Vampires and Watchmen: Categorizing the Mediaeval Icelandic
Undead

Ármann Jakobsson

JEGP, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Volume 110, Number
3, July 2011, pp. 281-300 (Article)

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Vampires and Watchmen:

Categorizing the Mediaeval Icelandic Undead

Ármann Jakobsson, University of Iceland

One can imagine three ways to approach a mediaeval Icelandic draugr, a
term which is usually glossed as ‘ghost’ in English.

1

The first would be the

most common one, to simply accept the definitions of the most influen-
tial nineteenth-century scholars, Konrad Maurer and Jón Árnason, and
use them to categorize the mediaeval draugar. The second way would be
to take every instance of the word draugr in mediaeval texts and analyze
carefully what type of creature it seems to indicate, and then examine the
vocabulary used about those creatures. The third is to focus on the func-
tion of actual mediaeval Icelandic undead in order better to understand
the essence of their being.
In this study, I shall argue that the first two methods are flawed and instead
attempt a tentative categorization of my own of the mediaeval Icelandic
undead, those beings that most modern Icelanders, knowing their Jón Árn-
ason, would refer to as draugur, based on their function and characteristics.

THE CATEGORIES AND INFLUENCE

OF KONRAD MAURER AND JÓN ÁRNASON

The first volume of Jón Árnason’s Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri (1862) is
divided into four groups of folktales. The first is termed Goðfræðissögur
and includes stories of elves, trolls, and sea-dwellers. The second is called
Draugasögur and the third Galdrasögur. For some reason, Jón Árnason did
not write the introduction to his monumental collection himself but rather
Guðbrandur Vigfússon, who explained that the arrangement of the folk-
tales followed the system of the noted German scholar and Icelandophile
Konrad Maurer (who had recently edited a smaller collection of Isländische
Volkssagen der Gegenwart, 1860) who, according to Guðbrandur, arranged
his collection by the principles then in fashion in Germany.

2

1. See, for example, An Icelandic-English Dictionary, ed. Richard Cleasby and Guðbrandur

Vigfússon (Oxford 1874), p. 103.

2. Guðbrandur Vigfússon, “Formáli,” in Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri, collected by Jón

Árnason, 2 vols. (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1862), I, xxx–xxxi.

Grouping folktales into tales of elves and trolls, tales of ghosts, and tales of
magic and sorcery is sensible enough, and it may well be the most practical
way of categorizing nineteenth-century folktales about ghosts and sorcer-
ers. When it comes to mediaeval texts, however, care seems to be needed.
Is the continuity between mediaeval and modern ghosts and witches clear
and unbroken? That is the common assumption, but it may be a fallacy.
Folklorists, like all other scholars, stand on the shoulders of their predeces-
sors, are influenced by them, and are often led by the traditions of their
discipline to approach the subject a certain way. Jón Árnason’s collection
of folktales was enormously popular, and one of the consequences is that
his and Maurer’s ideas about trolls, ghosts, and magicians tended to shape
the ideas of those who came later, since few who are interested in Icelan-
dic ghosts have made their acquaintance without consulting Jón Árnason.
In this study I shall instead try to look critically at Jón Árnason, while still
acknowledging him as a giant of Icelandic folklore scholarship.
Jón Árnason’s collection also has subcategories of ghost stories: aptur-
gaungur, uppvaknínga eða sendíngar, and fylgjur. These subcategories are not
without interest for those who wish to study mediaeval Icelandic ghosts, since
two of them group the ghosts according to their origins, and a similar divi-
sion may also be found in mediaeval texts. However, the third subcategory
concerns the function rather than the origins of this ghost type, a problem
that Jón Árnason was aware of, since he remarks that the fylgjur category
has ghosts that could also be grouped into either of the other two subcat-
egories (“meigi vel hlýða, að láta slíkar sögur fylgja öðrumhvorum hinna
fyrnefndu flokka eptir efninu”).

3

The other two categories, apturgaungur

and uppvakníngar or sendingar, are on the one hand ghosts who materialize
“af sjálfsdáðum eða einhverri annari ástæðu” (of their own accord or for
any other reason) and on the other ghosts “sem aðrir vekja upp í lifandi
lífi með töfrum” (who are raised by others with magic).
This distinction between ghosts that materialize without any aid and
those that are awakened by others was real and important in the Middle
Ages, and has lasted well into modern popular culture.

4

If we take note

3. Jón Árnason, Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri, I, 222. His lack of faith in the fylgjur category

may have something to do with the fact that the classification is not his own but taken from

Konrad Maurer, Isländische Volkssagen der Gegenwart (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1860), esp. p.

55. The fylgjur (followers) are distinguished from other ghosts in that they do not pose a

general threat but rather stalk a particular family, as do many modern horror-film monsters,

such as the Halloween films’ antagonist Michael Myers, who originally seems to pose a general

threat (and indeed kills most who cross his path) but also seems to stalk a particular family,

his sister and her descendants. As this fiend keeps getting killed in this long series of films,

but nevertheless always returns, one might regard him as a type of ghost.

4. The most prominent undead in modern popular culture are the vampire Dracula who

might be characterized as apturganga and the Frankenstein monster who is an uppvakníngur

(cf. Bruce A. McClelland, Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead [Ann

282

Jakobsson

of the fact that some ghosts are raised by magic, the clear demarcation
between tales of ghosts and tales of sorcerers that a classification system
such as Jón Árnason’s requires, becomes tenuous. And not only are the
Draugasögur and Galdrasögur hard to separate, but the same turns out to
apply to the Tröllasögur category in Jón Árnason’s collection.
Jón Árnason himself remarks (as had Maurer before him) that the word
tröll had originally sometimes been used about ghosts and even magicians.

5

A further exploration of the usage of the mediaeval Icelandic word troll
reveals that the word refers just as often to ghosts and witches as to the
wild ogres that Jón Árnason includes in the word.

6

For example, when

the young Hróarr Haraldsson vows to break the burial mound of Sóti the
viking, he is told that “Sóti var mikit tröll í lífinu, en hálfu meira, síðan
hann var dauður” (Sóti was a great troll in life but twice as bad since he
died).

7

This troll is a creature that Jón Árnason would call a “draugur,” but

the latter word is not used about Sóti in Harðar saga until Hörðr Grímkels-
son refers to him as “fornum draug” (dat. of OI forn draugr) in a stanza.

8

The example of Sóti suggests that a mediaeval Icelandic ghost may
just as well be called troll as draugr, which raises some questions about the
word draugr in Old Icelandic. Is this word helpful or not when we search
for undead monsters in mediaeval Icelandic texts? We can also ask how
Icelandic revenants and awakenings behaved before the age of Jón Árna-
son. What is their nature, and what kind of threat do they pose?

THE OLD NORSE TERM DRAUGR

It is not only in Iceland that the dead sometimes appear after their death,
thwarting the laws of nature. Jean-Claude Schmitt’s monograph about
mediaeval ghosts focuses on Europe in the same period as when the Swed-
ish monster Glámr terrorized the living in Iceland’s Forsæludalr. Yet these
European ghosts are quite different from Glámr. Saint Augustine’s idea
that these apparitions were neither the dead person’s body nor soul but

Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2006], p. 21). And an uppvakníngur story, such as the Fran-

kenstein tale, is both a tale of ghosts and magic since in it a magician (a scientist) awakens

a troll, albeit with the aid of electricity rather than spells and magic rituals.

5. Jón Árnason, Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri, I, 141; Maurer, Isländische Volkssagen, p. 36.

6. I have explored this in a series of articles (see esp. “The Trollish Acts of Þorgrímr the

Witch: The Meanings of Troll and Ergi in Medieval Iceland,” Saga-Book, 32 [2008], 39–68;

“Vad är ett troll? Betydelsen av ett isländskt medeltidsbegrepp,” Saga och sed [2008], 101–17).

7. Harðar saga, ed. Þórhallur Vilmundarson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, Íslenzk fornrit, XIII

(Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1991, p. 39.

8. Harðar saga, ed. Þórhallur Vilmundarson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, p. 42.

Vampires and Watchmen

283

imagos of his spirit was popular.

9

These imagos of the dead could be good

or evil, saints or demons (Schmitt, pp. 29–31). But they were essentially
not physical. However, mediaeval Icelandic ghosts were physical and not
imagos. They were endowed with full-sized human bodies, and this makes
them the exception among mediaeval ghosts (Schmitt, pp. 196–200). They
are closer to East-European vampires, documented from the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries on.

10

It can thus be misleading to use the word ghost

when referring to the Icelandic equivalent, and scholars have started using
draugr instead.

11

Yet the suitability of the Icelandic word is also arguable,

if Icelandic texts from the Middle Ages are taken into consideration.

12

The word draugr does occur in mediaeval Icelandic, but this happens
rarely, and it is actually never used about some of the most famous medi-
aeval Icelandic ghosts, which somewhat undermines the concept. Glámr
is never called draugr in Grettis saga; the word is not used for Víga-Hrappr
Sumarliðason in Laxdæla saga; and in Eyrbyggja saga, neither Þórólfr lame-
foot nor the ghosts of Fróðá go under this name. Instead we see words
like aptrgongur (revenants) and reimleikar (haunting) in these stories.

13

The

fact that the word is absent from these key texts does not necessarily mean
that a modern scholar should refrain from using it altogether. Caution
seems, however, to be needed.
The word draugr is etymologically related to various terms for the dead
in the Germanic languages. Early on it seems to have been used for an
‘opponent’ or a ‘fiend’.

14

In poetic language, the word has not been con-

nected with revenants but was rather used to denote a wooden log, and
this served as a metaphor for humans. The poetic word draugr is generally
listed in dictionaries as a different word (possibly with another origin)
since its meaning seems at first sight to be quite different.

15

Still, if the

words prove to be related, one might suggest that ghosts and revenants

9. Jean Claude Schmitt, Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in the Medieval

Society, trans. Teresa Lavender Fagan (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 25–27.

10. Paul Barber, Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality (New Haven: Yale Univ.

Press, 1988).

11. See, e.g., David Keyworth, Troublesome Corpses: Vampires and Revenants from Antiquity to

the Present (Southend-on-Sea: Desert Island Books, 2007).

12. Ármann Jakobsson, “The Fearless Vampire Killers: A Note about the Icelandic Draugr

and Demonic Contamination in Grettis saga,” Folklore, 120 (2009), 307–16.

13. Eyrbyggja saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson, Íslenzk fornrit, IV

(Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1935), pp. 92–95, 143–52, 169–71; Laxdæla saga, ed.

Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, Íslenzk fornrit, V (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1934), pp.

39–40, 66–69; Grettis saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson, Íslenzk fornrit, VII (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka

fornritafélag, 1936), pp. 113–23.

14. Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon, Íslensk orðsifjabók (Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, 1989),

p. 125.

15. Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon gives two definitions of the word. Cf. Sveinbjörn Egilsson

and Finnur Jónsson, Lexicon Poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-

islandske Skjaldesprog (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab, 1913–16;

repr., 1966), p. 84.

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Jakobsson

get their name from the metaphoric use of the word for wooden logs: the
dead person is lifeless and wooden.
Putting the etymology aside, it seems likely that mediaeval Icelanders
did note this connection, as the relationship between men and trees is
prominent in their perspective of the world. The two wooden men in
Hávamál that Óðinn clothes are a good example of this, as is Yggdrasill,
the world tree in Snorra-Edda, and last but not least we have the lifeless
driftwood logs Askr and Embla whom the gods animate and who then
become the ancestors of all men.

16

The tree is also used as a metaphor of

death in Sólarljóð, where it says about the hour of death: “tunga mín / vas
til trés metin / ok kólnat at fyr utan” (my tongue/ was like wood/ and it
was cold outside).

17

When dying the man becomes a tree, so the correla-

tion between a man and a tree is clear and might be phrased like this: “a
wooden log you were, and a wooden log (or draugr) you will become.”

18

In mediaeval Icelandic sources, the undead are quite often referred to
as trolls or troll-like. This applies for example to Sóti in Harðar saga and
Þórólfr lamefoot in Eyrbyggja saga, and Glámr is called a troll in Grettis saga
when the people at Þórhallsstaðir object to “hætta sér út í trollahendr
um nætr” (venturing out into the hands of trolls in the night) when he is
haunting their farmstead.

19

In West Nordic law, it is forbidden to “wake

up a troll,” and the trolls in question are obviously revenants of some sort,
possibly undead humans. In some cases, the same creature is called draugr
and troll, and words like fjandi (devil) are also frequent. In addition, draugr
is sometimes used as a synonym for words like púki and drýsildjöfull (both
may indicate a demon).

20

Thus the meaning of this word in mediaeval

Icelandic is far from straightforward.

UNCERTAIN PEDIGREE

Often it is hard for both characters in a saga and scholars to decide wheth-
er a supernatural being is a ghost or not. The evil Ögmundr Eyþjófsbani
in Örvar-Odds saga learns witchcraft and illusions from an early age. It is
said that the Permians “blótuðu . . . hann, ok trýldu hann svá, at hann

16. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, ed. Finnur Jónsson (Copenhagen: Kommissionen for det

Arnamagnaeanske legat, 1931), p. 16.

17. Sólarljóð, Den norsk-islandske Skjaldedigtning, B, I, ed. Finnur Jónsson (Copenhagen:

Kommissionen for det Arnamagnaeanske legat, 1912), p. 642.

18. In Sesselju saga meyjar (The tale of Sesselja the virgin), statues of heathen men are

compared to dead men that are called draugar (Heilagra manna sögur, I, ed. C. R. Unger

[Kristiania (Oslo): B. M. Bentzen, 1877], p. 280). The idea seems to be that all men are

ghosts or corpses, probably until they are saved; not far from the image of a ghost being a

wooden log.

19. Grettis saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson, p. 114.

20. I have discussed these examples in more detail in other articles (see note 6).

Vampires and Watchmen

285

var engum menskum manni líkr” (worshipped him and entrolled him
so that he became unlike any human being), and men believed that he
should “heldr kallast andi enn maður” (rather be called a spirit than a
human).

21

In the beginning he is human, but he has undergone some

ritual that seems to have transferred him from one world to another.
There is no mention of him dying in the process, but we know that he
cannot be considered a human any longer, and that he cannot die. He
admits that he is inhuman—“nú emk eigi síðr andi enn maðr” (now I
am no less a spirit than a man)—and states that “ek væra dauðr, ef ek
hefði eðli til þess” (I would be dead if it were in my nature) (Örvar-Odds
saga, p. 252). Ögmundr is depicted as “svartr ok blár” (black and blue),
a description which parallels that of many Icelandic ghosts.

22

He is never

directly referred to as a ghost, but there is mention of fjandr and troll
(devils and trolls) in various versions of the saga (Örvar-Odds saga, pp.
208, 534). Even though Ögmundr is called a spirit, andi, but not a ghost,
there is strong evidence that we should count him among the undead.
He has been reanimated like a revenant, and it is stated that he cannot
die—perhaps because he cannot be counted among the living any more.

23

It is up to the readers of Örvar-Odds saga to decide what they consider
Ögmundr to be. The harder it becomes to classify or name a monster,
the more powerful it is.
In the tale of Þorsteinn skelkr, from the end of the fourteenth century,
a being which claims to be the spectre of the ancient hero Þorkell the
thin from the Brávallabardagi of Haraldr hilditönn is called púki, dólgr,
draugr, fjandi, and skelmir.

24

This ghost emerges from the latrine straight

from hell, and this reminds us that some of the undead reside in hell, and
they, too, can be categorized as ghosts. It is different with saints, who also
appear to the living after their death but are never referred to as ghosts;
the term would not be used for the Icelandic confessor saints Þorlákr and
Jón. The word has a palpably negative meaning; a saint can never be a
ghost. Can we then assume that all ghosts are in hell? The sources do not
settle this matter, but at least it seems very unlikely that they are among
the saved who go directly to God after death.
Even though the ghost Þorkell the thin in Hrólfs saga kraka is a self-

21. Örvar-Odds saga, in Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda, II, ed. C. C. Rafn (Copenhagen, 1829),

pp. 242–43. In the younger version of the saga, Ögmundr is more prominent than in the

first one where he is only mentioned in one chapter.

22. See note 82.

23. Torfi H. Tulinius believes that Ögmundr is symbolic for death and that the emphasis

on him reflects the importance of death in the worldview of people in the fifteenth century,

following the plague (The Matter of the North: The Rise of Literary Fiction in Thirteenth-Century

Iceland, trans. Randi C. Eldevik [Odense: Odense Univ. Press, 2002], pp. 163–64).

24. Flateyjarbók, I, ed. C. R. Unger (Kristiania [Oslo]: P. T. Malling, 1860), pp. 416–17.

286

Jakobsson

professed demon from hell, spectres more commonly seem to dwell in a
limbo between two worlds. Still we cannot rule out that the draugar that
Hrólfr kraki and his men fight in the final battle with Skuld have ascended
straight from hell; at least they are extremely dangerous and more cruel
than the rest of her rabble.

25

These ghosts seem to be awakenings: Queen

Skuld has erected a platform of sorcery in her black tent just before they
appear, where she performs nebulous brögð (tricks) (Hrólfs saga kraka, p.
105). However, apart from the ghosts in this battle, unequivocal uppvaknin-
gar are rather less frequent than unequivocal apturgaungur in mediaeval
Nordic sources; I cannot find any indisputable examples of a witch waking
a ghost in the Sagas of Icelanders.
In fact the origin of ghosts does not seem to be as important as their
activities in these texts. Also, Norse sources rarely state precisely where
the dead dwell when not in their graves, once they start roaming about
the world,

26

but without doubt there is a connection between the dead

and the hellish underworld.

SPECTRAL SELFISHNESS

It is not specified in Laxdæla saga where the ghost who stops Guðrún
Ósvífrsdóttir at the churchyard gate in Helgafell comes from, wishing to
tell her great tidings, but Guðrún’s answer gives us a clue: “Þegi þú yfir
þeim þá, armi” (shut up about it, you wretch).

27

Maybe she fears how the

ghost’s words will affect her,

28

but what is this ghost? Is it a living person

from the churchyard or a demon from hell, or both?
It does not seem unlikely that the undead are the first to learn the fate
of drowned people in their neighborhood—soon after Guðrún sees the
ghost, she sees her husband and his crew members standing, wet from
the sea, outside the church, although these apparitions are not called
draugar in the saga. Still, it remains vague what powers an undead has
to curse the living. Usually the undead use other less subtle methods to
prey on men and creatures: they simply attack their victims and pound
the life out of them.

25. “Þá eru þeir nú grimmastir hinir dauðu viðreignar” (The dead are the most cruel

opponents) (Hrólfs saga kraka, in Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda, I, ed. C. C. Rafn [Copenhagen,

1829], p. 106.

26. Súsanna Margrét Gestsdóttir has studied the afterlife in mediaeval Icelandic sources

extensively (“Sálarheill: Hugmyndir Íslendinga á miðöldum um afdrif þeirra eftir dauðann,”

master’s thesis, The University of Iceland, 2003). According to her, it seems somewhat vague

where the dead dwell from their death until doomsday, even though the idea of purgatory

becomes more important in the thirteenth century.

27. Laxdæla saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, p. 222.

28. That is the hypothesis of Einar Ólafur Sveinsson (Laxdæla saga, pp. 222–23, n. 4).

Vampires and Watchmen

287

Soon after this apparition at Helgafell, Herdís, the granddaughter of
Guðrún, has a woman appear to her in her sleep. She is also some kind
of a ghost; a human being that the living can still see (if only in dreams)
even though she is no longer among the living. She proves to be a sibyl
lying in her grave under the church floor at Helgafell, and Guðrún’s tears
of remorse give her great pain at night.

29

This apparition is much closer

to what one usually finds in mediaeval European sources, and actually
both of the ghosts that appear in Helgafell during Guðrún’s old age could
be called imagos, like the ghosts in Schmitt’s study. Usually, mediaeval
Icelandic ghosts are much more physical.
In the tale of Þorsteinn skelkr, it does not seem to serve any purpose to
distinguish between ghosts, devils, and demons. They are all messengers
of evil and stink of sulphur. Mediaeval ghosts are obviously rooted in folk
belief, just like the ghosts of the nineteenth century, but this one is defined
by Christianity and close to the official religion of hell and the devil. This
is obvious in the tale of Þorsteinn skelkr where the ghost indeed confirms
that he comes straight from hell.
In Gautreks saga it is related how King Gauti visits Skafnörtungr, Tötra,
and their kin. In this family it is customary that the old generation retires
by leaping to its death from a big cliff, the Ætternisstapi. This means that
no one in the family needs “þyngsl at hafa né þrjósku” (to suffer duress
or stubbornness) from their parents. The story relates that Skafnörtungr
and Tötra now intend to go to the cliff, since the king has already paid
them a visit, and no such wonder is likely to befall them again.

30

This

retirement strategy enables the old people to keep their dignity, choose
the hour of their death, and not cause their descendants any harm by
living inappropriately long.
This attitude toward life is quite alien to the mindset of the ghost. The
ghost is by contrast characterized by his refusal to withdraw from the world
when his time has come, and he keeps on roaming about the world, be-
ing a nuisance to everybody. Thus selfishness is an important attribute of
every ghost, and therefore it is no wonder that ghosts tend to be people
who were troublesome during their lifetime.
There are usually some logical premises for the undead state of a ghost, a
dissatisfaction that prevents the ghost from withdrawing at the appropriate
time.

31

A ghost appears when he has some business; there is always a logi-

cal premise behind the haunting. What the ghosts want is often nebulous,

29. Laxdæla saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, pp. 223–24.

30. Gautreks saga, in Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda, III, ed. C. C. Rafn (Copenhagen, 1830),

pp. 7–9.

31. Ronald Grambo (“Ideas of immortality and longevity in Norse literature,” Hugur:

288

Jakobsson

since they are of another world, which impedes all communication. But
this does not apply to the ghosts that appear to Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir and
her granddaughter in Guðrún’s old age: one wants to escape the tears of
remorse, while the other one wants to bring her some news.
There seem to be two main categories of mediaeval Icelandic ghosts,
according to their behavior and their function. One group mainly has the
role of watchmen, often guarding a great treasure. They generally stay
in the vicinity of their home, since their continued presence is related
to objects that were left behind. They remind us of the dragon Fáfnir on
Gnitaheiði, even though their method is different and yet parallels his,
since one can easily envisage that a dragon, a creature of magic, can live
longer than an ordinary human.

32

Víga-Hrappr in Laxdæla saga, Raknarr

the Viking in Bárðar saga, and Sóti in Harðar saga could be categorized
as watchers, since these ghosts remain undead in order to guard their
inheritance. Even though these fiends mainly dominate a small area that
they have made their own, they can be very aggressive.
In the other category, there are ghosts who roam the earth for reasons
other than being too firmly attached to their money. They are more ag-
gressive and resemble incubi or mares in that their lives are parasitic, or
vampires, since their main objective seems to be to attack the living, drive
them out of their wits, infect them with vampirism, and make them join
their ranks.

33

Here Þórólfr lamefoot in Eyrbyggja saga is a good example,

as is Glámr in Grettis saga, who will be discussed below.

Mélanges d’histoire, de littérature et de mythologie offerts à Régis Boyer pour son 65e anniversaire, ed.

Claude Lecouteux and Olivier Gouchet [Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne,

1997], pp. 299–310) has discussed ideas about longevity and immortality, found in Nordic

texts, and obviously the inevitabily of death is an important consideration for Icelandic

mediaeval men, as to people everywhere at all times.

32. Jonathan Evans (“As Rare As They are Dire: Old Norse Dragons, Beowulf, and the

Deutsche Mythologie,” in The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm’s Mythology of the Monstrous, ed.

Tom Shippey [Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005], pp.

207–69) has discussed this relation between dragons and ghosts. Since Evans believes that

Nordic dragons mainly symbolize the greed for gold and its influence, he feels they are very

close to ghosts, especially mound-dwellers (some dragon stories are quite similar to those of

mound-dwellers, especially in Þorskfirðinga saga [in Harðar saga, ed. Þórhallur Vilmundarson

and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, pp. 185–88], but these dragons are perhaps not quite typical). The

Old Norse words dreki and draugr are rather similar, even though there is no proof of their

relation. Norse sources indicate that dragons are no less symbolic of fear and threat than of

the greed for gold (see my article “Enter the Dragon: Legendary Saga Courage and the Birth

of the Hero,” in Making History: Essays on the Fornaldarsögur, ed. Martin Arnold, forthcoming,

2011), which certainly applies to ghost stories as well. Yet the difference between stories of

dragons and ghosts is too great to make too much of this link.

33. I have discussed various categories of dark creatures whose main purpose it is to craze

their victims and transport them to a different world in another study (“Yfirnáttúrlegar

ríðingar: Tilberinn, maran og vitsugan,” Tímarit Máls og menningar, 70. 1 [2009], 111–21).

Vampires and Watchmen

289

MOUND-DWELLERS AND OTHER WATCHMEN

Víga-Hrappr Sumarliðason in Laxdæla saga is not a typical spectral watch-
man, since he does not stay in his mound but roams around in Hrappsstaðir
after his death. This leads to the desertion of the farm, and he “deyddi
flest hjón sín í aptrgongunni” (killed most of his farmhands during his
haunting).

34

Nevertheless, his aim seems to be similar to that of Fáfnir

when he turns himself into a dragon in order to guard his treasure on
Gnitaheiði: the ghost is reluctant to leave his possessions. Before he dies,
Hrappr tells his wife that he wants to be buried in the kitchen doorway:
“ok skal mik niðr setja standanda í durunum; má ek þá enn vendiligar sjá
yfir hýbýli mín” (and I am to be buried standing in the doorway; then I
can better watch my house) (Laxdæla saga, p. 39). Hrappr is an example
of a man who becomes an undead through greed alone, but the greed is
present in all ghosts: they will not give up their territory and refuse to let
the living take their place.
Normally the spectral watchmen are kept here by treasure; they can
be viewed as part of a curse that is often attached to treasures and great
wealth.

35

In Hrappr’s case it is only his land that he refuses to desert, where

Ólafr the Peacock later builds the farm of Hjarðarholt. Then the ghost
is finally overcome, but the readers of Laxdæla saga may wonder whether
this lifted the curse completely.

36

The ghosts that Þorgils örrabeinsstjúpr fights in Flóamanna saga are of
a similar kind. One is the father of Björn the wealthy, who has received
Þorgils as a ghost, and the other is the mother of Auðun Gyðuson. The
reason for the appearance of these ghosts is never explained, but the
mother is “margkunnandi á fyrnsku og fróðleik” (wise in the field of an-
cient arts and lore).

37

Like Hrappr, these ghosts are obviously extremely

dangerous for the living, but there is no mention of any great wealth to

34. Laxdæla saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, p. 39.

35. This is also the case in folktales. Jón Árnason has a special group of misers (“mau-

rapúkar”) whose undead presence is explained by the wish to guard their possessions (Íslenzk-

ar þjóðsögur og æfintýri, I, pp. 264–80).

36. Another Víga-Hrappr actually shows up much later in the saga, when Helgi Harð-

beinsson is attacked; he claims to be from Breiðafjorðr and is described as “lítill vexti ok

allkviklátur; hann var margeygur furðuliga” (small and somewhat restless, and his eyes darted

strangely into all directions) (Laxdæla saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, p. 190). We cannot

tell whether this Hrappr has anything more than the name in common with the former,

but he seems to be a rather garrulous person who “segir mart, en spurði fás” (says a lot but

asks little) and boasts of his valor in the impending attack. In the event, he is the first to

attack Helgi, who kills him easily. If this is what is left of the ghost of the former Hrappr, it

is certainly no longer threatening.

37. Flóamanna saga, in Harðar saga, ed. Þórhallur Vilmundarson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson,

p. 255.

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Jakobsson

which they are attached.

38

One can still see the congruity between ghosts

and an older generation that is reluctant to allow the younger one to take
over, as I shall discuss below.
The relation between ghosts and treasure is probably most obvious in
stories of mound-dwellers, but most Old Icelandic examples of ghosts
belong to this category; these ghosts usually dwell in their own burial
mound, protected by witchcraft or fire, and are therefore dangerous, but
they do not harass the living outside the mound and its vicinity. A few such
mound-dwellers can be found in the legendary sagas of the North,

39

but

in Sagas of Icelanders the most extensive narratives are the stories of the
vikings Sóti and Raknarr, who are fought by the protagonists of Harðar
saga ok Hólmverja and Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss.

40

Each of the vikings guards

a great treasure, and they seem to remain in their mounds until the tran-
quility of their grave is disturbed.

41

Hörðr Grímkelsson breaks open the

grave mound of Sóti, after having vowed to do so, and his main objective
seems to be the heroic deed, rather than the treasure of the mound. Still,
he has been warned in no uncertain terms.
Of course the ghost defends himself zealously, and two of Hörðr’s men
die before entering the mound, since they do not “varast gust þann ok
ódaun, er út legði ór hauginum” (watch out for the gust and stink that
came from the mound). They are said to have died instantly from the
stink from the mound: “bráðdauðir af fýlu þeiri, sem út lagði.”

42

Such odor

often characterizes devils and demons of all kinds, and it is thus a mark
of hell, just as ghosts in general may be believed to hail from there—the
stench is quite common in tales of mediaeval ghosts.

43

Perhaps Glámr is

38. Flóamanna saga, in Harðar saga, ed. Þórhallur Vilmundarson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson,

pp. 255–57. According to Torfi H. Tulinius (Skáldið í skriftinni: Snorri Sturluson og Egils saga

[Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag, 2004], p. 95), the ghost of Skalla-Grímr may

possibly have caused the death of his grandson Boðvarr from his burial mound.

39. E.g., in Hrómundar saga Gripssonar (Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda, II, ed. C. C. Rafn [Co-

penhagen, 1829], pp. 368–71); and in Hervarar saga and Heiðreks (Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda,

I, ed. Rafn, p. 436), where Hervör seeks out her father Angantýr in his mound.

40. Before he encounters Glámr, Grettir has already fought a mound-dweller and takes

great wealth from him (Grettis saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson, pp. 56–61). Jonas Wellendorf has

analyzed stories of mound-dwellers and their anthropological premises in mediaeval Scan-

dinavia (“Ideologi og trosforestillinger i Ólafs þáttr Geirstaðálfs: Om jordfundne genstande

og rituelle højbrud,” Nordica Bergensia, 29 [2003], 147–69.

41. This is a well-known motif in stories of mummies from the twentieth century; those

who disturbed mummies were often cursed. This is depicted, for example, in the film The

Mummy from 1932, where Boris Karloff plays the main role. The inspiration came from

sensational newspaper reports about the curse connected to the mummy of the Egyptian

pharaoh Tutankhamun, who was discovered by the archaeologists Howard Carter and Lord

Carnarvon in 1923. In fact these stories, told by word of mouth, were unfounded.

42. Harðar saga, ed. Þórhallur Vilmundarson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, p. 40.

43. In Grettis saga (ed. Guðni Jónsson, p. 57) it is stated that there is a stench (“þeygi

þefgott”) in Old Kárr´s mound.

Vampires and Watchmen

291

the most memorable. He is said to be “gustillr” (smelling foully) just before
his death, and this may mean that his demonic nature had revealed itself
long before his death.

44

Sóti himself is undead inside his mound, in his ship, and is “ógóligr at
sjá” (a horrible sight). He attacks Hörðr and fights him, but is defeated
by candle light. Before that he manages to curse the ring Sótanautr that
Hörðr takes from him; this is one of several cases where a ghost curses
the person who defeats him.

45

The tale of the ghost Raknarr in Bárðar saga is of the same kind; in the
beginning it is stated that Raknarr has had himself buried alive, and he
is thus a good representative of the undead. Icelandic ghosts are neither
alive nor dead; it is precisely this ambiguity which makes them horrible.
The journey of Gestr Bárðarson and his men to Raknarr is vivid with won-
ders and visions, much more than the episode of Hörðr and Sóti, and
various monsters and demons appear. Raknarr himself awaits Gestr in his
mound, looking amazingly evil: “Furðu var hann illiligr at sjá.”

46

Like Sóti,

Raknarr attacks Gestr, and the fight turns out to be difficult for the latter,
since Raknarr’s trollish frenzy surprises him: “trylldist . . . svá, at Gestr varð
allr forviða fyrir” (Bárðar saga, p. 168). The ghost is defeated when Gestr
invokes the help of King Ólafr Tryggvason, who appears in a great light,
and the ghost loses all his strength.
Once the monster has been defeated, Gestr cuts “höfuð af Raknari ok
lagði þat við þjó honum” (the head of Raknarr and put it by his buttocks).
This is one way of expelling a ghost permanently, and, according to Grettis
saga, Grettir Ásmundarson is also aware of this method.

47

Placing the head

in this position must have something to do with the relationship between
hell and the buttocks, also seen in the aforementioned tale of Þorsteinn
skelkr and, for example, in the tale of Þorleifr jarlaskáld in Flateyjarbók.

48

The rear end is often considered to be the demonic “other face” of hu-
manoids, so maybe here is a way to unite both faces.

49

44. Grettis saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson, p. 111; Torfi H. Tulinius, “Framliðnir feður: Um forneskju

og frásagnarlist í Eyrbyggju, Eglu og Grettlu,” Heiðin minni: Greinar um fornar bókmenntir, ed.

Baldur Hafstað and Haraldur Bessason (Reykjavík: Heimskringla, Háskólaforlag Máls og menn-

ingar 1999), pp. 295–96.

45. Harðar saga, ed. Þórhallur Vilmundarson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, pp. 41–43.

46. Bárðar saga, in Harðar saga, ed. Þórhallur Vilmundarson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, p.

167.

47. Grettis saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson, pp. 58 and 122. In Áns saga bogsveigis, in Fornaldar

sögur Nordrlanda, II, p. 346, Án brutally kills an opponent and “stakk nefinu í klof honum,

at hann gengi eigi dauðr” (stuck his nose into his crotch, so he would not walk again).

48. Flateyjarbók, I, ed. Unger, p. 212.

49. See Davíð Erlingsson, “Frá hrópi til saurs, allur veraldar vegur,” Árbók hins íslenzka

fornleifafélags (1994), 137–48; Davíð Erlingsson, “Bakrauf og bakrauf: Tilgáta til alþýðlegrar

kenningar- og minjafræði,” Skírnir, 171 (1997), 401–11.

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Jakobsson

Other strategies of defense against the dark arts are mentioned in the
saga, and will be discussed later.

50

In Flóamanna saga, Þorgils cuts the head

off the former ghost after their fight, and “mælir síðan yfir honum, at
hann skuli öngvum manni at meini verða” (vows that he may never harm
a human being), but there is no mention of where the head is placed.

51

Þorgils seems to be reciting an invocation, since ordinary words would
hardly have sufficed. He burns the other ghost after having wrestled with
it, trying to drive it back into the coffin (Flóamanna saga, p. 256).
Powerful ghosts, like Víga-Hrappr in Laxdæla saga and Þórólfr lamefoot
in Eyrbyggja saga, are not subdued in one go.

52

Hoskuldr Dala-Kollsson bur-

ies Hrappr and moves him to a remote area, and then “nemask af heldr
aptrgongur Hrapps” (Hrappr’s haunting decreases). However, Hrappr’s
son “tók ærsl” (went berserk) after living for a short time in Hrappsstaðir.
This is not explained further, but it seems likely that his father caused the
craze, or the ærsl, since his ghostly visitations seem not to have ceased.

53

Much later Ólafr the Peacock builds a farm in Hjarðarholt, right where
Hrappsstaðir used to be, and the land is cheap because of the ghost. But
soon the place becomes haunted; one of Óláfr’s workmen does not want
to go alone into the cowshed since Hrappr stands “í fjósdurunum og vildi
falma til mín” (in its doorway, trying to claw at me). Ólafr is forced to
look for Hrappr’s cairn, finds out that he is not rotten, ófúinn, and burns
the ghost, which subsequently disappears from the story (Laxdæla saga, p.
69). The story of Þórólfr lamefoot in Eyrbyggja saga is similar. Removing
the body to a remote place does not suffice. In order to expel the ghost
it has to be burned, and even that seems not to do the trick in this case;
Þórólfr returns once more in possession of the calf Glæsir.

54

It is no wonder that ghosts can hardly be expelled, since it is their
very nature to refuse to leave when their time has come. Obviously their
undead existence is some sort of selfishness; each man has a limited time
and that has to be accepted. In Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks Hervor says to
her father Angantýr: “Sæmir ei draugum / dýrt vopn bera” (ghosts should
not carry a fine weapon).

55

The ghost has broken the laws of time and

50. Cf. William Sayers “The Alien and Alienated as Unquiet Dead in the Sagas of the Ice-

landers,” in Monster Theory: Reading Culture, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (Minneapolis: Univ.

of Minnesota Press, 1996), pp. 244–45.

51. Flóamanna saga, in Harðar saga, ed. Þórhallur Vilmundarson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson,

p. 255.

52. The monster always returns, according to Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s interesting analysis

of the cultural role of monsters (“Monster Culture [Seven Theses],” Monster Theory: Reading

Culture, pp. 4–6).

53. Laxdæla saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, p. 40.

54. Eyrbyggja saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson, pp. 93–95, 169–76.

55. Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda, I, ed. Rafn, p. 436.

Vampires and Watchmen

293

space, which also happens to be a law of economics: he should leave his
possessions and land behind, but he refuses to do so.
The stench, often related to ghosts, also suggests the way the undead are
regarded within the Christian world system. An ordinary person cannot
have an afterlife without the devil’s assistance, possibly by magic, and the
word troll is common in descriptions of both ghosts and magic.

56

Behind

the ghost, the evil one must be at work, and the stench betrays him.
In her writings about horror and abjection, Julia Kristeva has pointed
out that corpses suffer the utmost abjection. She emphasizes that corpses
are without a soul, and therefore strange; the body becomes the border of
order and disorder (and, of course, of life and death), while the borders
between the inner and the outer become blurred when the body starts
to disintegrate.

57

She does not mention ghosts in particular, but it is un-

avoidable to see them as the abject, and their strangeness is irrefutable:
the ghost is human. It is like us, yet not at all. Its intimate alterity makes
it monstrous and, due to its uncanny familiarity, more dangerous.

58

Kristeva refers to the corpse as “death infecting life.”

59

Infection is not

a significant factor in the ghost stories discussed above, but in other me-
diaeval ghost narratives infection is the key to the monster’s potency.

WHAT’S IN YOUR HEAD, ZOMBIE?

The fear that stems from haunted burial mounds is usually localized;
ghosts kill those who come too close to the haunted area, but normally
they do not infect them and turn them into zombies. On the other hand,
vampirical ghosts do precisely this, thus starting a ghost epidemic. Con-
sequently they appeal very much to modern man who often fears other
men, and all kinds of infections.

60

Both watchmen and vampires are in the undead state for reasons of
their own. Before his death, Víga-Hrappr in Laxdæla saga is an unfair man,

56. See Ármann Jakobsson, “The Trollish Acts”; “Vad är ett troll?”; and the examples

discussed there.

57. Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York:

Columbia Univ. Press, 1982), pp. 3–4, 108–12.

58. A more thorough discussion of presence and absence of monsters can be found in

another of my studies, “Talk to the Dragon: Tolkien as Translator,” Tolkien Studies, 6 (2009),

27–39.

59. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, p. 4.

60. The popularity of so-called zombie films in our day reflects this clearly. The zombies

(which hail from West Africa through Haiti) are typical for undead monsters, and their

behavior is in most respects similar to ghosts and vampires. One of the things that character-

izes them is aggression, and, like some ghosts and vampires, they infect their victims rather

than terminating them.

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Jakobsson

relentless in guarding his interests and aggressive toward his neighbors:
“ágangssamr við nábúa sína.”

61

Just before his death, his aggression in-

creases, he becomes “úrigr viðreignar” (difficult), and continues to harass
his neighbors. After his death, his aggression intensifies: “En svá illr sem
hann var viðreignar, þá er hann lifði, þá jók nú miklu við, er hann var
dauðr” (bad as he was when alive, this became far worse after his death)
(Laxdæla saga, p. 39). Hrappr is twice as bad as he used to be, but still
essentially the same person. This also applies to Þórólfr lamefoot in Eyr-
byggja saga, whose evil and aggression are always there but increase in old
age and get even worse once he is dead and starts roaming the earth.

62

His story may be interpreted as symbolic of moody, old people who are
reluctant to let go of their power and influence—ghosts and old people
get a remarkably similar description in some mediaeval texts.

63

The story of

Þórólfr is one of the longest mediaeval Icelandic ghost stories, containing
most of the key narrative elements of such legends. Few other mediaeval
texts have such clear examples of ghostly infections or vampirism.
In the account of Þórólfr lamefoot, it is evident that he hates and detests
everyone who is younger than he is, particularly his son,

64

but after his

death this hatred is transformed into a ghost’s hatred of all the living.

65

Laxdæla saga makes it fairly clear that Víga-Hrappr had planned while
alive to become an undead in order to hold on to his land. But why does
Þórólfr walk? His lack of satisfaction is evident in the saga; it is repeated
more than once how dissatisfied he is with everything that happens, and
especially with his own social status. A frustrated man is more likely to
become a ghost than one who is satisfied. The evil of Þórólfr is also pal-
pable; if anyone is likely to belong to the devil, it is he.
Most mediaeval Icelandic ghosts are evil or marginal people.

66

If not

dissatisfied or evil, they are unpopular, like Garðar or Garði, the foreman
of Þorsteinn Eiríksson in Lýsufjörðr (Ameragdla) in Greenland, who is
the first to die in the Lýsufjorður-wonders and who causes all the haunt-
ing that ensues.

67

Þórólfr lamefoot and Víga-Hrappr were both antisocial

and troublesome before their deaths, and Raknarr is an extremely evil
person who planned becoming a ghost, as did Hrappr. Glámr is gloomy

61. Laxdæla saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, pp. 19–20.

62. Eyrbyggja saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson, p. 81. See Ármann

Jakobsson, “The Specter of Old Age: Nasty Old Men in the Sagas of Icelanders,” JEGP, 104

(2005), 297–325.

63. Ármann Jakobsson, “Specter,” pp. 321–25.

64. Ármann Jakobsson, “Specter,” p. 299.

65. This is also the accepted behavior of ghosts after the conversion to Lutheranism, as

described by Jón Árnason (Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri, I, p. 245).

66. See Sayers, “The Alien and Alienated,” p. 258.

67. Eiríks saga rauða, in Eyrbyggja saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson,

pp. 214–16, 417–19.

Vampires and Watchmen

295

and heathen, and the same applies to the sorceress Gyða, whom Þorgils
örrabeinsstjúpr fights, and some of the Fróðá ghosts.

68

Among them there

is Þorgríma the witch, and this provides the clue that ghostly visitations
are related to witchcraft, even though mediaeval Icelandic ghosts are
generally spectres, not revenants. Sóti is a troll after his death, just as in
his lifetime.
Þórólfr dies on his throne.

69

As mentioned above, Hrappr chose to be

buried standing in the kitchen doorway, and various mound-dwellers sit
on a chair.

70

Seemingly ghosts have to be upright; hence it takes a long

time for ghostbusters to fight and subdue them. For this reason Grettir
forces Glámr to lie on his back in order to cut off his head, albeit with a
fateful delay.

71

Therefore it is a vague sign that Skalla-Grímr dies sitting

in Egils saga, so that Egill has to break his back, even though he does not
become a spectre.

72

A sitting corpse indicates that the dead might return,

and thus it is important to put the dead in a horizontal position when
they are dealt with.

73

When Arnkell, Þórólfr’s son, unbends his father’s body in Eyrbyggja saga,
he warns everyone against “ganga framan at honum” (walking towards
him and facing him).

74

The motif of the monster’s evil eye is implicit,

another link between ghosts and witches.

75

The meaning of the evil eye

is obvious, although it appears rarely in sagas of Icelanders. This becomes
memorable when Glámr manages to gaze at Grettir out of the corner of
his eye, cursing him before being terminated.

76

In Eyrbyggja saga, Arnkell perhaps does not take proper measures when
Þórólfr dies. He does not cut the head off and put it between his buttocks.
Neither does he burn the corpse, and at first he buries it too close to hu-
man habitation. Þórólfr soon starts roaming; it is not safe any longer to be
outdoors after sunset; and cattle become trollriða (as if ridden by trolls). The
last aspect characterizes vampirical ghosts in general. They are parasites
whose aim is to “troll” people, make them crazy and get them to join their

68. On Glámr’s behavior before death, see Torfi H. Tulinius, “Framliðnir feður,” pp.

293–97.

69. Eyrbyggja saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson, pp. 91–92.

70. Two of those are Old Kárr (Grettis saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson, p. 58) and Raknarr the

viking (Bárðar saga, in Harðar saga, ed. Þórhallur Vilmundarson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson, p.

167).

71. Grettis saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson, p. 121.

72. Egils saga, ed. Sigurður Nordal, Íslenzk fornrit, II (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag,

1933), p. 174. See Torfi H. Tulinius, Skáldið í skriftinni, p. 92.

73. Still, this does not always apply. Unnr the subtle in Laxdæla saga dies sitting comfort-

ably (p. 13); her death seems to symbolize something completely different from the ones

described here.

74. Eyrbyggja saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson, p. 92.

75. See Eyrbyggja saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson, p. 92, n. 2.

76. Grettis saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson, pp. 121–22.

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Jakobsson

group, becoming similar to their own kind. This is the case with Þórólfr,
who soon starts gathering followers. The first one is a shepherd who is
found kolblár (blue as coal) and is soon seen in the company of Þórólfr.
The color blue is not rare in mediaeval ghost stories, as will be seen.
The narrative of Þórólfr and the account of the Fróðá wonders, also in
Eyrbyggja saga, are probably the best examples of a ghost epidemic with
emphasis on the infection, but some kind of infection is also apparent in
the account of Glámr in Grettis saga.

77

Ghosts like Hrappr and the mound-

dwellers seem uninterested in collecting followers, but infecting trolls are
well known in European folklore, including the East European vampires
from the sixteenth century on.
Finally, Arnkell moves Þórólfr all the way up to the top of Vaðilshofði,
and the ghost keeps calm during Arnkell’s lifetime; the son demonstrates
his power over the father. Yet he is still active, since after Arnkell’s death
Þjóðólfr starts walking again, killing both livestock and humans. Then he
is dug up once more, and is described thus: “var hann þá enn ófúinn og
inn trollsligsti at sjá; hann var blár sem hel ok digr sem naut” (he was still
not rotten, looking like a troll; blue like hell and big as a bull).

78

There is

no mention of odor or stench, but most of the common motifs are here.
Ghosts are generally ófúnir (not rotten), and this is no wonder since they
are neither dead nor alive.

79

Often the word trollsligr (like a troll) is used,

which connects ghosts with various other supernatural creatures: witches,
giants, ogres, possessed animals, and heathen gods.

80

Finally Þórólfr is

“blár sem hel” (blue as hell), which also applies to Glámr, when he is
found dead and is “blár sem hel, en digr sem naut” (blue as hell, but
big as a bull).

81

There are more instances of a connection between the

color blue and the underworld, and sometimes the underworld queen
Hel herself is mentioned.

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It is questionable whether Christian listeners

of the story clearly distinguished between Hel (the goddess of the dead)

77. When Glámr defeats the previous monster of Forsæludalr, he is infected and takes on

her role, but “við þá meinvætti hefir aldri vart orðit síðan” (that ogre has never been heard

of since) (Grettis saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson, p. 112).

78. Eyrbyggja saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson, pp. 169–70.

79. Among others, Víga-Hrappr, when Óláfr the Peacock digs him up long after his death

(Laxdæla saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, p. 69).

80. See Ármann Jakobsson, “The Trollish Acts”; “Vad är ett troll?”

81. Grettis saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson, p. 112.

82. Also of relevance is the description of the “volubein” (bones of a witch) in Laxdæla

saga (ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, p. 224) that are “blá ok illilig” (blue and evil looking)

and related to sorcery. It is widely known that Brennu-Flosi in Njáls saga also becomes “blár

sem hel” (blue as hell) when Hildigunnr enrages him (Brennu-Njáls saga, ed. Einar Ólafur

Sveinsson, Íslenzk fornrit, XII [Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1954], p. 292), but it

is controversial how demonic Flosi is then, although one might certainly postulate a hellish

aspect of his fury.

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and hell, or whether this is one more clue that the ghost hails from the
devil himself.

83

Víga-Hrappr and Þórólfr lamefoot both bear witness to the fact that in
order to expel a ghost, the job has to be done properly. First an attempt
is made to move their bodies farther away, but burning them is the only
solution (in neither incident is there any mention of decapitation or of
putting the head between the buttocks). It actually takes a long time in
Þórólfr’s case, and is hardly enough, since his ashes are scattered by the
wind, and Þórólfr seems to enter a cow that then becomes possessed with
an evil spirit. He ends up being reincarnated as the demonic calf Glæsir,
who, like Þórólfr, is referred to as troll by a wise nanny.

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To end the Fróðá

wonders, yet another measure has to be taken: the trolls are exorcised with
a duradómur (door judgment). It is interesting that one of the ghosts of
Fróðá, Þórir woodleg, reacts by saying: “Setit er nú, meðan sætt er” (one
sits while one can).

85

The undead refuse to leave; they sit while they can.

That is their peculiarity, the essence of their afterlife.
Yet another method of dealing with ghosts is used in Flóamanna saga: a
special “ghostbuster” is hired to fight the undead. As a matter of fact that
method turns out to be risky, as is also the case in Grettis saga.

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Þórhallr,

the farmer in Forsæludalr, hires a special shepherd to deal with an ogre
in the valley that has been bothering him. This vampire slayer turns out
to be Glámr, complete with gusty stench, already somewhat demonic
when he arrives, but after they have fought and killed one another, he
becomes a bigger threat than the ogre that came before him. Þórhallr
has to hire another ghostbuster, the foreign Þorgautr. Glámr kills him
but still he does not infect him with the “troll nature,” which he seems
to have inherited from the aforementioned evil creature. Finally, one
more expert trollfighter has to be hired, Grettir the strong.

87

He alone

can destroy the ghost but has to pay the price—the eyes of Glámr follow
him wherever he goes, his nightmares becoming the last vestige of the
ghostly infection in Forsæludalr.

83. In the oldest Norse sources, Hel is mainly referred to as a person (the goddess of

death) rather than as a place (the domain of death) (see Chris Abram, “Hel in Early Norse

Poetry,” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 2 [2006], 1–29). These references seem to support

this; the dead are probably blue as the goddess of death, rather than her realm.

84. Eyrbyggja saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson, p. 171.

85. Eyrbyggja saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson, p. 152. The shep-

herd who is the first victim of the Fróðá wonders, reacts differently, and says: “Fara skal nú,

ok hygg ek, at þó væri fyrr sœmra” (Now I leave, yet it would have been more honorable to

have left earlier). Obviously he is not quite as selfish as Þórir woodleg.

86. Grettis saga, ed. Guðni Jónsson, pp. 113–23.

87. Consequently Grettir and Glámr are doubles, as scholars have noted (Sayers, “The

Alien and Alienated,” p. 254; Ármann Jakobsson, “The Fearless Vampire Killers”).

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Jakobsson

CATEGORIZING THE MEDIAEVAL UNDEAD

Our approach to mediaeval Icelandic ghosts has attempted to move away
from the categories used by Maurer and Jón Árnason and to problema-
tize the concept of the ghost. The attempt leads to some unexpected
conclusions:

1. Maurer drew a clear line between stories of trolls, ghosts, and sorcer-

ers. In mediaeval sources both ghosts and witches can be labelled
trolls, and it is hard to distinguish definitely between ghosts and
sorcery, since one of the things a witch does is to “awaken a troll,”
which may well be a ghost.

2. The word draugr is rarely used about those revenants that Jón Árn-

ason meant by the concept. For example, it is never used for the
most memorable ghosts in the Sagas of Icelanders, such as Glámr,
Víga-Hrappr, and Þórólfr lamefoot.

3. In dictionaries the poetic word draugr is separate from the word

used for dead spirits. This distinction does not have clear semantic
grounds.

4. The mediaeval Icelandic ghosts are far from similar to other West-

ern European ghosts and spectres from the same period. Nonethe-
less, it is harder to distinguish clearly between Icelandic ghosts and
some other undead folktale creatures. Thus one may state that the
Icelandic ghost is a sort of vampire—or to call Dracula a draugur,
as Bram Stoker’s first Icelandic translator did.

88

5. Jón Árnason’s neat division into apturgaungur and uppvakníngar

seems perfectly applicable to mediaeval ghosts. In most cases,
though, the ghost starts walking on his own accord and has not
been empowered by a magician, although law codes suggest that
this would also be possible.

6. The majority of mediaeval Icelandic ghosts are mound-dwellers

and other watchmen, attached to a treasure or their land. These
mound-dwellers are rarely aggressive outside of their own mound,
which they defend with foul-smelling witchcraft. We mainly meet
them in tales of grave robbery where the hero, courageous and
fearless, tries to get riches from the ghost.

7. There are also examples of more aggressive ghosts, parasitic and

preying on humans like incubi or vampires. They try their best to

88. The editor Valdimar Ásmundsson saw this clearly. Dracula and similar creatures are

called manndraugar in his translation of Bram Stoker’s novel about the Transylvanian vam-

pire (Makt myrkranna [Reykjavík: Nokkrir Prentarar, 1901], p. 196), which was originally

published in his newspaper Fjallkonan.

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299

craze human beings and infect them with vampirism. Such ghosts, if
successful, are bound to start an epidemic of ghosts. In this respect,
there is no clear separation between mediaeval Icelandic ghosts and
various more recent types of ghouls and apparitions from other
parts of the world, such as vampires or zombies.

8. Various methods are used to expel ghosts, and the right way to put

away a corpse is frequently described: it has to be buried far away,
burned, or the head of the dead person is placed by his or her
buttocks. The most interesting method may be hiring an expert, a
“ghostbuster,” to deal with the fiend. In the story of Glámr, there
are such vampire slayers, and among them are Glámr himself and
Grettir the strong.

9. The main characteristic of ghosts is their selfishness. They are

reluctant to let go of their possessions and bodies when they are
expected to retire and leave their possessions and lands behind
for the living to enjoy.

Categorizing does not equal explaining. This review does not explain
why mediaeval Icelanders believed in ghosts and why these ghosts tended
to be corporeal and to walk the earth rather than appear as imagos. It does,
however, cast some light on the function of the ghost within the framework
of the Icelandic saga. Most commonly, the ghosts are watchmen, sought
out by adventurers. In the few cases where they walk the earth and infect
others, a hero such as Grettir may be needed to vanquish them, although
the hero does not necessarily emerge unscathed from the encounter. In
some cases, there is no honor to be gained from the ghost. An encounter
with the fiendish Þórólfr lamefoot is of no aid to anyone.
First and foremost, the ghost reflects attitudes to omnipresent, exotic,
frightening, and unconquerable death. Man’s fear of death plays no little
part in turning the dead into monsters. Since death awaits us all, these
particular monsters are both strange and familiar, like us and yet not like
us. They may be regarded as the double of a normal human being, and
therefore not only dangerous but uncanny. It is hard for a man, recog-
nizing his mortality, not to see himself at least partially reflected in the
ghost, which only serves to escalate his fear of it. Individual ghosts may
be vanquished, but death continues to haunt us.

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