Medieval Ghost Stories

by Andrew Joynes

  The Ghost of Anant

  Book V, Chap. XXIV

  Asimilar occurrence, of a still more pernicious nature, happened at the castle of Anant. I was told about it by an elderly and distinguished churchman of that district who remembered the events themselves. These concern a certain man of poor conduct from the province of York who, whether out of fear of the law or of his enemies, approached the lord of the castle and sought refuge there. As it turned out, his character was such that he was thought suitable to act as some kind of official in the castle retinue, and so he set about enlarging his wealth rather than correcting his earlier misdeeds. He took a wife in marriage, and this turned out to be his undoing, for something she said to him led him to be vexed by jealousy. Wishing to know the truth about her fidelity, he arranged to be away for some days on business. Secretly, however, he came back again that night and, with the help of a maid-servant, hid himself in the bedroom of the house, lying out along a beam in the roof so that he could see for himself whatever offences his wife might be prepared to commit against her marital vows. When he saw his wife making love to their young neighbour, the man was so angry that he fell off the beam and crashed down between them. The young adulterer ran off, and the dissembling wife gently and craftily attended to her fallen husband. He coldly turned his back upon her, accused her of betraying him and threatened her with punishment.

  ‘But my lord,’ she said, ‘you are speaking nonsense. These are imaginings caused by a disease with which you have been afflicted.’ And so, shaking violently from the effects of the fall, and with his whole body numb, the man lay down seriously ill. He was visited by the priest who told me this story, who advised him to make confession for his sins and take the eucharist according to Christian custom. The man replied by telling the priest what his wife said had happened to him, and put off until the next day what he was advised to do for his own safety. But he was never to see the next day, for, bereft of the grace and merits of Christian solace, he drifted off into the final sleep of the dead and was given a proper burial.

  This turned out to be of no benefit to him whatsoever, for, prompted by the devil, his body left its tomb each night and circled round the houses, followed by the terrible howling of a pack of dogs. The doors of every house were bolted, and nobody dared go out to attend to any business from sunset to sunrise for fear of being attacked by the wandering monster. But even such a precaution as the bolting of doors was useless, since, by the circulation of air poisoned and infected by the corpse, the neighbourhood became filled with the sick and the dying who had inhaled the pestilence. Soon the town, which only a little time before had been well-populated, was almost empty and, for fear of sickness and death, the remaining townspeople were themselves preparing to leave.

  The priest who told me this story was dismayed at the desolation of his parish, and so on Palm Sunday he set about seeking advice from other religious men about the safeguarding of public health, which might reassure the few miserable individuals who remained in the town. Having addressed the people, and having celebrated the full religious rites appropriate to that sacred day, he called his honourable guests to table. Among those present at the banquet which the priest had prepared were two young brothers whose father had died from the pestilence. They urged each other to take action, saying: ‘This monster has destroyed our father and could well destroy us as well if we do not act. Let us do something worthy, which will both safeguard our health and avenge our father’s death. After all, there is no-one to stop us, for the banquet is being held in the priest’s house and the rest of the town is silent and empty. We must dig up the pestilential creature and burn its remains in a fire …’

  Armed with sturdy mattocks, the two brothers went to the cemetery and began to dig. After a short while, they laid bare the corpse, which had not been covered to a very great depth, and which was grotesque and distended, with a swollen, reddened face. The fragments of a shroud, which had been wound round the body, were found inside the grave. Undaunted, driven by their anger, the young men struck at the lifeless corpse, from which such a continuous flow of blood gushed and soaked the earth that they realised the creature must have been a vampire, sucking the blood of many people … Then, dragging it outside the town, they quickly constructed a funeral pyre. One of them said the noxious corpse would not burn until its heart was removed, and the other opened up its side with blows from his mattock and reached in to seize the heart which had been the source of such harm and evil. Then, with the corpse finally dismembered and burnt, the two men returned to announce what they had done to the people present at the priest’s banquet, who ran outside to see for themselves. Thereafter, with the infernal heart removed and the dire cadaver consumed by the fire, the air was purged and the pestilence which had prowled around the town was finally allayed …

  Source: Re-told from the Latin Historia Rerum Anglicarum of William of Newburgh in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. R. Howlett, Rolls Series, London 1885, Vol. II, pp. 474–82.

  Laxdœla Saga

  This Icelandic saga tells the story of seven generations of settlers in the valley of Western Iceland known as ‘Salmon-River-Dale’. The saga was written down in the late thirteenth century, but the contents relate to a much earlier period: the first chapters deal with the departure of Ketill Flatnose, the ancestor of the chieftains of the Salmon-River men, from Norway in AD 890, while the death of Snorri the Priest, mentioned in the saga’s last chapter, is dated to 1031. The early part of the work covers a time when, as with any period of settlement in new and unclaimed territory, fresh land is being opened up for farming and the landholders are zealous in the defence of their possessions against neighbours and new immigrants. It is in this context that one should read the saga’s account of the haunting of his former homestead by the curmudgeonly farmer Hrapp. The haunting follows his insistence on being buried in the farmhouse doorway so that, in death as in life, he might keep watch over his lands. Similarly, it is only when there is further expansion of cultivated land into the wilderness to which Hrapp’s body has been removed by the chieftain Hoskuld that Hrapp’s ghost begins to walk again and cause problems for the succeeding generation.

  Hrapp’s Ghost

  Chap. XVII

  It is said of Hrapp that he became most violent in his behaviour, and did his neighbours such harm that they could hardly hold their own against him … but his power waned, in that old age was fast coming upon him, so that he had to lie in bed. Hrapp called his wife Vigdis to him and said, ‘I have never been of ailing health in my life, and it is therefore most likely that this illness will put an end to our life together. Now, when I am dead, I wish my grave to be dug in the doorway of my fire hall, and I want to be placed in it, standing there in the doorway. In that way I shall be able to keep a more searching eye on my dwelling.’

  After that Hrapp died, and all was done as he said, for Vigdis did not dare do otherwise. And evil as he had been to deal with in his lifetime, he was even more so when he was dead, for he walked again a great deal after his death. People say he killed most of his servants in his ghostly appearances. He caused a great deal of trouble to those who lived near, and the house of Hrappstead became deserted, since Vigdis, Hrapp’s wife, had taken herself west to her brother’s house and settled there with all her goods. Things went on like this, until men went to find Hoskuld and told him all the things Hrapp was doing to them, and asked him to do something to put an end to this. Hoskuld said something should be done, and he went with some men to Hrappstead, and had Hrapp dug up, and taken away to a place where cattle were unlikely to roam and men unlikely to venture. After that Hrapp’s walking-about abated somewhat …

  This chapter of the saga goes on to tell how Hrapp’s son inherited the estate of Hrappstead and died, ‘seized of a frenzy’, and how Vigdis, Hrapp’s widow, then inherited his wealth but refused to live at Hrappstead. A subsequent chapter tells of the establishment, twelve years later, of the estate of Hjardarholt by Ola
f Peacock, the son of Hoskuld. It is not clearly stated, but the implication of the story is that the Hjardarholt lands lay in the former wilderness where Hrapp’s body had been buried on Hoskuld’s orders.

  The Ghost in the Doorway

  Chap. XXIV

  Olaf was considered the noblest of all Hoskuld’s sons. The first winter that he kept house at Hjardarholt he had many servants and workmen, and labour was divided amongst the farmhands. One looked after the dry cattle and oxen and another after the cows. The cattle-fold was out in the wood, some way from the homestead. One evening the man who looked after the dry cattle came to Olaf and asked him to make some other man look after them and to set apart for him some other work. Olaf answered: ‘I wish you to go on with this same work of yours.’ The man said he would sooner go away. ‘Then you think there is something wrong,’ said Olaf. ‘I will go this evening with you when you attend to the cattle, and if I think there is any excuse for you in this I will say nothing about it, but otherwise you will find your lot has taken a turn for the worse.’

  Olaf took his gold-set spear, the king’s gift, in his hand, and left home with the farmhand. There was some snow on the ground. They came to the cattle-fold, which was open, and Olaf bade the man go in: ‘I will drive up the cattle and you tie them up as they come in.’ The farmhand went to the fold-door. And then, all unawares, Olaf finds him leaping into his open arms. When Olaf asked him why he was so terrified, the labourer replied: ‘Hrapp stands in the doorway of the fold, and reached out for me, but I have had my fill of wrestling with him.’ Olaf went to the fold-door and struck at the ghost with his spear. Hrapp took the socket of the spear in both hands and wrenched it aside, so that the spear shaft was broken. Olaf was about to run at Hrapp but he disappeared just where he stood, and there they parted, Olaf having the shaft and Hrapp the spear-head. After that Olaf and the farmhand tied up the cattle and went home, with Olaf now aware that the man was not to blame for his grumbling.

  The next morning Olaf went to where Hrapp was buried and had him dug up. Hrapp was found undecayed, and there Olaf also found his spear-head. After that he had a pyre made and had Hrapp burnt on it, and his ashes were flung out to sea. After that no-one had any more trouble with Hrapp’s ghost …

  Source: Based upon the accounts of Hrapp’s ghostly visitations in Laxdœ la Saga, trans. M. Press, London (Dent) 1899, pp. 41–2 and 77–8.

  Eyrbyggja Saga

  The narrative of this somewhat complicated saga, which is likely to have been written at the Icelandic monastery of Helgafell about the middle of the thirteenth century, tells of the lives and deeds of several generations of immigrants and settlers in the peninsulas of Western Iceland. It spans the period from the late ninth to the eleventh centuries, dealing with the anarchic events of the so-called ‘Viking Age’ through to the arrival of Christianity in AD 1000. It traces the development, under the supervision of charismatic figures such as Snorri the Priest (an ancestor of two of the later abbots of Helgafell) of a body of laws which provided for a more orderly and settled society. The ghosts of the Eyrbyggja Saga have a mixture of characteristics. Thorolf Halt-Foot is a typical draugr, a frightening marauder who leaves his tomb to cause devastation in the neighbourhood where, even during his lifetime, he was known for his ill-humour; he leads a retinue of the dead which has overtones of the Wild Hunt legends, and is finally constrained by the device of a high wall which is erected by his son Arnkel. Thorgunna, the Hebridean woman whose death leads to a series of ghostly developments at the farmstead of Frodis-water, at first seems to be a somewhat homely phantom: during her lengthy death-procession to the Christian church at Skalaholt she gets up from her bier stark naked to cook a meal in symbolic reproach of the farmer who refuses hospitality to her coffin-bearers. Later, in a detail which is reminiscent of later Hebridean stories of ‘silkies’ or seal-people, she takes the form of a seal which tries to struggle up through the floor of the living-room at Frodis-water and can only be overcome by the young man to whom Thorgunna had taken a fancy when she was alive. The ghosts of the drowned crew of a fishing expedition continue to frequent Frodis-water as they did when alive, sprawling in front of the fire beside their surviving relatives and brawling with a rival band of ghosts. Significantly,

  however, they respond to the mixture of Christian ceremonial and Icelandic legal procedure which Snorri the Priest, whose advice is sought from his holy sanctuary at Helgafell, recommends as a means of ensuring their departure.

  The Ghost of Thorolf Halt-Foot

  Chap. 34

  After the death of Thorolf Halt-foot, many people were afraid to be outside whenever the sun was getting low. As the summer wore on, men were aware that Thorolf did not lie quietly, and they might never be in peace out of doors after sunset. And it happened moreover that the oxen which had been yoked to Thorolf were ridden by trolls [demons], and all the cattle that came near his tomb went mad, and bellowed till they died. The herdsman at Hvamm often came running home as though Thorolf had given chase to him. In the autumn neither the herdsman nor the cattle came home, and in the morning men went to seek them and found the herdsman dead a little way from Thorolf ’s tomb; he was coal-blue, and every one of his bones was broken. He was buried beside Thorolf. Of all the cattle that had been in the dale, some were found dead, and some fled into the mountains, and were never found again; and if birds settled on Thorolf ’s tomb, they fell down dead.

  Such great trouble arose from this that no man dared feed his flocks up in the dale. Often there was a great noise heard outside the homestead at Hvamm, and men were aware that the roof of the house was being ridden. During the winter Thorolf was often seen around the house, causing most trouble to his wife, who was driven almost mad. The result of all this was that his wife died from the strain and was taken to Thorswater-dale and buried beside Thorolf. After that men fled from the homestead. Thorolf took to walking all over the dale, so that all the farms were laid waste. He killed some men, while others fled away, but all those who had died were seen in his company …

  Throughout the winter Thorolf and his wild hunt of ‘undead’ companions cause such terror in the community that representations are made to his son, the landholder and priest Arnkel. When spring comes, and the frost has thawed out of the ground, Arnkel forms a posse of local men, reminding them that it was the law that all must help bury the dead when asked for assistance.

  … He got ready to go and he and his group were twelve in all, and they had with them yoke-oxen and digging tools. They went first to Ulfar’s-fell and met there Thorod, Thorbrand’s son, and he and his group made a further three. They went up over the neck of the mountains and came down Thorswater-dale as far as Thorolf ’s tomb. They broke it open, and found Thorolf ’s corpse undecayed, and most evil to look upon. They took him out of the grave, and laid him on a sledge, and yoked two strong oxen to it, and drew him up to Ulfar’s-fell-neck, but by then the oxen were so tired that others were used to draw him further up the slope. Arnkel intended to bring him to Vadils-head and lay him in the earth there. But when they came to the brow of the hill the oxen went mad, and broke loose and ran away over the hillside of Ulfar’s-fell and so out towards the sea where they fell down exhausted. By now Thorolf was so heavy that they could bring him no further, so they bore him to a little headland nearby and laid him in the earth there, and since then that place has been called Halt-foot’s Head. Then Arnkel raised a wall across the headland on the landward side of the tomb, so high that nothing could get over it except a flying bird, and there are still signs of the wall today. There Thorolf lay quietly for as long as Arnkel lived …

  Later in the saga Thorolf ’s ghost becomes restless again after the death of Arnkel. His body is dug up and burnt, and a lengthy account is given of how a cow which grazes across the land near his funeral pyre, licking the stones and ingesting the ashes, gives birth to a monstrous bull which is the cause of further death and mayhem in the district. Before that, there has been a detailed account of the consequences
for the people of the homestead of Frodis-water of the arrival from the Hebrides of Thorgunna, a middle-aged woman with a load of valuable possessions which provoke the envy of the wife of the landholder. Thorgunna works in the hay-fields of Frodis-water but, in the first of a series of ominous occurrences, becomes soaked in a shower of blood which falls from the sky during a storm. She takes to her bed, and Thorod the landholder and his wife Thurid soon become aware that she is dying. This sequential chapter series in the Eyrbyggja Saga traces the hauntings and disturbances which follow upon their failure to observe Thorgunna’s death-bed wishes.

  Thorgunna’s Supper

  Chap. 51

  Then Thorgunna said: ‘This is what I want done: I am to be carried to Skalaholt if I die of this sickness, because my mind tells me that some day it will be the most worshipped place in the land. And I know also that there will be priests to sing masses for me, so I beg you to take me there. You will have enough of a share in my goods to ensure that you do not lose out. From my original estate Thurid shall have my scarlet cloak; and I am giving her this so that she shall be content with the arrangements I am making for my other goods. You are to take whatever you want, or whatever pleases her, from my other goods to cover any costs you incur. My gold ring shall go to the church with me, but I want my bed and bed-hangings to be burnt, for they will not be of any use to anyone. I am not saying this because I begrudge anyone their use: I am saying it because I do not want people to have the trouble that I know will arise if they neglect to do what I have ordained.’