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Probably the closest thing Iceland has to a gothic romance tale, the ghost story of Miklabæjar-Solveig was the story of a real woman that was said to haunt the village she killed herself in after an unrequited love for a priest.
Probably the closest thing Iceland has to a gothic romance tale, the ghost story of Miklabæjar-Solveig was the story of a real woman that was said to haunt the village she killed herself in after an unrequited love for a priest.
The story about Miklabæjar-Solveig turned into a mystery and there have been many legends about what really happened to her.
She is perhaps best known in connection to a priest that disappeared that she used to work for and may have had an affair with before he cast her aside to marry another. Some even think she came from beyond the grave and took him with her as he was never seen again.
Not much about Miklabæjar-Solveig’s life is known and even her full name is disputed and could have been Solveig Þorleifsdóttir, but we simply don’t know. She could have been from Hrolleifsdal, a valley on the eastern side of Skagafjörður on the northern side of Iceland.
According to the stories, she was a housekeeper or maid for Odd Gíslason, the local priest in the village, before he got married. It is said that Miklabæjar-Solveig fell in love with Odd as a one sided crush, or was even his mistress for some time. But her feelings would have an unhappy end and he married Guðrúna Jónsdóttir in 1777, although he continued to have her working in his house.
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This was too much for Solveig and it is said that she went insane, or at least fell into a deep depression and constantly tried to take her own life. The other workers in the house were put on watch to watch over her and prevent her from harming herself, one of them was Guðlaug Björnsdóttir, the sister of Sir Snorri á Húsafell, who slept by her side at night. It was also to prevent her from going upstairs to the reverend.
Although they tried to keep her away from doing anything, she managed to slip away one night. On April 11th in 1778 she jumped out the window onto the grass and ran off. A worker named Þorsteinn saw her and ran after her, but it was too late. She was too quick, and when he finally reached her, she had already cut her throat and died.
It is said that Þorsteinn said to her something of the likes of that the devil would take her. Miklabæjar-Solveig didn’t have an opportunity to answer, and died that night in 1778.
Þorsteinn came back with the news, her body and said that her final wish had been to be buried in the cemetery. They wrote to their superiors about this, but were denied.
Miklabæjar-Solveig was buried outside of the cemetery, and her death was not recorded in the church book. This was the custom with people that took their own life, but her grave was there, just north of the cemetery.
Then the rumors started and people started to whisper among themselves that her corpse was not lying still in the grave and that she was angry about not burying her in a consecrated ground.
It is said that the priest had dreams about her and about how angry was with him. She said to him that since he had refused to bury her in holy ground, he too would meet the same fate.
People referred to her now as Miklabæjar-Solveig and talked about seeing her around the cemetery, the village as well as their dreams with blood gushing from her throat, angry at them.
8 years went past and the ghost stories about Solveig were told among the locals. Then on October 1st in 1786 Odd Gíslason went to Silfrastaðir for mass not far from his home. He never returned from the trip. It is known that he did stop at Víðivellir to speak with the county commissioner Vigfús Scheving
From there it was only a kilometer to Miklabær and he was riding home alone in the dark, possibly very drunk. He usually rode with a companion because of how badly Solveig haunted him, but for some reason, this night he was alone.
It is said that the locals of Miklabær heard someone coming to their windows knocking. But there was a sinister sound to it and they became afraid and didn’t want to check it out. It is said that the youngest son was sent to the door to greet his father. When he opened it though there was no one there.
When they woke up the next day they found his horse not far from the town, but the priest had vanished into thin air. They searched for him for many days, but not a single trace of him was found.
Soon the stories about Solveig and that she had something to do with his disappearance started to form. They thought that she had come out from her grave and dragged him with her and that his body was now in her coffin.
Þorsteinn was not satisfied with leaving what happened as a mystery and made a resolution to continue to look for his master.
Þorsteinn shared a room with Guðlaug, the one who had shared a bed with Solveig before she took her own life. Guðlaug was a clairvoyant and kept seeing the ghost of her former colleague.
As an experiment, Þorsteinn put the priest’s clothes under his pillow and went to sleep. Guðlaug saw Solveig come into the room and towards them. Solveig reaches out her hand towards Þorsteinn’s throat. Afraid of what Solveig is doing, she wakes Þorsteinn and sees that Solveig has left a cut along his throat.
In his sleep, Þorsteinn dreamt that he met Solveig were she told him that he would never find out what happened to his master and then motioned as if once again trying to cut her throat which she still blamed them for. When he woke up, Þorsteinn decided to end his quest and would let it all remain a mystery.
What really happened to the priest? The truth is up for debate now as there are many conflicting versions. For the longest time the villagers were left without a clue to where he had gone to and what happened to him, except from the rumors about Miklabæjar-Solveig.
One letter that is found about this is from Ragnheiður Þórarinsdóttir that was written in 1789. She was the wife of the assistant bailiff, Jón Skúlason. In her letter she stated that they actually did find his body in the Gegni stream that ran below the village. This is also written up in Vatnsfjarðarannál the youngest.
So why all the mystery surrounding his death? It seems that his burial was kept a secret from most of them. Everything indicated that he had passed away, and by his own hand, something that would make his property go to the king and that he would be refused a cemetery burial. Therefore his death and burial was kept a secret, although the talk about the ghost of Solveig had something to do with it wouldn’t let go and perhaps even fuel to cover up the truth.
Decades later most believed that his body was never found and was most likely in Solveig’s grave. Ghost stories about her rising from her grave with blood dripping from her throat were still told.
A story told about Hannes Bjarnason met Miklabæjar-Solveig in Djúpadal where she haunted the hill and stopped him from getting up to the town until someone came and helped him. Going into the 19th century though, the legend about Miklabæjar-Solveig died down until 1910.
In 1910 they expanded the cemetery and suddenly Solveig’s grave was inside of it. They dug up one of the graves in 1914 and found that the coffin was buried towards the south, the opposite of the customs and people believed that this was her coffin. When they moved the coffin it was destroyed and the bones buried next to the burial site. There was nothing unusual when they reburied her.
Miklabæjar-Solveig was laid to rest like this until 1937 when she once again was exhumed and buried inside of the Glaumbær cemetery and not a whole lot has been heard from her ghost since then. Perhaps she finally was able to rest in peace?
Miklabæjar-Solveig – Wikipedia, frjálsa alfræðiritið
Tíminn Sunnudagsblað – 23. tölublað (05.08.1962) – Tímarit.is
