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the Day of Judgment (cf. JJ �fl 416 17). Some dream-legends circu-
lated orally, such as that of Steinn of fir�: uvangur (cf. p. 133 above). But
all this stuff was alien to the stories of revenants which sprang as one
might say from people s everyday experiences of the departed.
I cannot see that belief in revenants changed a great deal in Iceland
from the beginning, if we exclude the belief in attendant spirits, which
will be referred to later (pp. 187 88, 201). The main concepts are still
the same, just as loosely linked, and superstitions and taboos seem not
to have changed much either.1 We hear of revenants in ancient times
who were entirely physical and immensely powerful, such as Gl�mr
in Grettis saga or fiórólfr Club-foot in Eyrbyggja saga. They try to
smash everything they come in contact with. fiórólfr dies in an evil
mood, with threats of causing harm which he fulfils only too well. We
read in LaxdSla saga that Gu: r�n �sv�frsdóttir saw the phantom of
her fourth husband, fiorkell Eyjólfsson, when he was drowned in
Hvammsfj�r: ur, and I cannot see that there is any difference between
this and later ghost stories. In the same saga a dead prophetess appears
to Herd�s in a dream, and complains about Gu: r�n s prayers. The ghosts
of exposed children can be quite vindictive, as the story of Selkolla,
the ghost put down by Bishop Gu: mundr the Good, shows. It is im-
material that the story claims that an evil spirit entered the child; that
was the ecclesiastical explanation, and ordinary people saw it quite
differently.2 I do not know any stories of the ghosts of exposed infants
from pagan Iceland, but it is likely that they existed; there were plenty
of children exposed in that period, and stories about them were com-
mon in Scandinavia later on.3 Ancient stories of revenants and their
treasure are rather different from ones told in later times. Hidden treas-
ure appears in various legends, but ghosts are not involved. Treasure
was, however, often buried with people, for their benefit in the after-
life, whether in the grave-mound or in Valh�ll. As time passed these
1
On what follows cf. Sluijter 1936, 61 94; Dehmer 1927, 26 50.
2
BS I 604 08; cf. �rna saga biskups, �F XVII 23.
3
C. W. von Sydow, Sveriges och Finlands svenska folks�gner , NK IX B
128; Reidar Th. Christiansen and Knut Liest�l, Norske folkesegner , NK IX
B 164; Juha Pentik�inen, The Nordic dead-child tradition, Nordic dead-child
beings, 1968 (FFC 202); Bo Almqvist, Ni: a(a)gr�sur. The Faroese dead-child
being , Arv 1971, 112 14.
186 THE FOLK-STORIES OF ICELAND
ideas faded rather. The mound-dweller of fornaldar s�gur is very hos-
tile and evil, but is not as pathetic as the ghosts of misers in later times
(typified in English fictional ghost stories by Marley s ghost in A Christ-
mas Carol). There are, also, in the sagas, legends of men who throw
themselves and their money into waterfalls or into the sea, like B�i
digri and Gull-fiórir. They turn into dragons. It is only in later times
that the miser s ghost is miserable because of the treasure he has bur-
ied. This idea reflects the hostility of Christians and the objection of
the community to money being withdrawn from its proper use in this
world. It is against the law of nature for anyone to benefit from it after
death, when it ought to pass to others. Poverty has made such behav-
iour seem contemptible, and at the same time given this motif a new
lease of life as a secret desire.
Though there seems to be no evidence of a desire for novelty as far
as a belief in revenants goes, and though notions about them seem to
have been fairly static most of the time, yet it is possible that the number
of ghosts and ghost stories was not always as high. How far people
become aware of ghosts and what they are like may depend on pure
chance (presumably the immediate environment of the ghost is the
most important factor), but the volume of ghost stories and how pow-
erful they are will be less a matter of chance. It will presumably de-
pend on the spirit of the age and the power of belief in ghosts at the
time. Many ghost-stories take place in heathen times, and though they
were admittedly not written down until the thirteenth century, they
obviously sprang from ancient roots. One cannot tell how far they
have been exaggerated in the course of transmission. The fact that
ghost stories could not be kept off the vellum by critically-minded
men when the sagas were being written down shows the persistence
of belief in ghosts, but I am afraid that it is largely an accident how
few new ghost stories appear in eleventh- and twelfth-century sources.
Selkolla (BS I 604 08, II 77 82) and the revenant at Sv�nafell (BS I 467)
show that not everyone rested quietly at the time. Then there follows a
great gap during which sources are so scanty that they mention only
the merest traces of hauntings. It is not until around 1600 that histori-
cal documents become so extensive as to provide a sample large enough
for serious testing. Non-Icelandic writers of the sixteenth century make
a great deal of Icelanders belief in revenants and ghosts, but only a limi-
ted number of ghost-stories turn up in Jón Egilsson s Biskupaann�lar
FOLK-BELIEF AND FOLK-LEGENDS 187
(Didrik von Minden s posthumous tricks, the killing of horses and cows
and the haunting by Severin of Kirkjuból; Safn I 72, 99). Jón l�r: i s
little work Um �ttir og slekti and the Rev. Jón Gizurarson s treatise on
the Reformation (Safn I 640 701) contain no ghost stories, and this is
significant. I presume from this that fear of ghosts was at a pretty low
ebb in the last years of Catholicism in Iceland, and that it is likely that
the Church s many remedies kept this fear at bay. This changed consi-
derably with the advent of Lutheranism, as we shall see in what follows.1
Contemporary sources from 1600 onwards bear witness to quite a
lot of haunting, from Gvendur loki and the Snj�fj�ll ghost (cf. pp. 87,
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