sailed for coal a few years earlier between Vikholmen on Hugla and Saura on Handnesøya. The shipwreck occurred in winter right near his home. One of them made it ashore on a deserted islet. From there he shouted in vain for help. People on Vikholmen near his home heard him, but did not dare to go out, because they thought the cries came from the sea draug. The man was found frozen to death in the spring. This story corresponds somewhat with the documented accident on January 20, 1823, when fisherman and farmer Lars Pedersen Tønder from Vik on Hugla died on the uninhabited Sauraholmen.

Sometimes he would wander around in the boathouses, and sometimes he would be a stone with seaweed on it, so fishermen were reluctant to take a “seaweed stone” as ballast as he could come onboard with them then..

He settled near fresh water, in mill houses, landed and moored boats or boathouses. Signs of his presence were rust and turned oars. If he went out into the boat, it became noticeably heavier. The ghost could not tolerate light or fire and could be scared away with fire or embers. Grassy land was safe because the ghost could not walk there.

Sometimes he would get into the fishermen’s huts and lie down under the beds. He would only disappear when the room was lit or heated. He would also evaporate if someone shouted “Kirkheim” or threw cemetery soil or excrement after him. Such soil could symbolize that the drowned person was finally able to rest in consecrated ground. Another old piece of advice was to smear feces on the landing rope to prevent the ghost from taking the boat. The belief in the use of excrement against supernatural forces is found in connection with other legendary figures, including ghouls or elves. Rituals, such as spitting on land before getting out of the boat or tying three knots on the rope, were also used as protection.

Boats that Should not Float

One of the most chilling images in sea draug folklore is that of the half-sunken boat. The draug is said to row vessels that sit unnaturally low in the water, as if already claimed by the sea. These boats glide silently through fog or darkness, appearing suddenly alongside fishing boats or ships.

In storms he headed for land like the other fishermen. He could race or steer directly towards boats, and anyone who encountered him at sea was in for a bad time. If a boat was overlooked by the draug, it foreshadowed inevitable shipwreck and death for the crew.

Seeing such a boat was considered a deadly omen. To meet the gaze of the sea draug or hear its call could mean disaster. Some tales say it cries warnings of coming storms, as if trying to save others from sharing its fate. Other stories are darker, claiming the draug lures sailors closer, only to drag them down into the depths.

If the draug shouts “Welcome” or calls out the name of a specific person, you should not respond. You should stand up, turn your back to the sound, and shout the same word. If you find bones, clothes, planks or similar from a sunken boat near where you hear the draug, you must make sure to get it upstream and bury it. If it is buried where the seawater does not reach it, it will lose its effect. If you are in possession of fire when you encounter the draug, you should throw a firebrand at it and shout: “Now you are burning!” Then it will go out to sea, and only the Morilden or mareel will appear after it.

Stories of the sea draug are deeply tied to Northern Norway, where long winters, dark waters, and violent weather have shaped life along the coast. These legends helped explain sudden disappearances and shipwrecks, and they gave form to grief in communities where loss was a constant companion.

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References:

Draug

draug – Store norske leksikon

Draugen – havets hevner og dødens varsler – Helgeland Museum

Draugen – Nordlige folk

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The Nordic Grave Dwelling Haugbúi Draugr (ᛏᚱᛅᚢᚴᛦ)

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An ancient ghost coming from the depths of graves across the nordic countries, the Haugbúi Draugr could be both dangerous and even deadly. Not merely a specter, but the rotten flesh of the dead, the ghosts are remembered as The Walking Dead of the North.

The draugr is not a distant spirit or a whisper in the dark, but the body itself, risen from the grave, swollen with death and driven by hatred, envy, or an unbroken will.

To the Viking mind, death did not always end a person’s power. A strong, malicious, or deeply wronged individual might carry their force beyond the grave. And even after the vikings are long gone, the stories of the draugr haunting the lands remain. 

The Norse Draug: The word draug itself is derived from the Old Norse word draugr , which originally could mean the ghost of any deceased person. The draugen was originally a dead person, either living in a mound (in Old Norse called haugbúi ) or going out to haunt the living. They were corporal ghosts.  // Illustration: Kim Diaz Holm

The Living Corpse of the Draugr

Unlike ghosts made of mist or memory, the draugr is corporeal. It has weight, strength, and substance. It can leave footprints in snow, crush bones with its grip, and wrestle the living like a man made of cold iron. In many stories, the draugr guards its burial mound or the land it once owned, attacking anyone foolish enough to trespass.

Haugbúi Draugr: In the Bronze and Iron age, people of power were often buried inside huge mound dwellings or tumuli. This led people to believe that the hills were haunted, and that these corporal ghosts resided inside of them. Although the Haugbúi is rather a type of draugr, it’s used as an umbrella term to separate it from the Norwegian Sea Draug. // Image: Osberghaugen / by Karl Ragnar Gjertsen.

Descriptions vary, but certain traits return again and again. Draugrs are often bloated and dark, their skin stretched tight by decay. They reek of death, a thick, sour stench that announces their presence before they are seen. Their eyes may glow with an unnatural light, or stare blankly from faces frozen in rage.

Some draugrs grow in size and strength after death, becoming far more powerful than they were in life. Others can change shape, slipping into the form of animals or mist, or riding the night winds to terrorize farms and villages. The draugr’s motivation was primarily envy and greed. 

Glámr and the curse of the draugr

One of the most famous draugrs appears in Grettis saga. Glámr was a shepherd whose arrogance and defiance marked him even before death. When he died under cursed circumstances, he rose again, haunting the countryside, killing livestock, and driving men mad with fear. Glámr’s draugr is not merely violent, but malevolent, spreading despair wherever he goes.

The Icelandic Draugr Types: The Draugr tale evolved differently in the nordic countries. In Iceland, the closest draugr ghost after the viking age and the saga era would be the Skotta or Mori. They also fall under the Old Norse Mythology of a Fylgja, that were supernatural spirits that followed or latched onto people. 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, like the nordic Draugr. And when we read about Skotta, the female version, she was highly dangerous and also deadly. // 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.

When the hero Grettir finally defeats Glámr, it requires enormous physical strength and courage. Even then, the victory is incomplete. With his final breath, Glámr curses Grettir, ensuring that the shadow of the draugr follows him for the rest of his life. This reflects a core belief in draugr lore: even destroyed, the dead can still leave scars.

A second death

In Norse belief, killing a draugr was rarely simple. Weapons alone were often useless. To end its reign, the animated corpse had to suffer a second death. This might involve beheading the body, burning it, or destroying it so completely that nothing remained to rise again. Burial mounds were opened, corpses pinned down, and ashes scattered to the wind.

The main indication that a deceased person will become a draugr is that the corpse is not horizontal and is found standing upright, or in a sitting position, indicating that the dead might return. Breaking the draugr’s posture is a necessary or helpful step in destroying the draugr.

The Sea Draugr of Norway: Originally, the word draugr simply meant ghosts, and there are stories about them across Scandinavia since before the Viking area. This ghost is not the same creature as the draugr of the Viking sagas, the corporal ghost even though they share a name. The sea draug belongs to coastal Norwegian folklore and is shaped by centuries of fear, loss, and respect for the unforgiving ocean, especially along the coast of western Norway stretching up to the north, the draug is almost always a ghost from the sea. Read More: The Sea Draug: The Ghostly Fisherman of the Norwegian Coast

Heavy stones were placed on graves. Bodies were buried with care, or weighted down, to ensure they stayed where they belonged. The most effective means of preventing the return of the dead was believed to be a corpse door, a special door through which the corpse was carried feet-first with people surrounding it so that the corpse couldn’t see where it was going. The door was then bricked up to prevent a return.

The Mound Dwelling Ghost Across the North

The draugr is not confined to one land. Variants appear across the Nordic world, from Iceland to Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Each region shaped the creature slightly differently, but the core idea remained the same. The dead could walk. The past could rise up and harm the present.

The Nynorsk terminology, which often differs from the Bokmål usage by being more closely related to Old Norse, still defines the draug primarily as a revenant. Ola Raknes could therefore define a vampire as a “Blodsugar-draug” in his English-Norwegian dictionary .

Today, draugrs are often portrayed as Norse zombies or vampiric undead in games, films, and novels, mostly because of their slowness in movement and how sometimes, their form and fate could sometimes be contagious and they could make the living one of them. 

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References:

draug – Lille norske leksikon

Draug

Draugr – Wikipedia

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The Hleiðrargarðs-Skotta and the Ghostly Plague

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

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

Read more: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

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

The Creation of The Hleiðrargarðs-Skotta

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

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

Fylgur/Fylgja: The Old Norse Ghost

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

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

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

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. 

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.

The Haunting of The Hleiðrargarðs-Skotta

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Binding the Skotta

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

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

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

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

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

Skotta Catches Sigurður

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

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

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References:

Ísmús | Missagnir og viðaukar um Hleiðrargarðsskottu

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

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

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

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The Skotta of Ábær From the Bone

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Hidden away in a bone for years, the ghost and Skotta of Ábær was sent on a mission to harass a farmer in northern Iceland. However, they lost control of her, and have since been haunting them all. 

On the eastern bank of the glacial river Austari-Jökulsá, north in Iceland an abandoned farm sits with a haunted story that stretches much further back in time and across the northern part of the country. For a long time, the Áabær farm, meaning the farm between rivers, was the location of a Skotta ghost, and because it was a very known ghost story at the time, the origins also have a lot of different versions. 

Read more: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

But to get back to where it all started, we have to travel to Skagafjörður to the time when the ghost was called both The Árbær or Nýibær Skotta, depending on what version of the story you get. 

The Nýibær Skotta Origin

Ólafur was the name of a farmer who lived at Tinnársel in Austurdalur in Skagafjörður; he was considered versed in sorcery. Once he was traveling in Svartárdalur in Húnavatnssýsla and came to Bergsstaðir at night, and as he rode past the churchyard, he happened to look in and saw a man wrestling with a newly-raised ghost. 

The ghost was just about to overpower him. Then Ólafur called out to the man: “Bite her in the left breast, you cursed one.” Ólafur rode on his way, and it is said that the man used this advice and it worked. But the man conceived envious hatred toward Ólafur for knowing better, and it is said he at once raised the ghost and sent it against Ólafur. Ólafur, however, was prepared with his sorcery and forced the ghost down into a horse or sheep bone, put it in a chest, and kept it there for the rest of his life. But just before his death, he asked his daughter Guðbjörg to burn the bone after he had passed away, but to be careful not to remove the stopper unless she was in dire need. 

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. 

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.

The Different Variations of the Legend

Now, as most legends that are well known and old, there will be different variations on it. In this case, it’s mainly the names and relations that are jumbled up. Someone says that Ólafur was actually a man called Jón who lived at Ábær and had a daughter named Guðbjörg. In other versions, Jón was Guðbjörg’s husband. In some versions, her husband was called Eiríkur.

At that time there was a farmer at Tinnársel or Nýibær named Sigurður or Guðmundur. He was rather harsh and wanted to keep Ábær’s livestock from grazing there. The couple at Ábær wished to drive Sigurður away, but it did not succeed. Then it came into Guðbjörg’s mind that now would be the time to open the bone. She pulled out the plug, and smoke burst forth from it. Then she saw a fly or smoke fly out of it and immediately changed into the form of a woman, who asked what she should do.

The Skotta is described as being the size of a twelve-year-old girl, though sometimes she has appeared troll-like. She wears a brown homespun skirt and a black wool sweater; sometimes she has been seen in a sheepskin jacket or clothes and with a brown peaked cap without a tassel.

The Haunting of The Skotta of Ábær

When Guðbjörg conjured the ghost that her father had left her, she ordered her at once to go and drive Sigurður away from his farm. In some versions she actually tells the ghost to go kill him. 

The ghost-woman went immediately and tormented Sigurður so severely that he had to sleep at other farms, for he said he had no peace to sleep at home because of the devil who pursued him. He managed to defend himself from her killing him, but she left him half-crippled. The following spring Sigurður abandoned the cottage because of this misfortune. 

But when Skotta had finished her mission, she returned home to Guðbjörg and asked where she should now go. Guðbjörg was then at a loss for what to say, and so the Skotta began to torment her, and it ended with Guðbjörg becoming insane. Madness has ever since run strongly in her family, and one woman closely related to her, possibly her daughter, Guðrún who killed herself by cutting her own throat.

Many stories were told about the Skotta and still are, of her mischief; she kills both sheep and cattle at Merkigil and elsewhere. Sometimes she is seen climbing up among the beams of the baðstofa and hanging there at night. Once she was seen sitting on a dung heap, throwing manure clods, while Jón and Guðbjörg’s bull was in the cowshed. Once men went to fetch a breeding bull at Miklabær, but just before they came, a heifer in the cowshed let out a terrible bellow and dropped dead. The priest, Reverend J. J., who was there, refused to let them have the bull, saying they had poor spirit-following since the Skotta was with them.

After Guðmundur the farmer had moved away from Nýibær to Krákugerði, he once rode out on Uppsalamýrar at dusk. Before he realized it, it was as if his horse’s legs were swept from under it, and Guðmundur was thrown off and broke his leg. When he stood up again, he saw the Skotta hopping across the moor and disappearing behind a hill.

Once Páll the shepherd fell asleep in the sheep-house at Merkigil, in the place called Miðhús. As he was drifting off, the Skotta came and tried to strangle him, but he woke up, and then she vanished.

When Hjálmar the farmer lived at Nýibær (some say at Bólu), he once came upon the Skotta as she was killing a sheep. He drove her out beyond the Tinná river, and she has never managed to cross it again, for Hjálmar was considered resolute.

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References:

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

Ábær – Wikipedia

Ísmús | Þorgeir reið frá einvíginu og var sár

Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri/Draugasögur/Árbæjar- eða Nýjabæjar-Skotta – Wikiheimild

Ísmús | Rímur af Fertram og Plató

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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. 

Source

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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The Ghost From the Mounds of Finnbogastaðir

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Buried in the mounds of the Icelandic landscape, a murdered shepherd came back from the dead as a Draugr or perhaps a Haugbúi ghost to haunt the people living at Finnbogastaðir farm.

The ghost story was published in the book Icelandic Folktales and Adventures (1862) and supposedly it all happened 40 years prior to publishing. 

Read more: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

The author had heard mention of various ridges and mounds here in the district where people say that something “unclean” or haunted lingered in them, and it was thought to show itself most of all in the farm mound at Finnbogastaðir about forty years ago (the mound on which the farm stands). 

Finnbogastaðir is a farm in Árneshreppur, Westfjords, a remote place of rugged coastline, dramatic mountains, and picturesque bays. Finnbogastaðir is a farm of considerable historical importance that traces itself back to the first settlement of Iceland during the Viking Age.

A farmer named Halldór once lived at Finnbogastaðir, but later moved his household to Reykjarfjörður. While he lived at Finnbogastaðir, in a fit of anger he once killed a shepherd boy who was with him, and buried him in the farm mound. Few stories went around about how the boy had died, since people did not press much after such small matters in those days. 

The Nordic Draugr Ghosts and the Haugbúi (mound-dweller)

The Draugr of Icelandic folklore is one of the most feared undead beings in Norse tradition, often described as a malevolent ghost or revenant that clings to its burial mound or roams the living world with violent intent. Unlike the pale, ethereal spirits of later European folklore, the Draugr is corporeal—corpse-like, bloated, and often imbued with supernatural strength. Legends tell of Draugar (plural) crushing their victims, shapeshifting into monstrous animals, or spreading death through pestilence and madness. They were thought to guard treasures buried with them, punishing grave-robbers with terrifying force. Some tales even describe them as growing larger with every breath, an unstoppable presence embodying the fear of restless death and the corruption of the grave. Their origins lie in the belief that those who were greedy, cruel, or unwilling to leave the mortal world could rise again to torment the living.

Closely related, though often portrayed as less aggressive, is the Haugbúi, or “mound-dweller,” a type of ghost bound to its burial site, often mounds in the wild. Unlike the roaming Draugr, the Haugbúi typically remains within or near its grave, emerging only to guard its resting place and treasures. These beings were often seen as the lingering spirits of chieftains or warriors, bound to their burial mounds through strong ties of pride, greed, or unfinished duty. Farmers and villagers avoided disturbing such mounds for fear of awakening the spirit within, which could strike with sudden, spectral fury. The Haugbúi embodies the deep Norse respect for the land of the dead—where burial mounds were not merely graves but thresholds between worlds. Together, the Draugr and the Haugbúi reveal a haunting aspect of Norse belief: that death was not always a peaceful passage, and that the restless dead could remain tethered to the living, their presence a chilling reminder of mortality and vengeance beyond the grave.

The Killed Shepherd Comes Bach to Haunt

Many years later, Magnús Guðmundsson, the district officer who died four years before the publishing of the collection of ghost stories this legend featured in, lived at Finnbogastaðir. Magnús was the son of Guðmundur Bjarnason and did not originally believe in magic and ghost stories but changed his mind after his experiences. 

He built a smithy close by the farm and cut out some sods from that mound in which the boy had been buried. His mother, who was with him then, old and very feeble, was greatly alarmed when she heard of these actions of her son, and said that some evil would come of it, for nowhere could he have cut sods in a worse place.

The very next night a ghost came to Magnús where he lay in his bed, and it seized so firmly on his feet that he was hurt by it and was half-ill the next day. The following night the ghost came again to Magnús and was then still stronger; it seized him by the thighs and elsewhere so that Magnús fell sick afterward. The night after that the ghost came once more to Magnús, seized him by the throat, and was nearly finished strangling him where he lay in bed above his wife. He lay long sick after this and was never the same in voice again, for when he spoke it always sounded as if someone were pressing lightly on his throat.

When these three nights were past and Magnús had fallen sick with fear and dread, people began to think badly of it. But fortunately there was a man in the household named Jón, who was somewhat skilled according to everyone’s report. He was then asked to drive this apparition away, and he was very willing to try it, though he said it would be most difficult. He had the house closed, every door signed with a cross, and planned to seize the ghost and press him so that he would leave the farmer in peace. But the ghost was so quick that Jón could by no means seize him. Then Jón took the plan of opening a window in the living-room and was able to drive the ghost out through it, then ran outside after him and meant to attack him there. But by then the ghost had become so afraid of Jón that he fled before him, and Jón chased him out past the land boundaries of the farm, and there they parted. The ghost has not since been seen at Finnbogastaðir.

But as for the ghost, it went straight to Reykjarfjörður, where the descendants of old Halldór were then living, and that very night went into the cowshed there and killed a cow. After that he has done no great harm, but until recently he has followed people of that family.

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References:

Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri/Draugasögur/Draugurinn á Finnbogastöðum – Wikiheimild

Family of Magnús GUÐMUNDSSON and Guðrún JÓNSDÓTTIR 

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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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Skinnpilsa Haunting Miklabær

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The deep and northern valley and fjords of Skagafjörður is said to have been haunted by more than one ghost. One of them was called Skinnpilsa and was sent to torment a man after he broke a promise. 

Hallur, the father of Dean Jón Hallsson of Miklabær, lived for a long time at Geldingaholt farm in Skagafjörður, a deep fjord and valley at the north of Iceland. The Sturlunga Saga mentions a bloody battle there in 1255 during the power struggle between the alliances of the chieftains of the country, which led to the loss of independence in 1262. The place is said to be haunted, perhaps even to this day by a female ghost called Skinnpilsa. 

Read more: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

He had earlier been betrothed to a young woman in the West, but broke his promise to her. Because of this, her relatives sent Hallur a female ghost. She wore red stockings and a leather skirt, and for that reason she was called Skinnpilsa (“Leather-Skirt”).

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. 

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.

The Haunting of Skinnpilsa

She roamed widely through Skagafjörður, but had her main dwelling place at Geldingaholt, where she tormented Hallur badly night and day, and no one was able to get rid of her. That is also the main reason she was named after the place Hallur was from, and not where she mainly haunted like most other Skotta’s

Read Also: Another ghost story set in Miklabær, Skagafjörður and named after the place is The Tragic Tale of Miklabæjar-Solveig

She also haunted his people working for him and especially one girl had it worse. She came to her mostly in dreams though. Once she told her that she wanted to see the poet Níels but that it would not be easy because she was afraid of him. The girl said that she could see him somewhere where he could not see her.

Then Níels, who was called “the poet,” undertook a journey and visited Hallur at Geldingaholt. There isn’t really much information about who this poet actually was, or if he actually existed though. 

He stayed there three nights without any sign of her. On the fourth evening, around sunset, Níels sat opposite the entrance to the main room and saw Skinnpilsa come into the passage. He began to recite verses, and Skinnpilsa slipped into the wall, with Níels following after her. No one ever knew how that struggle ended, but Níels returned, and Skinnpilsa was never seen again.

Some say that the poet managed to place her in a pit below the farm, but it has been haunted ever since.

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References:

Ísmús | Skinnpilsa

Skinnpilsa II

Geldingaholt – Wikipedia

GELDINGAHOLT – NAT

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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 Eyjafjörður Skotta Sent to Torture the Women of the Fjord

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After insulting some Dutch fishermen, a ghost was sent to torture the local women in Eyjafjörður in Iceland. For a long time, The Eyjafjörður Skotta was said to have been behind several deaths of both cattle and people. 

Along the longest fjord in Iceland, all the way north, there was a ghost that got her named from the place she was roaming. Her name was Eyjafjörður-Skotta.

Read more: Check out all ghost stories from Iceland

It is said that some Dutchmen came ashore at Vöðluþing by the fjord. German, Dutch and French traders became more prominent in the mid-17th century for fishing business. The Dutchmen were, according to the stories, very bold and went after the local women. Something that the women themselves did not care for at all. One of the women then mocked them with gestures and possibly some curses, which angered them greatly and made them want revenge. 

When they later returned overseas, they purchased from a sorcerer the sending of a female ghost to Iceland. According to the story this happened in the Netherlands, however, the way it went about in the stories is very quintessentially an Icelandic haunting where they raise someone from the dead to send on a revenge mission. This is where the Skotta ghost comes in. 

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. 

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.

The Eyjafjörður Skotta Haunting the Fjords

The ghost the Dutchmen raised was called Eyjafjörður Skotta because of her haunting territory. She was to kill and torment all the women in Vöðluþing. It is said that she first came ashore at Sauðanesi on Upsaströnd, a stretch of coastline west of Eyjafjörður. 

Today Sauðanesi is a deserted farm and has been since 1957. But in between 1597-1680 Þorvaldur the poet Rögnvaldsson lived there. He was considered a very learned man and was watching when the Skotta came ashore. Some, however, have heard that it was then Þorvaldur the old Magnússon who lived there, not very long before, and both were called poets of spells and much learned; but more people reckon it was Þorvaldur Rögnvaldsson.

Þorvaldur was down by the sea when he saw this ghost approaching, while the Dutch were fishing out at sea. She appeared as a woman in foreign dress, with a red peaked cap and bare arms up to the elbows. Þorvaldur addressed her in verse and asked who she was and what her errand might be. She said she was Flemish (others say Finnish) and that her task was to torment or else kill all the women in Eyjafjörður. 

He managed to stop her from harming the women, but she was so powerfully conjured that Þorvaldur could not prevail entirely against her. He was forced to allow her to kill his best cow, and in addition to kill a cow on every third farm in Eyjafjörður, and to play other tricks upon men and livestock for a long time. She was also said to have been behind the murder of a drowned man in the Eyjafjörður River.

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References:

Sauðanes (Upsaströnd) – Wikipedia, frjálsa alfræðiritið

Eyjafjarðar-Skotta

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