The White Falcon - 22.03.1974, Page 12

Ghosts, prophecy and magic
You seem to encounter ghost stories in every
quarter of the world, and Iceland is no different.
Ghosts, prophecy, and magic have long been a part
of the Scandinavian culture, and they survive in
many ways in modern Iceland.
Much of Iceland's attitude toward the super-
natural may well be involved with the history of
religion in the country. When Iceland was first
settled, the bulk of the people were believers in
the old Norse religion. Though most people are
familiar with the myths concerning Odinn, Thor,
Freyr, and the rest, little is known with cer-
tainty about the practice of the old religion.
Animal sacrifice was practiced, and while human
sacrifice is reported, it is generally from
sources who considered the Scandinavians enemies,
and may have been simple propaganda.
Personal gods
One outstanding point is that the early Scan-
dinavians seldom worshipped the entire panoply of
gods, as was the Roman model, but selected one
as their personal god. Thor was the most popu-
lar god among Icelanders, though Freyr, as the god
of fertility, was often the deity of individual
farmers. The old religion allowed for personal
prophecy and miraculous intervention of the gods.
This has caused some problems in the study of
the old Icelandic sagas. Some authorities ques-
tion the factuality of the sagas because of mir-
aculous incidents being reported as true. For in-
stance, in the biography of Olafur Tryggvason,
King of Norway, he had a day-long encounter with
a one-eyed traveler who turns out to be Odinn him-
self. In one of the accounts of the voyages to
Vinland, Gudridur, wife of Thorfinnur Karlsefni,
encounters a vision of herself which later van-
ishes with a loud noise. The same saga contains a
lengthy and detailed account of a form of seance,
conducted to determine the success or failure of
the colonization attempt.
With this tradition being grounded in the old
religion, an abrupt change in the common religion
could drastically modify the belief in ghosts and
prophecy. In many countries, this is exactly what
happened. In Iceland, it was a bit different.
The Christianization of Iceland occurred in the
year 1000 Ad by parliamentary edict. The wording
of the edict, however, specified that it referred
only to Public religious ceremonies. Private wor-
ship of the old gods was permitted and, in fact,
occurred.
Helgi the Lean
As an example, Helgi the Lean, who named his
farm "Christ's Point", is said to have "prayed
unto Christ when on the land, but unto Thor when
on the sea." Thus the old belief was treated with
tolerance as long as it remained private. Over a
quarter of a milleneum later, in 1262, Iceland was
taken over by Norway. The Catholic bishopric at
Nidaros (now called Trondheim) was appalled at the
pagan laxity and tried to eliminate these private
practices. They were not notably successful, as
witnessed by some scholars' opinion that Odinn,
Thor, and company were not eliminated from active
worship before the middle of the 1600's.
Any history of the supernatural must comment on
witches. Once again, the situation is almost u-
nique. Iceland did, in fact, burn witches, and
one canyon at Thingvellir is known as "Burning
Chasm." The point of interest is that they were
all men! The Icelandic language made, and makes
still, a distinction between "Galdramadur"—con-
juring man, and "Spakona"--prophesying woman. The
Spakona, as a figure of respect from the old reli-
gion, was not a witch and was immune from the per-
secution.
The Icelandic prophetess still exists. The
amazing part is that she is usually quite accu-
rate. A part of this may be credited to the fact
that Iceland has a small population and people are
well-known. It may also be that a charlatan would
quickly become known as such, and would no longer
be consulted. The ones who are not truly gifted
in some way drop out, and only the genuine arti-
cle remains.
Prophecy
An example? Most Icelanders can give at least
one example of accurate prophecy from their own
experience, or that of close family. One man was
told, in 1940, that he would be leaving Iceland on
a hazardous sea journey, and would not return for
several years. He figured that the joke was on
the seeress, as he had applied to study in Norway
but, that morning, had received a rejection.
Within a week, he discovered that his name had
been submitted to an American school as well,
without his knowledge, and been accepted. He left
Iceland on the last commercial ship of the war,
spotted two siurfaced U-boats on the way over, and
did not return to Iceland for five years.
Ghost*
Ghosts are not unknown: One of the more recent
and puzzling cases concerns a farm in the north
called Saurbaer. There, in early 1965, strange
noises began occuring in deserted parts of the
house. While this was disturbing enough, it did
not stop there. Before the affair was over, repu-
table witnesses from the University of Iceland had
seen objects fly through the air, had seen a chair
slammed into the wall with enough force to break
it and observed things falling off shelves. No
explanation was ever found, but trickery could not
have been used.
And for the lighter side, when the highway to
Selfoss was under construction, a large boulder
had to be removed from the intended route. Since
such boulders are the traditional homes of elves
in Iceland, the construction workers checked to
see whether there were any local legends about
that particular rock. No one remembered any, but
to be sure that no elves were offended or evicted,
they moved the giant stone rather than blasting.
PS: There have been no complaints from the
elves...
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The White Falcon