Christmas in Iceland - 15.12.1940, Qupperneq 10

One of Iceland's many Ghost stories
THE MAD GIRL AT MIKLIBAER
Somewhere about the beginning of the
nineteenth century the Rev. Oddur Gislason
was the rector of the little parish of Mikla-
baer. At the time of this story he was a wid-
ower, and a young girl called Solveig
looked after him, and managed his
household. But soon the priest found
to his great embarrassment that the
girl Solveig was violently in love with him. In
fact, she went so far as to declare her passion
for him in no uncertain manner, whereupon
he was forced to assure her that he did not
intend to marry again, and that if she could
not restrain herself, she must look for anot-
her situation.
At this, Solveig’s mind, never very strong
gave way completely, and she threatened to
commit suicide. That it was not an idle threat
seems to be indicated by the fact that a close
watch had to be kept on her lest she carri-
ed it out. At night one of the women, Gu5-
laug Bjornsdottir, slept in the same room, to
ensure that she did not do herself some harm,
and during the day all the members of the
household united to keep an eye on “Mad Sol-
veig”, as they called her.
However, their efforts were in vain, because
one evening, just as it was getting dusk, Sol-
veig managed to get out of the house, and
run to an old ruined building in the home-
field. A farm hand named borsteinn, “a loose
fellow but a good worker”, as the old ac-
count has it, noticed her leave the house,
but so quickly did she act that by the
time he had caught up with her she
had cut her throat, and was lying in a
pool of blood. According to story, when bor-
steinn saw her he stared at her in an awes-
truck way, “The devil’s got her at last!”
There was still enough life left for her to
be able to whisper a few words, and with her
last breath the poor distracted girl told bor-
steinn to ask the priest to bury her in con-
secrated ground. This message borsteinn took
to the rector, but when the rector applied to
8
his superiors for permission to carry out the
dead girl’s last wish, he was told that this
could not be done, as she had taken her own
life. So “Mad Solveig” was buried in uncon-
secrated ground, and without the old hymns
that she had so dearly wanted to have sung
over her grave. That night “Mad Solveig”
appeared for the first time.
She came to the rector in a dream, look-
ing, as he reported, “mighty angry” and said
to him: “As you will not let me rest in con-
secrated ground, I promise that you will not
either”. Then she vanished.
But not for long. The rector soon found
that he could hardly stir a foot out of the
house at night without “Mad Solveig” mak-
ing her presence felt, and matters soon reach-
ed such a pass that the parish saw that if
the rector was to be saved from a they org-
anised a system of escorts, ensuring that
whenever the rector’s duties called him out
at nights, there would always be somebody
to accompany him.
One day, however, the rector had to make
a longish journey at night on hoseback, to an
outlying part of the parish. He had his escort,
as usual, so his household were not uneasy.
Eventually, late at night, those who were
sitting up for him heard a knocking at the
door. It should have been the rector; in fact,
it must have been the rector; but none of the
people inside the house moved, execpt for the
stirring of the hair at the base of their spines,
as they heard that queer sound, half knock,
half frantic scrabbling, “like as if a dog were
trying to push the door open”, as one of the
women put it afterwards.
At any rate, the door must have opened
somehow, for then they heard the rector
running up the stairs to his bedroom. But
he never reached the door. They heard a ter-
rible cry, “Let go!” and then the sound of
someone falling headlong down the stairs.
That broke the spell, and with one accord
they all rushed out, expecting to see their
CHRISTMAS IN ICELAND