Folk Legends of Iceland

How was folklore woven into the everyday life of medieval Icelanders? How did they make sense of the darkness of their world? During Iceland's endless nights, tales of trolls, ghosts, elves, hidden people and restless spirits were far more than entertainment: they explained an unpredictable existence, preserved history, and warned against unseen dangers. Dr Eleanor Janega is joined by Dr. Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir, to explore the extraordinary legends and oral traditions that continue to shape Icelandic culture today. MORE Norse Mythology: Creation Myths Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/norse-mythology-creation-myths/id1564113746?i=1000729543548&uo=4&itscg=30200&ls=1&mttnsubad=6442463604&at=1000l3ctA&itsct=podfollow_podcasts&ct=gone-medieval-eplink Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/3lTw5hQrtuaxrCdneGORkS Welsh Folk Tales Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/welsh-folk-tales/id1564113746?i=1000700110152&uo=4&itscg=30200&ls=1&mttnsubad=6442463604&at=1000l3ctA&itsct=podfollow_podcasts&ct=gone-medieval-eplink Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/3rNA9vSBAs4MuE1T5X2VRe Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Matt Lewis?

  From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr Eleanor Janega, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing, and I've been waiting my whole life for a show like this one. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact? Three facts a week, each with a whole story behind it, the history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.

• 1:14Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr Eleanor Janega, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gob-smacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were, and how we got here.

• 1:50Eleanor Janega?

  Imagine a land where sunlight is seldom seen. A land where, as the winds cool and the frost spreads, the mountains, rivers, and shores creep slowly into darkness. For months on end, the sun is replaced by the cold shine of the moon. For those who are lucky enough to see it at all. Mountains, once towering overhead, now blend into the night sky as a wall of darkness, with only the comfort of firelight beckoning people towards the certainty of home. Gales batter against the turf houses with unrelenting ferocity,

• 2:35Eleanor Janega?

  screaming through the cracks as if hell bent on snuffing out the fires. The room where everyone gathers is warm. It's thick with the smell of livestock and people. But this is where they're safe. Thick layers of peated earth keep the inhabitants warm, dry, and shielded from whatever is moving in the blackness. People talk and laugh and craft and choke. As the fire crackles and the laughter lulls, the stories begin. Tales that frighten. Tales of what happens out there

• 3:18Eleanor Janega?

  in the dark. Months go by and the stories continue. One long winter into the next. Times change, traditions change, even gods change. For generation after generation, those tales, those creatures, those reasons to be afraid, they're still passed down, and they're still told today. I'm Dr Eleanor Janega, and in this episode of Gone Medieval, we're going to uncover the stories behind the Icelandic folk legends which families continue to tell today. I'm joined by Dr Dagurin Óskjónsdóttir,

• 4:02Eleanor Janega?

  an Icelandic folklorist at the University of Iceland. Her research has included the topics of cannibalism, Ouija board traditions, and supernatural beings. And she's recently published a fabulous book, Ghosts, Trolls, and the Hidden People: An Anthology of Icelandic Folk Legends.

• 4:28Eleanor Janega?

  Dagurin Óskjónsdóttir, welcome to Gone Medieval!

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Thank you, so happy to be here.

• 4:33Eleanor Janega?

  I am so excited to have you here because I am obsessed with Icelandic folklore, but don't know enough about it, which I think is true of most people. Or at least, they should be excited about Icelandic folklore, like I am. I guess I'm going to start you off with a really easy question, even though you might say this is too big. Are there any particular folktales that you have a kind of a personal connection to? Like, anything that really, for you, is the folk tale of your heart?

• 5:05Speaker 03

  Yes, it definitely is. Because in Iceland, some families are said to have family ghosts. And my family actually has a family ghost. And it is a bit of an old story that relates to it. He's called Ennis Morri. So that story is absolutely one of my favorites. And it's, of course, has a big connection to, for me, and a lot of meaning. And I first heard it when I was very young. My father is also a folklorist, as I am, and he once told me this story when we were driving home from Reykjavik, because I live in the more rural parts of Iceland, in the west firths, also often connected to sorcery and magic and all strange things. But we were driving home,

• 5:49Speaker 03

  and I was very bored as kids of the night in cars. And I think he had gotten a bit sick of the question, are we almost there? So when we were driving past this particular farm, he told me that that was the place where our family ghost lived. And I was quite surprised because I hadn't heard about this family ghost before and wanted to know more. And the story, and the story tells of a young man who was in love with a girl and asks her to marry him. And the girl doesn't want to marry him, so she turns him down. And he gets very upset and angry. And as one does, he goes out and decides to raise a ghost to send to her to get revenge.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  And a quick side note, in Iceland, if you want to raise a ghost, you go out to the graveyard in the middle of the night. And you take your place in front of the grave of the one that you are bringing back, and you start noting all these words of sorcery. And when you've done that, the first thing of the ghost that pops out of the grave is the hat. And then you have to grab the hat and you lick the foam that comes from the mouth of the corpse or the ghost. This is not very pleasant. But that's not, and that's not enough because when you've done that, the rest of the ghost climbs out of the grave. And then you have to win it in a wrestling match. Because ghosts in Iceland are quite physical.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  But anyways, this man, he goes to the graveyard, does all this, sends the ghost to the girl. And when the ghost arrives, it stops in front of her living room and peeks inside the keyhole to see what's happening inside. And inside, she and her family are eating pudding. And the ghost decides to turn itself into a tiny little fly. And it flies through the keyhole and sits down in the spoon of the girl. And she doesn't notice this, so she puts the spoon with the fly, or the ghost in it, in her mouth. And when the ghost is inside her mouth, it springs up to full size, so her head explodes.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  And this is one of the few splatter stories in Icelandic folk legend, folk stories. But the ghost is very powerful. It goes back and kills the sorcerer that brought it back, and then follows the family of this girl. And ghosts, they can stay around for nine generations or 300 years, whatever comes first. Then they kind of disappear or go back or whatever happens to them. But they won't follow people for longer than that. But this girl was my ancestor in a way. So the ghost decided to follow my family and a couple other families in the area.

• 8:40Eleanor Janega?

  I really like this story for eight million reasons. Okay. First of among them, I really like the idea that you really have to want it if you're going to raise a ghost. You know, I don't think I've ever wanted anything enough to lick the foam off the mouth of a ghost. So that's, that's good. But, but also, it's really interesting to me because one of the things when you're interested in the study of ghosts, right, that people will say is, well, why, why isn't the world full of ghosts? Why, why aren't they, you know, always around? Why aren't we constantly tripping over them? And this is great for me because I'm like, aha, see, there's a, there's a timer. We got a 300-year timer here, thank you very much. So, yeah, that's very good.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  It's a hassle, and then they can only stay around for a certain time.

• 9:30Eleanor Janega?

  Well, I have always been really interested in the medieval Icelandic ghost stories. Because there's so many of them, it's just a really fruitful place to go looking for them. And as you say, a lot of them are kind of centered in the western part of the island because it's so spooky. But can you, before we get into all that, tell us a little bit about what it's like to actually be alive in Iceland in the medieval period? Like, what's it like for the people who are telling these stories?

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Well, people, of course, came to Iceland around 930 maybe and established their parliament in, or the parliament, Alfinkja, I think that led. Icelanders then became Christian in the year 1000s and were trying to figure out how to live in this country because people came from, most of them came from the other Nordic countries and then the Celtic areas. And I mean, it was a very, as always is, I mean, a lot of different things were happening, taking place at once, people figuring out where to live, how to live. It's, and Iceland is very rural at the time and remained very rural for a long, long, long time.

• 10:41Speaker 03

  And people lived in these turf houses made of turf and stone and trees and other natural elements. And, and the home was considered to be the workplace and the place where people would gather and the place where people got education and all that. And of course, we don't have as much information on the medieval period as we do in later periods when people had written more down. But there are some very old Icelandic texts, of course, preserved. And we do have books like Icelanding a book or manuscripts where it is described how people in Iceland settled and where they stayed and how they divided the land amongst themselves and where people came from and so on. So, I mean, it is a very, very interesting time.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  And, and there we also, of course, in these older stories that were written down in the 13th century or so, it, we have some of the motifs that you see in the newer stories, like the story about my family ghost that is from the 19th, early 20th century, where most of the Icelandic folk legends were collected. But it was rough in Iceland for a long period as well. I mean, it is a harsh environment. There were, people got sick, people, there was high mortality of children, for example.

• 11:59Eleanor Janega?

  So what would you say that winter plays in telling stories like these in Iceland?

• 12:06Speaker 03

  During the winter, we had these big events where people would gather. It's called kvöltvaka or the evening wake. People would gather in the biggest room of the farm where they would be working and they would be telling stories while they worked to make it more enjoyable, to make time pass faster. But also it had a very educational role in the life of the farm that these stories carried with the messages and that they would mix everything together. You would read religious texts, read from the Icelandic sagas. You would tell stories from oral tradition, you would tell news of what was happening.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  So it was like a very important and very central to the farm life as well, this event of storytelling that took place in the winter. So it was something that, and that was something that went on for quite a long time, almost until Iceland became less rural, people were meeting often more. And then when the radio arrived and people went to school and, and all these changes affected those moments of telling stories. Although in many Icelanders, they're still very much enjoying telling stories as people everywhere do. I mean, people love stories.

• 13:25Eleanor Janega?

  I guess this makes perfect sense as well because if you think about it, especially in a world before electricity and central heating, it makes a lot of sense to get everybody together in one room where it's warm. You only have to worry about lighting and heating that room and also getting more people in that's going to keep it nice and warm. And I mean, unfortunately, work's still going to have to get done. So you may as well do it in a group and have a little bit of fun while you're at it, right?

• 13:50Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 13:55Eleanor Janega?

  But also I think that it makes sense that a lot of these stories end up being creepy, right? Because you've got a very long, very dark winter. And so you have a lot of shadowy places. Can you tell us a little bit about the creatures that are lurking out there in the night?

• 14:15Speaker 03

  Yes, definitely. So as I said, Iceland was very rural and it's true, we have for a long periods, it is very dark in Iceland, although we're now in summer where there is no darkness at all and it's, it's light out all day and all night. But for long, the longest time, it is of course, very dark in Iceland. And the turf houses, they were not very bright. It wasn't very bright inside of them and you would have these tunnels you'd have to go through and it was made of all these natural elements that would be creaking and cracking. And I mean, it's very easy to see how you, all these strange sounds coming from outside. And, and insight would be a little bit frightening, of course. And people in the past were afraid of the dark, just as we are today, of course, although

• 15:00Speaker 03

  they might have been more used to it than we are now in ways as well. But there are a lot of supernatural beings in Iceland and it's very interesting because many of them are quite tied to the landscape in a way and then to certain places as well. So for example, close to the farm, they're often told stories of the hidden people or the elves that are kind of like the invisible neighbors of Icelanders at the time. While up in the mountains and further away into the wilderness, you would have trolls where Icelanders, of course, had to wander every once in a while, they had to travel. And they did travel quite a lot between places, going to church, going to fetch and get all

• 15:45Speaker 03

  sorts of things and herd sheep up on the mountains after the summer and so on. And there you would have the trolls and you would have the outlaws that were also almost kind of supernatural. Ghosts, of course, can lurk almost anywhere where there's dark. They will hide in your house and at church and behind a stone somewhere where you're working and, and traveling. Then, of course, Iceland is surrounded by ocean. So when you're out on a boat, you're not safe because you have all these different sea monsters and mer people that might be out to get you. So I mean, danger seems to be lurking almost anywhere in Iceland.

• 16:25Eleanor Janega?

  And you've already mentioned a couple of creatures that I'm sort of familiar with, more particularly from Norse legends, like trolls, right? Are there other similarities that we can find kind of a through line between Norse supernatural creatures and Icelandic ones?

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Yes, definitely. And there are a lot of similarities between the Icelandic folk legends and the ones that are found in other Nordic countries and the Celtic countries where people came from when they settled Iceland. And of course, when they came, they brought with them all sorts of, like all their luggage, all their belongings, but also all their stories and all their beliefs that kind of then inhabited the Icelandic landscape as well. So there are a lot of, lot of similarities, although what I always find very interesting is also to look at the differences because you might have similar stories told here and in a different place. But then there is something that is a little bit different because the stories also adapt to the society which tells them.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  So it is a little bit interesting to look at what those differences are. What is it that is maybe different between these countries and how does that reflect in the legends in a way? So there are similarities, but there are also, also some differences in Icelandic. We don't, for example, in the 19th, 20th centuries folk legends, we do not have a lot of forest creatures because they weren't native in Iceland. So, I mean, that is something that is, just the landscape present a fact on what, what type of stories we have and what we don't. So that is always what I find very interesting as well.

• 18:09Eleanor Janega?

  That makes a lot of sense to me. So I was really struck because I'm quite interested also in, you know, the Irish stories of the other world. And that reminds me a bit of the hidden people that come up in Icelandic folklore. But it's really interesting because we don't find the hidden people in medieval Icelandic literature. And you find trolls, you got the ghosts, everybody's got ghosts and you know, the trolls are definitely this Nordic thing. But we don't have the hidden people, even though the hidden people are quite common now. Do you think that this is a case of there was a belief that existed and nobody was writing it down? Or do you think this is just more of a through line that develops a little bit later?

• 18:52Speaker 03

  I mean, it's so hard to tell when we don't have the written sources for it. But there are mentions of like some land spirits, for example, in some of the old Norse texts. And some of these have some similarities to maybe the elves or the, or the hidden people that we talk about in Iceland. And the fact that they are so similar to the ones that we have in the Celtic, Celtic areas, they maybe indicate that there was some belief. And so, I mean, also because the belief in the hidden people and elves is so related to the land because they live in the hills and they live in the rocks and they live

• 19:34Speaker 03

  somewhere in the land around us in the landscape. So these kind of, these ideas that there are sacred spots, dead areas that you can't ruin or else something bad will happen to you, the elves or the hidden people will get revenge on you. Those are ideas that we see that you can't ruin specific places of land, for example. And those are very similar to the Celtic stories. So it's hard to tell, but I think we have traces of it, definitely.

• 20:06Eleanor Janega?

  All right, speaking of the fact that you have these ties to the land, you're not supposed to be ruining varying places or the hidden people get annoyed with you. One of the things you really stress in your book is that the creatures that inhabit Iceland, they kind of come in different environments. So you've got farm ones and wilderness ones and church ones, ocean ones, or even shoreline, which is not the same as ocean, right?

• 20:34Speaker 03

  No, no, no.

• 20:35Eleanor Janega?

  And that?

• 20:37Eleanor Janega?

  Seems to me that we do see this kind of connection to what we see in Viking sagas, because they talk a lot about ocean things and shore things. And in both these stories and the Viking ones, we see a lot about what darkness means in these places. Can you tell us a little bit about how that creeps into the stories?

• 21:01Speaker 03

  I think, since you mentioned the ocean, I mean, it is, the ocean is a dangerous place. But people nevertheless have to go there because we have to get fish, we have to hunt. At this time, people were hunting seal and they were, it was important source of food as well. It's an Icelandic saying that, and known elsewhere as well, of course, that the ocean takes and gives back as well. So it is a dangerous place and it's also a mysterious place. I mean, the ocean is, as of still today, there is so much of the ocean that we don't know. What, that hasn't been explored yet even. And those are the prime, that's the prime environment for stories.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  Something that is a little bit mysterious, something that we don't know, something that we are curious about. Somewhere where we go and there we have these giant beings as well. We have the whales that when you're out on your rowing boat. I own a, I own a sea kayak and just the other day I was out kayaking when all of a sudden this idea struck me. What if I get eaten by a whale?

• 22:08Speaker 03

  Because they are so big and you are so small, so when you're out at sea. So, I mean, we do, and the line between the natural and the supernatural in these stories is very thin in a way. Many whales that we recognize today are given supernatural abilities in these stories. So they are turned monstrous and they are, so that's also what I find very interesting. These animals that kind of become supernatural or dangerous or incredibly smart and have these human-like abilities as well. In these stories, and of course now we attribute similar stories to space, which is a place that is also hasn't been very much explored.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  People are going there, sometimes out of necessity, but also just because we're very curious. But, I mean, and we attribute the same stories. But so these mysterious, dangerous places, they draw us to them, I will say. And, and of course, that was also the fact in Viking times or settlement period. And then where people were still doing exploring and they knew even less maybe about what was out there, so to say. So, so we have these threats as well of this, of the sea being a dangerous place, both then and in the 19th century. And to a degree, I think we still find a little bit mysterious today as well.

• 23:32Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm. Speaking of the settlement period of Iceland, you know, this is one of these areas where we are really dependent. I mean, we call it legend when you write it down, right? It's like, if we've got a saga, we're like, okay, it's a legend. Sometimes we can, we can squint at it in order to get the history. And that kind of differentiates it slightly from what we now call folklore. But do we know how people are actually telling these stories at the time? Because obviously, you know, somebody writes it down, but most people aren't actually reading anything off of a manuscript at the time, are they?

• 24:11Speaker 03

  In Iceland, people started to publish publications. They started happening around maybe the 15th century or so, if I remember correctly. And they had written material that came from other places, from abroad, for example, that they were reading. And of course, people had more books after printing started. And, but before that, they were writing manuscripts and people were reading those as well. But of course, oral tradition was the most important element as well. People would recite stories and tell them to others and they would retell them and so on and so forth.

• 24:54Speaker 03

  And for the longest time, people would also think that maybe people were only retelling stories. And when they would change, as stories do, when a lot of people tell them, they do. I mean, they do change a little bit. It's time that if people would tell them differently, that was because they had messed up or they had forgotten something. But then, now it's much more we looked at us, they were, that was not the case. But good storytellers, when they are telling stories, they also move them around. And when you're telling a story and you want it to be a little bit frightening, you want it to happen on the next form, but not in a different, way different areas.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  So, so you move stories and you make them more exciting and you adapt them to the group that is listening. And that is of course as well, what was happening. And I mean, you tell different stories to children, then you turn to adults and you tell them in different ways and all that. So you can find in many places in Iceland, you will find very similar stories in different places. They have these different variants of stories and that's also very interesting. And shows also maybe what stories were considered to be very popular, were also told in many places, good stories. But the oral tradition is of course very important. And with the folk legends, the collection of them starts in the 19th century, when Einar Nusson and Magnus Gremsson started collecting stories in Iceland.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  They're often seen as the pioneers of doing that, but then many, many followed and were collecting stories in specific areas. It's also of course part of Iceland's independence that was on its way. We became independent from Denmark in 1944. And, which is very interesting as well, because when people were collecting stories in specific places, they would still call it Icelandic folk legends and stories to try to make it like it's a national thing as well. So, of course, it's all tradition for a lot, for the longest time. And I mean, it's, it is very interesting because then you never know what you don't have, because we only have what is written down. Some stories probably weren't.

• 27:19Matt Lewis?

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• 28:33Speaker 04

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• 29:10Speaker 05

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• 30:02Eleanor Janega?

  Well, listen, I think I've made you think about a theory long enough. Can we talk about some actual stories?

• 30:09Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 30:10Eleanor Janega?

  Can we get to it? Okay. You're gonna have to pardon my absolutely atrocious Icelandic pronunciation throughout this. But can we start? I guess a great place to start is sort of with, oh, here it comes. Gudmundur Gudvi? Is that right?

• 30:26Speaker 03

  It was very well done, I will say. Yes.

• 30:31Speaker 03

  Perfect, yes.

• 30:34Eleanor Janega?

  So can you tell us who he is and how he came to feature so incredibly prominently in Icelandic legends?

• 30:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Gudmundur Gudvi, he was a priest and a bishop. He is said to have been born in 1161 and then died in 1237. He was a bishop in Hjóla, which is in the north of Iceland. And he, Gudmundur Gudvi, it translates to Gudmundur the Good. And he had a very prominent word of being very good. As in very generous, very helpful for the regular people of Iceland, I will say. Because he was very debated as well. But good or Gudvi also references to him being kind of a holy in a way.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  He performed miracles and he, according to folk legends, he would also sometimes encounter the supernatural. And he would go around and he would, he would travel very far around Iceland. He would go to many different places and he would bless all sorts of things. So he would go around and he would be blessing rocks and blessing hills and blessing water very often. Today, we have a lot of stories of water fountains that he is said to have blessed. And that gives the water some sort of a healing ability. Or there's one in Stantir area where I grew up. And that one, you're supposed to not drink, but get your eyes into the water. Get some water into your eyes because it's supposed to be very good for your eyesight.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  And there is because a nickname for people in Iceland that is called Gudmund, that are named Gudmundur is often Gwentur. So these waters are often called Gwentar Lögur or Gwentar Brunnar, referencing Gudmundur, the Good. It's supposed to help bless them. But there are also stories of him getting rid of evil supernatural beings, sending them to different places. And there is this one story where he was supposed to be blessing a big rock.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  And when he heard a voice coming from inside the rocks telling him that there had to be some place for evil. So he decided that he would leave the evil there. So they would have some place to retreat to after he had banished them from all the other places.

• 32:57Eleanor Janega?

  I love that because it's like you can't be entirely holy. There still has to be somewhere where for these guys to go, oh, that's quite sweet, actually.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:09Eleanor Janega?

  So you talk a little bit in the book about a story that's called The Sorcerers in the Westman Islands. And this is an interesting one for people like me who are very interested in the Black Death. Because there's some kind of plague that happens in it that they're calling the Black Death. Going through Iceland, it's absolutely raging. And this is useful to us, right? Because you could maybe date the legend a little bit as a result. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

• 33:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the story or the legend, it's in the Legends Collection of Johan Otsson, the first one that was collecting stories here. And it tells of a group of sorcerers that go to the Westman Islands in Iceland to hide from the plague, from Black Death. And then they hear that it has been going all around and killed a lot of people. And they decide to send one of them, one of their own, to the mainland to see what's happening, if someone's still alive and so on. But he has to promise that he'll be back before Christmas. The man, the sorcerer, goes to the mainland. There he meets a gurth and she kind of entices him to stay longer.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  And when Christmas is almost there, he is like, I have to get back. They will be very angry if I'm not back. And she tells him, no, you have to stay, don't leave, blah, blah, blah. And he decides to stay.

• 34:32Speaker 03

  And of course, as he had known, the other sorcerers get very mad. I mean, and they sent him a ghost or a sentin. And when the ghost is there, then they are kind of, the girl, which is very smart. She meets the ghost and makes him perform all sorts of tricks. Be as big as you can, be as small as you can. And of course, he then makes himself very tiny, turns himself on also into a fly. And she then dares him to fly inside a bone that she has in her hand. And the ghost does that and she closes the bone, so he's stuck inside. And traps the ghost, of course.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  But I mean, this is a story about this plague. And there are other stories surrounding the plague and the Black Death. It's, those are stories that tell of it traveling in the form of an old lady knocking on doors of farms and trying to get in. And similar stories. I mean, we do not have a lot of information about this in the Icelandic history. We hadn't started doing like population counts at this time. But it's estimated to have taken a big part of the population as well. And that's how it is remembered.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  What is interesting, of course, that when we are looking at it through those legends, they were collected in the 19th century, as I've said. And so they kind of reflect this view of how people are looking back on it.

• 36:03Speaker 03

  So we can't never know if this is stories that have been traveling from this period. Because it's very hard to tell how exactly how old stories are. And for how long they've been in oral tradition before they're written down. But they do trace some memory of this being a horrific time and this impact, having a big impact on Iceland. And how people are kind of reflecting on it these years after, how it, how it appears to them then, in a way. Which is as this horrible disease that had laid people in ruins and how people were afraid of it as well, I would say.

• 36:40Eleanor Janega?

  That's really interesting because I suppose from my standpoint as a historian, if anyone is going around saying the words Black Death. And I'm like, ah, that's kind of modern, right? Because no one calls it that at the time. But it makes perfect sense to me that you would tell these stories. And then somewhere along the line, when people say, oh, yeah, you're telling a story about the plague. It must be the Black Death, we embellish it out, right? So it's not right to say it isn't being told at the time. But it's also not right to expect that things are going to ossify and stay exactly where you want them to, right?

• 37:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, definitely. As I was saying before, when people move things closer to farms, they also move things closer in time. And they try to make it so that people will understand the story and have like a reference point to it. And as I said, yeah, it's, it's very hard to say if the story was told as well during that time in a different way or not. We just don't know that. But we know that in the 19th century, then people are telling it in this way. And that they are attributing it to this idea that it was the Black Death. That has been become a phenomenon in that time period when they are telling the story. And yeah, and those reflect how people are, as I said, looking back at it.

• 37:58Speaker 03

  How they imagine it, right, to have been, how, what they think about it at the time when they are telling the story.

• 38:05Eleanor Janega?

  But there's another pretty good medieval figure that comes up in a lot of the stories that you're telling. And that's Simonur Frovi. Can you tell us a little bit about him and how he comes up in the folktales?

• 38:16Speaker 03

  Yes, so Simonur Frovi, which would be translated as Simonur the Lurth or Simonur the Wise or something like that. He was around from the year 1056 until 1133. And he appears in the folk legends as a bit of a sorcerer, really. He was, he had gone abroad to study, according to the stories. And he had been, well, according to the legends, he had been in a very unusual school called the Black School or Svartiskole. Which is actually run by the devil himself.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  And there, it's underground, everything is dark there, but they're writing on papers that shine back at them in red lights. And it's a very interesting stories that are told about Simonur Frovi. But the thing is that, and the stories also say that the devil gets to own the person that leaves the school last every year. And Simonur, who is a bit, he is a heroic figure in these stories. He is a sorcerer, he's also a priest, and he is a hero a little bit in the stories. So one day, he and his friends are leaving school for the last time. And nobody wants to be the last to leave because he will belong to the devil.

• 39:41Speaker 03

  Simonur says, I will be last, you can go before me. But when he is leaving the door and the devil tells him like, no, you can't leave, I'm taking you. Simonur points to behind him and says, no, see, there's one more, and points to his shadow. And then he escapes out the door and the devil takes his shadow and Simon said to have remained without shadow ever since. But there are a lot of stories where he is kind of fooling the devil and he makes the devil turn himself into a seal and then carry Simon on his back all the way back to Iceland, where he is going to get the best to be the church, be a priest at a very good church.

• 40:24Speaker 03

  It was kind of need in the need of a priest and tells him that if the devil manages to get him all across the ocean without Simon getting wet, eh, he can also keep his soul. But when they're almost there, he takes his very big book and hits the devil on its head. So it goes down into the water and of course Simon gets wet, but then gets the church and is saved by, from the devil once again. So he is a very interesting, very interesting figure. He's very prominent in these stories. And in front of the University of Iceland, there is this big statue sculpture of Simon riding the seal on his way, tricking the devil. Eh, so he is a very prominent figure in these stories and he is still

• 41:07Speaker 03

  quite, quite known. And these stories about him are told quite a lot. And as I say, remember through his sculpture in front of the university, for example, of him being the learned man that's of course relates to education today as well.

• 41:38Speaker 05

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• 42:16Speaker 01

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• 42:59Eleanor Janega?

  Obviously, you know, I've, listen, I too wish to go to devil university. That's fine and normal. But this is interesting because this is the second priest that we've had.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:11Eleanor Janega?

  Drop up. And, you know, it's just interesting here that we have these religious figures that are doing these kind of almost magical things. You know, they're sort of rubbing along the line, I think of what we would call sorcery now. I mean, do you think that that says something about the way people at the time sort of relate to the concept of religion and authority? You know, is it the idea that, you know, if you're learning something, if you're, if you're literate, if you've got all of these ideas, then that's almost like doing magic?

• 43:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, definitely. I think, I think there are many reasons. They, of course, yeah, they had an authority in Icelandic society. They were, I mean, priests were also very well known in Icelandic society. They're the celebrities of their time in a way. Everybody will know them. So if you're telling a story about a priest, that's someone that everybody will be like, ah, okay. Yeah. Oh, they did that. Wow. Strange, mysterious.

• 44:12Speaker 03

  So, I mean, I, I think that's one of the reasons why these stories will attach to these priests. Another one is of course that they had authority and they had the literacy and they were able to understand some Latin at least. They have went abroad, which was very foreign to many people to, that they had actually left and then came back with some knowledge and, and were able to read this language that nobody else understood. I mean, so they become very mysterious figures as well. And in these folk Latin, they become very prominent as being, but many of the sorcerers in Icelandic folk Latin are also

• 44:56Speaker 03

  priests. But it is also a little bit interesting that when Johan Osnarsson, the first collector is collecting stories, he gets most of his stories from priests all around Iceland. Because they were able to go out and talk to farmers and they knew everybody. They knew I should go and talk to this person and this. They know a lot of stories. I'll talk to them. They had the time to do it. They could go around and talk to people and write, and they could write them down. Eh, and Johan Osnarsson had, had also studied abroad. So he had a net of connection to priests all around Iceland that could collect stories and send them to him. Eh, so priests in Icelandic Latin, because although they

• 45:41Speaker 03

  are like related to sorcery, usually they, I would say they are portrayed in a rather positive light in the stories. Eh, they are heroes. They are tricking the evil trolls, the evil, the devil, I mean, the devil himself, of course, the most evil of them all. But so they are positive figures, although that they are sorcerers. In many cases, not all, of course. But I think that is, everything plays a part in this. And the fact that there are a lot of priests collecting stories also plays a part in this, of course.

• 46:14Eleanor Janega?

  Oh yeah. I mean, I would say so because if a priest comes and says, hey, do you know any stories? They're going to say, oh, you'll love this one. But it doesn't matter for you, it's there.

• 46:23Speaker 03

  Of course, yeah. Good to be in good graces with your priest as well at the time. So.

• 46:29Eleanor Janega?

  But it also makes sense to me that we have these kind of really heroic saints because we also, you know, when Iceland is settled, the Christianization hasn't taken over entirely, right? You know, among, among the people who settled. So can you tell us a little bit about that process and, and what it sort of meant for society in Iceland?

• 46:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. So Icelanders, eh, were according to Icelandic book, the Book of Icelanders, people were of the different religions when they came here. Some were of the old Norse religion, someone were not religious, someone Christian. And so it was a very mixed group as well when people first settled and came here. But in the year 1000, it is decided of parliament that Icelanders should become Christian. But when we take up Christianity, there are three exceptions that we kind of employ with it. The first one is that Icelanders can still eat horse meat. Icelanders can still pray to the heathen gods in secrecy. So it was a bit of an easy transition. We're still allowed to do what you had been doing. Just don't tell anyone.

• 47:35Eleanor Janega?

  Okay. All right.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  Eh, and then the third one was that Icelanders were still allowed to leave children out to die of exposure according to the old laws, which is of course very horrific and became illegal shortly afterwards. But, eh, but we do have quite a lot of stories that relate to this practice of leaving children out to die of exposure. And when Icelanders became Lutheran in the 16th century, around 500, or it's often said to have been at 550, eh, when Johan Osnarsson was beheaded, eh, and which was a, was a bishop, then a lot of relations, romantic relations became illegal. So you weren't allowed to have children outside

• 48:22Speaker 03

  of marriage. You weren't allowed to have children with people that were related, not to you, just if they were related, you were also not allowed to have children with them and, and so on and so forth. And then some people in some cases would resort to leaving children out to die of exposure to try to save themselves from the harsh punishment that came with the crimes that they had committed according to these laws. So, yeah. And it, so it was like, as always, it is a longer process. I pinpoint these moments in time, the year 1000 and 1550. But of course, there has been ongoing discussions for some

• 49:06Speaker 03

  time before that. Although those are the points that we have chosen to think, yes, this is when this happened.

• 49:12Eleanor Janega?

  And you include some stories in the book that they really kind of go around this fulcrum of that, you know, the desire to cover up these relationships where that ends up overlapping with the three, count them, three different types of ghosts. So could you tell us the story about Mother Mine in the Pen?

• 49:36Speaker 03

  Yes. So that's a story that tells of a type of ghost that we call utburður, which just means a child that has been left out to die. And it's a story of a woman, she's a worker and she becomes pregnant with a man that she was not allowed to be with. He was married, if I remember correctly. But anyways, as a result, she decides to, when she has given birth to the child, to leave it outside to die and tell no one that this has happened. Eh, a couple of weeks later, there's going to be a big dance in her area and she really wants to go to the dance. Eh, and well, when it draws closer,

• 50:21Speaker 03

  she's a little bit upset because she doesn't have anything nice to wear for the dance. And she is telling another worker about this when they are outside milking the sheep or they're in a pen, they're milking the sheep there, which was done in these years. And just as she has told the other woman like, oh no, I have this dance upcoming and I have nothing to wear. The ghost of the child that she had left outside to die appears on the wall in front of her. And the ghost says, eh, rym in Icelandic, it's like this, móður minni kvíkvíkvíkví, dögki þvíþví, döluna minna tansai, which translates as Mother Mine in the Pen. Don't you worry. I can lend you the cloth that you had wrapped

• 51:04Speaker 03

  me in to dance in it. And then the ghost's child takes the cloth that she had wrapped around it and hits her in her face with it. So she loses her mind. And in some other variants, she loses her eyesight as a result of this happening. But I mean, I find these stories very fascinating. One of the things that strikes me the most, because when I did my PhD in folklore, I was looking at gendered power relations and femininity in these stories. And it is quite apparent in these stories that childbirth is solely the responsibility of women. Those children that have been left out to die apparently don't have fathers because

• 51:44Speaker 03

  they only come back to hunt their mothers and to get revenge on their mothers for the crimes that they have committed against them, according to the stories. So I always find these stories very interesting. And in this story in particular, you can also see elements of don't worry about superficial things like dresses and dances when you should be focusing on something else. And so, I mean, they have these messages and they are warning stories intended for women, like you shouldn't do this or else this will happen. And I just think they are layered with so many, many different things. We also have these ideas of regret when they come back and the result is often that the

• 52:28Speaker 03

  mothers lose their minds. In other variants, when ghosts of exposed children come back, the main punishment is that the women or the mothers stop seeing the sun and they don't see the sun. So then they're also trapped in darkness for many years after to pay for their crimes. And I mean, I think it's kind of the losing of the sun, to me, represents a little bit of, or has, can be seen as depression in a way as well. So, I mean, we have, we have these stories that, that I find very fascinating. They have all these threats of what they are telling us about these events and, and these things that women shouldn't do.

• 53:13Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, gosh, this is like such a typical story about a woman, too. They're like, oh, you know how women are, all they care about is dresses and dances and probably also they're, you know, a slut who are killing their babies. We're just like, what?

• 53:24Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah.

• 53:26Eleanor Janega?

  I'm not sure that follows. Okay, fine. But it is also really interesting because like, we're definitely seeing here this drawing of this line between older Icelandic or, you know, traditions, like, you know, the exposure and the idea that, no, we're in this new era, right? We're in this new era, you can't do that. That is very bad. And I guess for me, that, that is part and parcel with what I expect to see for women in the early modern period, you know, like you come into these much more stringent restrictions about what women can and cannot do.

• 54:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely. And here it's, of course, the idea that they can't get exposed of children, but it's also the idea that they shouldn't have sex in the first place. I mean.

• 54:11Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, obviously does.

• 54:12Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 54:14Eleanor Janega?

  But that is like one of the big differences also, I think, in terms of expectations of women in the medieval period and women in the early modern period is that women in the medieval period, everyone's like, I bet you're having sex. And they're like, yeah. They're like, no, tsk, tsk. In the early modern period, there's just this big crackdown, like you better not do it, you'll get haunted, you're gonna get haunted if you do it.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely, yeah.

• 54:36Eleanor Janega?

  Well, one of the other things I think is really interesting in the book is that you have a lot of these creatures, you know, especially the Norse era ones, that they kind of crop up and it seems like they're sort of explaining natural phenomena. So, you know, when you have a weird rock formation, right? Oh, that's a troll that got caught in the sun, you know? Or when your livestock goes missing, or when somebody drowns, you know? Do you think that this is kind of like an explanatory instinct that we see come out also in later folktales? Or do you think that by the time we're in the 19th century and, you know, we're all very science-y, right? And we know that that exists? Do you think that these stories kind of shift a little bit in order to reflect that?

• 55:22Speaker 03

  I think many of these stories are a little bit explanatory. They explain, as you said, like this rock looks very strange. This is a troll that has been turned into stone. Because we always, then the unimaginable happens, something horrible happens, something like with these places that are like enchanted spots or cursed places, you can't ruin them, otherwise something bad will happen. And something horrible happens on your farm and you're like, what, how, why? And then you need a reason for it as well. And then that is something that you can, so it doesn't only explain, I think, natural phenomena, but it also explains to us what we just can't understand because we also

• 56:06Speaker 03

  know that we are always encountering things that we maybe don't fully understand and we want to understand, we want to seek explanations for it as well. So I think it's explanatory in both of these ways. And just because I was just talking about the children and the ghosts of children, we do have it, it appears as well, a lot of in the place name stories, you will have places that are called like Crying Creek or something where you will hear the cries of the children when you're walking there after dark that have been left out there to die of exposure and such. So they do explain the landscape a little bit and they do work a little bit as a map

• 56:48Speaker 03

  because they also tell you where to go and where not to go, what to do and what not to do. So I think they explain to us in many different ways, both in terms of landscape, how this came into being, why this strange rock is standing here by itself. But also it carries these messages of, of what you, if you do something good, you are rewarded in a story and if you do something bad, you're punished. But I think the case with all stories though is that they have such diverse meanings of ways. So, so some of them are explanatory, some of them are funny, some of them are scary,

• 57:30Speaker 03

  some of them are people also trying to make senses of their own experiences that they don't quite understand. So I think there are so many different elements to them and so many different ways to interpret them in a way, which is also what I find very fascinating. But in Iceland, the stories are very tight to the landscape, I would say.

• 57:54Eleanor Janega?

  Are people in Iceland still this interested in folktales? Like, do they still have the same kind of pull on people in the present day? Or is it just nerds like you and me?

• 58:06Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, I have surrounded me with nerds that are very interested. It'd be hard to tell. But I mean, they are part of curriculums as well. They are taught in school, both as part of like learning about Icelandic society, but also about Icelandic literature and just studying the language, they're very often incorporated into that. So in most, most places in Iceland, I think you will encounter folk legends when you're studying, when you're in school, when you're a child. And they're also part of the entertainment. I mean, we have this huge series of radio shows for children that focus only on folk legends and, and it's inspiration, a lot of writers in Iceland, filmmakers, they draw

• 58:50Speaker 03

  inspiration from the folk legend material. So it is here and there, I would say, we are being reminded of it. And when we travel, museums do a great job as well, mediating this part of our heritage. When you're traveling, you will have these signs with these stories because they are interesting. A lot of them are interesting and they are fun and, and a rock is way cooler when it used to be a troll than if it's just simply a rock. So, I mean, it has become a big part in the tourism industry as well, not only for people that are coming from abroad and visiting, but also just when Icelanders are traveling around their own country.

• 59:30Speaker 03

  So I think it's definitely still a part of our environment. If we look at them differently, definitely, I would think so. But I think also it's important to think that in the past, I don't think either everybody in the 19th century believed all the stories. I also think that they just appreciated the entertainment value of them and that they thought them funny and that they thought they were scary, just as we would watch a horror movie today, I think, to get a little bit frightened, but also being very safe in our homes. So, so there have been changes, but in a same, in a similar way, I think we have to be careful not to look at it as if in the past, everybody believed all the stories

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

  and that that is a recent development, that we look at them as stories, which is of course what they are as well.

• 1:00:20Eleanor Janega?

  This has been such an incredibly fun time to speak with you because I love a spooky story. I love to hear that a rock is a troll. These are things that I too want to hear, just like I presume medieval Icelanders in the 19th century and today. So Dagurnousk, thank you so, so much for coming to talk to me about this.

• 1:00:42Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:00:45Eleanor Janega?

  Thank you so much to Dagurnousk once again for joining me. And thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. If you were interested in some of the topics we mentioned in this episode, you might want to go back and check out our older episodes on the Viking sagas and medieval Iceland. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent documentary with Matt on the rise of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription.

• 1:01:22Eleanor Janega?

  You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.

• 1:01:54Speaker 04

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