English - Museum guide

Museum of Icelandic

Sorcery and Witchcraft

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A fascinating and unusual museum in Strandir, NW Iceland

Strandagaldur ses - 2010 Galdrasýning á Ströndum - galdrasyning@holmavik.is - www.galdrasyning.is

1.

At the beginning of the 17th century the period of Reformation was over in Iceland. What commenced was a century which until recently has drawn little attention from historians.

For decades prosecutions for witchcraft and sorcery dominated the courts and it was generally believed that the devil himself roamed the earth taking an active part in the lives of humans. Many of the clergymen and sheriffs who were most active in the prosecutions had studied in Denmark and Northern-Germany and their attitude was markedly different from the old superstitious ways that the common man used to help himself in a fight for survival in a harsh and in many ways a primitive environment.

Since the persecutions and burnings for witchcraft the region of Strandir has been regarded in folklore as the home of the cunning, and we hope you will enjoy this exhibition about the region’s unique heritage of superstition, folklore and the history of the seventeenth century.

2.

The shield of arms for the county of Strandir is the magical sign Ægishjálmur (The Helm of Awe or The Helm of Ægir, the god of the sea).

This sign is mentioned in the old Eddic poetry and in various forms it is found in most of the old grimoires.

“Carve the Ægishjálmur on a piece of lead and press it on your forehead between the eyebrows. This will ensure victory against any foe. The sign is also a secure defence against the anger of authorities.”

3.

It has always been desirable to have the power to make yourself invisible. Tales have been told of persons who could achieve this, some who used an enchanted stone made out of a raven’s egg. Others carved the magic sign Hulinhjálmur on a piece of surtarbrandur ( lignite; the Icelandic word means “the brand of Surtur” the god of fire). The preparation of the ink was the most difficult task.

“Collect three drops of blood from the index finger of your left hand, three from the ring finger of your right hand, two from your right nipple, and one from your left nipple. Mix the blood with six drops of blood from the heart of a living raven and melt it all with the raven’s brain and pieces of a human stomach.

Carve the sign on the lignite with magnetic steel which has been hardened three times in human blood.”

4.

Iceland has always been on the periphery of European history and proceedings against witchcraft and sorcery lie almost entirely within the framework of the 17th century and reached their height between 1654 and 1680. The recorded cases are marked with the magical sign Ægishjálmur and cases ending in a burning with flames.

On the left are shown some events in European history and Icelandic events on the right.

5.

Looking at the map of Iceland shows clearly that the heaviest concentration is in the Westfjords. This is especially interesting in conjunction with the genealogical table upstairs.

6.

In former times all Icelandic wealth was concentrated in land ownership and in the Westfjords one family of semi-nobles owned almost all the land. The common man had almost no chance of acquiring wealth except by supernatural means. Among many ways the grimoires mention to achieve this is to catch the carnivorous sea mouse (Aphrodita aculeata).

Carve the sign Hringhjálmur (Ring Helm) on the skin of a black tomcat with the menstrual blood of a virgin. Catch a sea mouse in a net made out of a virgin’s hair and keep it on the hair in a wooden box.

The Hringhjálmur must be laid over the mouse to prevent it escaping. If a stolen coin is laid in the box the sea mouse will draw money from the ocean. If the sea mouse escapes it will dive into the ocean and cause a storm that will be extremely dangerous and devastating and cause the loss if many human lives.

77..

A number of persons were brought to court for attempts at healing. One vellum exists from the 17th century which has been used for this purpose. The strip of skin was wrapped around the patient’s ailing body part, and on it are written various invocations in Icelandic and Latin, some with Christian overtones, others less so.

8.

One of the most difficult feats mentioned in Icelandic grimoires and folk tales is undoubtedly the nábrók (literally: necropants). This is another tool to gather wealth by supernatural means. To begin with the sorcerer has to make a pact with a living man and get his permission to dig up his dead body and skin it from the waist down. The skin must be completely intact with no holes or scratches.

The sorcerer then steps into the skin which will immediately become one with his own.

A coin must be stolen from a poor widow, either at Christmas, Easter, or Whitsun, and kept in the scrotum. It will then draw money from living persons and the scrotum will never be empty when the sorcerer checks.

However, his spiritual well being is at risk unless he gets rid of the necropants before he dies. If he dies with the pants on his body will become infested with lice as soon as he passes away. The sorcerer must therefore find somebody that is willing to take the pants and put his leg into the right leg before the sorcerer steps out of the left one. The pants will keep on drawing money for generations of owners.

The necropants

9.

Methods to create storms are quite common in Icelandic grimoires and stories about those who did so are many in folktales. Sudden heavy storms were extremely dangerous for fishermen out at sea in their tiny boats and a couple of men were prosecuted in the early 18th century for trying to whip up storms. In the Grimoires this magic usually involved the head of a ling, a delicious but evil looking fish. The method is described as follows: Take the head of a ling and carve the stave Vindgapi on it and with a raven’s feather apply blood from the right foot into the stave. Put the head on a pole and raise it were land meets sea, point the mouth in the direction you want the wind to blow from and the higher the mouth is pointing the more forceful the wind you call will be. Around 1800 a man was exiled from the region of Strandir after two boats were lost in a heavy storm.

Among the debris found on the coast was a head of a ling with a stave on it and some runes on a piece of wood stuck in its mouth. This was thought to be the work of a man named Hermann who was driven from the area without trial.

10.

The traditional view of the men of Strandir being more cunning than other Icelanders is reflected in this ditty from one of the neighbouring counties.

The hero fell on his head, His limbs in pain.

It is unwise to wrestle With the sorcerers of Strandir.

11.

The first man burned at the stake for witchcraft in Iceland was Jón Rögnvaldsson from Svarfaðardalur in Northern Iceland. He was accused of having brought a dead man from his grave and sent him to do mischief to his foe. This man swore that Jón was the cause of all his misfortunes and Jón’s guilt was thought proven when some papers with runes and magic characters were found in his bed. The sheriff in Eyjafjörður was a young man who had recently returned from studying in Copenhagen and Hamburg and he wasted no time on further proceedings and promptly had Jón burned. This was in 1625. The case was never referred to the legislative assembly at Þingvellir.

Numerous tales of raising the dead are found in Icelandic folk tales and the people of Strandir seem to have excelled in dealing with ghosts sent to them. They also had the knowledge of how to raise the dead and one of the more famous sorcerers in Strandir in the eighteenth century even demonstrated to his sheriff how this was done. Perhaps he used the following formula though other signs and other ways are known for the same purpose.

“This sign you should carve on oak and then colour it with blood. The blood must be from the big toe of your right foot and the thumb of your left hand. Lay the sign on the grave and then walk three times clockwise and three times anticlockwise around the church. Three spurts of earth will then spew from the grave and at the last one the sorcerer must be prepared to receive the dead. Grab the ghost by his neck and squeeze until he asks for lenience. Only then should the ghost be prepared for the tasks in hand. If these be great and many more preparation is needed and more than one sorcerer.”

12.

The witches’ broom was unknown in Iceland, as were stories of Sabbaths. A future part of the exhibition will deal with the influence of witch-hunting in Europe on events in Icelandic history.

13.

One of the more striking things about Icelandic magic and the seventeenth century persecutions is how few women are involved. It must be assumed that magic and sorcery were a man’s occupation. To make and use a tilberi or snakkur is one of very few magical tasks executed solely by women.

One source mentions an execution for keeping a tilberi late in the 16th century, but in 1635 a woman in the south-west was rumoured to have one which she supposedly had inherited from her mother. Because of the rumour the local clergymen thought it unwise to allow the two women to partake in the sacrament. Eventually the matter was looked into by the sheris and bishops who decided that no evidence supported the rumour.

To acquire a tilberi the woman has to steal a human rib from a churchyard in the early hours of Whitsunday, wrap it in gray wool and keep it between her breasts. The next three times she takes Holy Communion she must spit the sacramental wine over the bundle. The third spurt of holy wine will bring the tilberi to life. When the it grows larger and the “mother” can no longer conceal it in her bosom she must cut loose a piece of skin on the inside of her thigh and make a nipple which the tilberi will hang on to, and draw nourishment from her body fluids.

The creature moves very fast over the fields and steals milk from sheep and cows and delivers it into the “mother’s” churn. If the sign smjörhnútur (butterknot) is carved on butter made from this milk, it will fall into little pieces. A man, born shortly before 1900 in Strandir, claimed to have seen such remnants up on the mountains. When the “mother” gets older the tilberi becomes too big a burden for her and she can no longer tolerate his sucking of the thigh nipple. She then has to order him to gather all the lamb droppings in three counties. This will cause the tilberi to burst of exhaustion, because he cannot constrain himself and is constantly in a hurry to get back to his nipple. The other way to exterminate it is to shoot it with a silver button marked with the butterknot.

14.

In grimoires and folk tales many stories tell of how to deal with thieves and find out who has stolen from you. A few persons admitted to using charms to these ends during the height of the persecutions in the 17th century.

One way to find out who has stolen is to carve a sign with a splinter of basalt rock on the bottom of a wash basin. Then spread ashes from burnt clay into the lines and then fill the basin with water. The thief ’s face will appear in the water. It is stated in a document from the late nineteen hundreds that the men of Strandir still knew how to do this. The Thorshammer was an even more potent tool if somebody stole from you because the correct use ensured that the stolen goods were returned.

A Thorshammer must be made from copper from a churchbell, thrice stolen. Harden the hammer in human blood during mass on Whitsunday. Then make a sharpened pick

from the same material and hammer it into the working end of the hammer while reciting: “Piercing the eye of Vígfaðir, piercing the eye of Valfaðir (both are names of Óðinn), piercing the eye of mighty Thor.”

This will cause a devastating pain in the thief ’s eye. If he does not return the stolen goods repeat the process and the thief will lose one eye. If a third attempt is necessary he will lose the other one.

15.

The number of Icelanders burned for witchcraft in the 17th century is still being debated. These 21 were undoubtedly burned and it is worth noticing that only one woman is among them (nr.19). The list shows the year of their execution, where they were burnt and for what. Notice that apart from the first man burnt in 1625 the craze starts with three men burned in Trékyllisvík, the northern most community in Strandir. Most of the people on the list confessed to some evil wrongdoing, possessing and/or using magical runes and symbols being the most common thing. Some never

1. Jón Rögnvaldsson - burnt 1652 Burnt in Eyjafjörður, north Iceland, for raising a ghost and possessing papers with runic characters. Denied all accusations.

2. Þórður Guðbrandsson - burnt 1654 Burnt in Trékyllisvík, Strandir, for causing strange occurances in the community. After imprisonment he confessed that he had met the devil in the guise of a fox and sent it to Trékyllisvík.

3. Egill Bjarnason - burnt 1654 Burnt in Trékyllisvík, Strandir, after confessing that he had killed a sheep with magic and made a contract with the devil.

4. Grímur Jónsson - burnt 1654 Burnt in Trékyllisvík, Strandir, after confessing that he knew magic runes and had killed a sheep with a magic character.

5. Jón Jónsson sen. - burnt 1656 Burnt in Skutulsfjörður, Westfjords, admitted in custody that he owned grimoires and that he had used them against the rev. Jón Magnússon.

6. Jón Jónsson jun. - burnt 1656 Burnt in Skutulsfjörður. Admitted having used magical signs and among other things, having used farting-runes (Fretrúnir) against a girl, and caused the sickness of the rev. Jón Magnússon.

7. Þórarinn Halldórsson - burnt 1667 From Ísafjarðarsýsla, the Westfjords. Burnt at the general assembly at Þingvellir. Admitted that he had carved helms of awe (Ægishjálmur) on oak and practiced healing with the aid of magical signs.

8. Jón Leifsson - burnt 1669 Burnt in Barðastrandarsýsla in the Westfjords for having caused the illness of Helga, wife of the rev. Páll Björnsson in Selárdalur. Admitted that he had tried to gain some knowledge of the occult.

9. Erlendur Eyjólfsson - burnt 1669 Burnt in Húnavatnssýsla county in north Iceland for having taught Jón Leifsson magic. Admitted that he had handed Jón a stave named Ausukross.

10. Sigurður Jónsson - burnt 1671 Burnt in Þingvellir after a trial in Ísafjarðarsýsla county. Admitted among other things that he had fought a ghost and frightened it off with the help of herbs and his own semen.

11. Páll Oddsson - burnt 1674 From Húnavatnssýsla county, burnt at Þingvellir. Denied all knowledge of magic but was convicted because of rumours against him.

12. Böðvar Þorsteinsson - burnt 1674 Burnt at Þingvellir after having admitted that he had prevented a ship in Snæfellsnes from fishing.

13. Magnús Bjarnason - burnt 1675 Admitted that he had caused the sickness of Helga, Páll Björnsson’s wife, in Selárdalur, Westfjords.

14. Lassi Diðriksson - burnt 1675 Condemned in connection with the sickness of Helga in Selárdalur, denied all charges and was generally thought innocent. Burnt at Þingvellir.

15. Bjarni Bjarnason - burnt 1677 Supposed to have caused a woman’s illness in the Westfjords. Denied all charges but was burnt at Þingvellir.

16. Þorbjörn Sveinsson - burnt 1677 A marked thief who was found in possession of magical signs. Admitted that he had used sorcery to try to find out who had stolen from him and to make sheep easier to handle. From Mýrasýsla county in the West, burnt at Þingvellir.

17. Stefán Grímsson - burnt 1678 Admitted freely after a death sentence was passed, though none of the things he was accused of. Burnt in Húnavatnssýsla county.

18. Þuríður Ólafsdóttir - burnt 1678 Mother of Jón Helgason, burnt for the same offence on the words of the rev.

Páll Björnsson. For having caused the sickness of Helga in Selárdalur. She was the only woman in Iceland burned for witchcraft.

19. Jón Helgason - burnt 1678 Burnt in Barðastrandarsýsla county in the Westfjords for having caused the sickness of Helga in Selárdalur.

20. Ari Pálsson - burnt 1681 From Barðastrandarsýsla where he was rumoured to have practiced magic, burnt at Þingvellir after failing to get his peers to swear his innocence. After conviction he admitted to knowing how to find out if a woman was a virgin.

21. Sveinn Árnason - burnt 1683 Burnt in Arngerðareyri in the Westfjords for having caused an illness which the daughter of Páll and Helga in Selárdalur suffered from.

confessed anything but were burned all the same. The three at the bottom are among the debateable cases; the first was hanged for attempted rape but had a previous sentence for among other things dabbling in the occult and there it was stated that with the next offence he had forfeited his life, the second was beheaded with much difficulty for incest, but when magical signs and implements were found in his shoes his body was burned, and the third openly admitted worshipping the devil and repeatedly recited his prayers to Lucifer to the courts, but he was burned for blasphemy, not witchcraft.

16.

Þorbjörn Sveinsson was whipped and branded for theft in 1672. Five years later, a new sheriff took office in Mýrasýsla in the west of Iceland, a sheriff who when studying at the cathedral school at Skálholt had accused a priest for sorcery. The crux of that whole affair was rivalry over a woman.

In the spring of 1677 this same sheriff searched Þorbjörn and found he had a pouch which contained three small grimoires and strips of skin, all with strange letters and pictures. In one of the grimoires was found a piece of lead with magical signs. Further objects of the same kind were found in Þorbjörn’s bed and his fate was sealed. All the evidence was taken to the national assembly at Thingvellir and there Þorbjörn repeated his confession where he admitted that he had tried to find out who had stolen from him and also used an invocation to make his sheep easier to handle. For this Þorbjörn was burnt at the stake on the 4th of July 1677.

17.

Cases of witchcraft and sorcery were defined as criminal cases and at the local courts the sheriff called upon 12 people to sit with him in court. Usually the accused was given the option of clearing his name by getting the majority of 12 peers to swear his innocence.

Failing to do this was regarded as proof of his guilt. In a justice system of this kind unpopular people with bad reputations had very little chance of clearing their names.

The most common punishment for dabbling in sorcery or magic was whipping and in some instances people were whipped “just in case” though no charges had been proved against them. In all probability whips made of branches of willow or birch were used in Iceland. Some culprits were whipped “as heavily as their bodies can endure”, sometimes both at the althing and again later when they returned to their own community. Jón Pálsson from Kaldrananes north of Hólmavík was whipped for possessing a grimoire of nine pages. While the whip was working on his back his evil writings were burned under his nose to prevent him from attempting any sorcery in the future. At the end of the 17th century the convicts could pay a fine instead of being whipped.

18.

The heaviest sentence possible in criminal cases, to be burnt at the stake, was dealt out 21 times. In all probability these persons, 20 males and 1 woman, were burnt alive.

Three times the sources mention that the culprits tried to escape from the fire, the ropes having burnt through before they lost consciousness. One of them shouted repeatedly from the flames: See my innocence! A source from the 18th century tells that as much scrubwood as 20 horses could carry was necessary to burn a person at Thingvellir. A clergyman in the Westfjords that got a father and son burnt in 1656 mentions that all the firewood was taken from the home of the convicts. In all probability driftwood was used to burn the three convicts in Trékyllisvík in Strandir in 1654.

19.

Sentences were carried out by an executioner whose task was to whip the convicts, hang, behead and burn. At the local courts it was the sheriffs’ task to find suitable persons for the job, but fairly soon it became the custom to let minor criminals do the job in exchange for their own punishment. Only men seem to have had this job in Iceland and it is evident from the sources that some of them were not up to the task. The annals describe the beheading of Jón Jónsson Ríðumaður thus: More than thirty blows were necessary before his head came off because the edge of the axe wound up as if a rock was underneath it. The executioners had to swear a solumn oath before taking on the job.

20.

Genealogy has always been a popular science in Iceland. The names of people involved in cases of magic and sorcery in the 17th century fall into two categories.

On the one hand are the upper class of sheriffs and clergymen, people we know something about and on the other hand the lower class persons who only appear as names in the sources. The genealogy of the former has long been known and most Icelanders today can find that they are remotely related to these persons. Some of the sheriffs whose court records are the most important sources about the period also wrote annals that tell of the same events.

The genealogical table here is meant to show how most of those who feature in court cases during the entire 17th century were members of the same family of seminobles. This is especially true of the Westfjords where Magnús Jónsson the Courteous became sheriff in the late 1500’s. He had six sons and six daughters and the majority of his male offspring served as sheriffs during the 17th century. His daughters married sheriffs either in the Westfjords or in other parts of Iceland. Included in the table are

most of those that judged cases of witchcraft, a fair number of accusers, and most of those who wrote treatises against sorcery and magic. The symbols beside the names show how these people are linked to the witch-huntings in Iceland: The Orange fist means that the person was or had the power of sheriff and judge in a case of witchcraft or sorcery.

The Blue pointing finger means that the person was an accused someone of witchcraft or sorcery.

The Red Ægishjálmur means that the person was accused of witchcraft or sorcery.

The Green Ægishjálmur means that according to contemporary sources or later tales the person was rumoured to have knowledge of the occult.

The Gray triangle means that the person married within the family and the name can be found in two places on the table.

It is interesting that almost all of the males of the family before the 17th century were believed to be practicing magicians and that the line descended from Egill SkallaGrímsson, the hero of one of the Icelandic sagas who among other things used magic against his foe the king of Norway. Another point of interest is the fact that many of those active in the fight against sorcery had studied in Denmark and Northern Germany before occupying themselves with witch-huntings in Iceland.

21.

Jón Guðmundsson was born in the northern part of Strandir in 1574. He was a self-educated son of a common farmer, known for his criticism of contemporary events, a man of all trades who studied ancient manuscripts and books, an artisan and painter who was renowned for his artistry in carving whale teeth, and by modern standards extremely superstitious. Few of his contemporaries wrote as much and in as many fields as he. His speciality was nature and knowledge of medicinal plants and evidently he practiced medicine to some extent. Jón was brought up in Ófeigsfjörður and spent

his youth there and in the area around Hólmavík where he married in 1600.

Among the stories from the area he tells is one about a certain Árni who swam out to a skerry, which now is part of Hólmavík harbour, to gather eggs, but on the way a seal attacked him. Árni crawled up on a beach where he died. The building you are presently in stands on the very same spot.

Jón Guðmundsson became famous when he succeeded in getting rid of ghosts which had made the farm Snjáfjöll almost inhabitable. For this purpose he wrote long poems against the ghost, both of which still exist and are among the most powerful of its kind in Icelandic literature. This meant popularity among the common men but Jón had to leave the Westfjords after criticising the all powerful sheriff Ari í Ögri for killing Basque whalers who had lost their ships in a storm in 1615. Jón moved to Snæfellsnes but eventually a local clergyman there wrote a treatise against Jón and his teachings of medicine and later Jón was accused of witchcraft. His case came before the parliament at Thingvellir where he was judged guilty. The sentence was outlawry from the country but Jón sailed to Copenhagen and with the help of scholars obtained a retrial from the king.

Back in Iceland his case was tried again but with the same result, fortunately a number of influential men, among them the bishop and scholar Brynjólfur Sveinsson, saw to it that he was allowed to live peacefully for the rest of his days in the east.

The list of Jón’s known writings shows how varied his interests were. Apart from the aforementioned invocative poems and his medical books he wrote an annal of the history of Greenland, his version of the events leading to the slaying of the Basque whalers, explanations to Snorri’’s Edda and an illustrated essay on Iceland’s natural history with drawings of the different species of whales. The graveyard picture is a miniature from a book he copied when in his twenties.

22.

The reverend Páll Björnsson (1621-1706), pastor in Selárdalur in Arnarfjörður, was considered one of the most learned men in Iceland in his time. He wrote famous sermons, a treatise on navigation and he also wrote Greek and Latin fluently and corresponded with scholars in Europe. In 1674 he wrote a treatise on magic which he named Character bestiae in which he drew heavily on the Malleus malleficorum. Icelanders could now study the demonology of the European church and become acquainted with ideas about witchcraft which had very few similarities with Icelandic sorcery. Páll’s half brother was then the sheriff of the county Barðastrandarsýsla and known to pursue cases of witchcraft with more zeal than his contemporaries.

In 1669 Páll’s wife Helga fell ill with a strange sickness that caused her to be bedridden for more than six months and at the same time a ghost went rampage at their home.

Helga decided that the cause of all this was a young man named Jón Leifsson whom she had refused permission to marry one of her maids. He was promptly seized by the sheriff and burnt after admitting that he had sought some knowledge of the occult and named a man Erlendur as his teacher. Páll wrote to the authorities and claimed that Erlendur was the devil’s sack and source of all evil in the parish. Páll’s words were of course taken seriously and Erlendur was burnt later that same year.

Five years later Helga fell ill again and as did two of her sons, and as a result two men were burnt. One of them was generally thought to be innocent but Helga’s brother in law, the sheriff, pushed the sentence through the legislative assembly at Thingvellir. In 1678 Helga suffered again and two more bonfires were lit, one of them under the only woman to suffer that fate in Iceland.

In 1683 still another man, Sveinn Árnason, was burned because of accusations by a member of the family. This time the sickness came on Helga’s and Páll’s daughter whom contemporary sources call nervous and extremely fond of drink. This turned out to be the last execution for sorcery and magic in Iceland.

23.

A case which ended with a father and son being burnt at the stake in 1656 is probably the best known in Icelandic history. The priest at Eyri (the present town of Ísafjörður) accused them of having caused a strange sickness which he endured. After being held in custody for a number of months both the father and the son admitted that they had some knowledge of sorcery. After they were executed the priest Jón Magnússon was awarded all their possessions as compensation.

This did not satisfy the priest and he started proceedings against the daughter of the family. It seems that the authorities, both local and national, had had enough of the clergyman’s hysteria and the daughter was allowed to swear her innocence. The reverend Jón then decided to write a book in which he recounts his side of the whole process and this work is the reason why the case is so well known. His descriptions of his illness make it a unique document but as a historical source it must be treated with utmost care. On the other hand it has considerable literary merits.

Various explanations for the illness as described by the reverend Jón have been put forward by modern scholars. One of them is malnutrition, another an attack of serious influenza, and finally the consumption of corn infected by hallucinogenic fungi.

24.

In 1652 reports started circulating about a strange illness afflicting the people of Trékyllisvík, the northermost community in Strandir. One contemporary annal describes an evil spirit or demon which caused disturbances and turmoil especially in the church during mass. When the sermon was read it would shoot down women’s throats and cause much belching and swelling of the stomach. Virgins were more prone than others to this behaviour, and sometimes up to 12 women had to be carried out of the church, foaming at the mouth.

That same year a new sheriff, Þorleifur Kortsson, took office in Strandir. He had studied tailoring in Hamburg but had recently returned to Iceland and married into the most powerful family in the Westfjords. He arrived on the scene in the spring of 1654 to investigate and soon found that one man, Þórður Guðbrandsson, was thought to have

caused this.

In Thingvellir that summer he asked the parliement how he should respond if the strange occurrences continued in Trékyllisvík and Þórður would be unable to get enough witnesses to swear his innocence. In September he rode back to Trékyllisvík and eventually Þórður admitted having seen the devil in the shape of a fox and sent him to Trékyllisvík. Another man, Egill Bjarnason admitted that he had killed a sheep with sorcery and that he could get the devil to do whatever he wished. These two were burned on the same fire on the 20th of September. A third man had been mentioned as a possible magician during the proceedings and he was now brought to court. Among other things he admitted that he had driven the resident from the farm of Reykjarfjörður with the aid of magic runes. He was burnt at the stake on the 25th of September. The place of execution is a strange inlet called Kista (The Chest) on the coast of Trékyllisvík between the farms of Litla-Ávík and Finnbogastaðir.

In spite of the fires the people of Trékyllisvík found little relief. The next person to be accused was Margrét, daughter of the aforementioned Þórður. She fled the parish but was sentenced to clear her name with an oath. After a long delay she finally managed to do this in 1662 but in the meantime she had borne a child to a clergyman who had kept her hidden in another parish of the Westfjords . Margrét was considered not guilty by many people but in later folktales she became the archetypal evil woman. The people of Trékyllisvík experienced the same strange happenings throughout the century and reports of disturbances at mass are found in annals until hard winters at the end of the 17th century pushed all other news into the background.

25.

Grimoires and magical signs of one kind or another appear in around the third of witchcraft cases which came to court in Iceland. Even though possessing such writings was a capital offence in the 17th century, a number of them have survived to the present day. Others were copied and exist in manuscripts from the nineteenth century and some from the first decades of the twentieth.

The contents of these grimoires vary. Some of the early ones can in part hardly be

distinguished from medical books of the late Middle Ages. A large part of them are a collection of signs and symbols, some imported while others seem to have some relation to the ancient runic alphabets and many feature invocation to the ancient gods of Northern Europe, Óðinn, Þór and others.

No systematic research of these grimoires has been carried out and hardly any have been published.

On display are photos of a few examples, the oldest are vellum manuscripts from ca, 1600 and the youngest a copy made early in the 20th century.

26.

Klemus Bjarnason lived in the area around Hólmavík and was charged with sorcery and evil-doing in 1690 and sentenced to death by fire. Judging from the available material Klemus was not a very popular man but the original accusation concerned a piece of driftwood which he was rumoured to have stolen. Klemus didn’t care for the accusations and swore according to witnesses that he would revenge himself if found guilty. His neighbours saw evidence of his powers in the fact that at least two women fell ill after he uttered the threat and Klemus was promptly accused of witchcraft. It wasn’t until he had been judged guilty and was on his way to Thingvellir that Klemus recited for the sheriff an invocation to prevent foxes harming sheep and for this he was condemned to death.

His luck was that while awaiting sentence the king had issued a decree stating that all capital offences must be put to the newly installed Supreme Court in Copenhagen.

Consequently the sentence was changed into one of exile and Klemus died in prison in Copenhagen a year later.

Invocations and charms against the arctic fox are numerous in grimoires and folklore. This sequence of characters was to be carved on oak which then was either tied to the wool on the neck of the sheep or put under the threshold of the sheep house. Evidently foxes were a real threat to the livelihood of the people of Strandir since they are a

feature in a number of cases in the area.

A map of the area inside the museum shows how people on farms all around Steingrímsfjörður were involved in the case, some sitting in court, others appearing as witnesses. The present inhabitants will have little difficulty in tracing their ancestry to some of these persons.

27.

In a special room on the other side of the reception the museum proudly presents a remarkable stone which is the only object ever found that can be connected with sacrifices to the old Viking gods. It is a stone bowl found in a remote valley where legend says the old religion was practiced long after Christianity came to Iceland. A poster in English in the corridor tells of the discovery and forensic tests carried out to ascertain that remnants of blood are still in the bowl.

28.

In 2005 the second part of the Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft was opened at Klúka in Bjarnarfjörður, 25km. north of Hólmavík. It is called Kotbýli Kuklarans or The Sorcerer’s Cottage and is dedicated to the poor tenants of the 17th century, how they lived in traditional turf houses and the magic they practiced to make life in a harsh environment more tolerable. Most of those accused of witchcraft came from this class of people.

A visit to the Sorcerer’s Cottage will give you an idea why people sought the aid of magic and should not be missed.

Thank you.