On a lonely winter’s night, under the unforgiving embrace of the cold, a starving mother leaves her child out to die in the snow, unable to provide for him. From his death arises the Utburd, the Norse name literally translating to “child carried outside”.
WHAT IS THE UTBURD
An Utburd is a malevolent spectre that manifests as a result of infanticide. These spirits maintain the appearance of their once innocent selves, but in a way that is twisted and unsettling to anybody who sees them. They are not limited to these ghastly forms but may choose to infiltrate homes as wisps of smoke or melt away from visibility altogether.
Although they can’t always be seen by the naked eye, Utburds are often heard wailing mournfully near their makeshift graves, often beneath the floorboards of homes or from unmarked piles of stones where they were hastily buried.
The Utburd has one main priority; enacting revenge on their birth mothers for abandoning them. Many stories tell of the spirits returning to their mothers to kill them, often through a horrifying act of nursing, during which they seemingly suckle but instead drain every drop of blood from the mother’s body until she is lifeless.
Once completing its act of revenge, the Utburd’s thirst for death does not lessen, nor does it lay down to rest. It relentlessly continues to haunt and torment mortals who happen to wander near its resting place. The unfortunate soul who encounters an Utburd would recognise its thundering steps and hideous cries as it launches itself onto his back, demanding that it be carried to a graveyard where it can find eternal peace. However, the weight of an Utburd will grow insurmountably heavy as the innocent takes step after step before he finally gives way and the weight forces him to the earth. Should the victim not die from suffocation, he would quickly find himself at the mercy of the furious spirit. To merely glance at the Utburd is believed to cause unbearable agony, paralysis, or instant death.
PROTECTION AGAINST AN UTBURD
There is little information on the protection against Utburds, making them all the more terrifying. However, scattered tales suggest that Utburds may have been vulnerable against water or iron. If you are quick enough to draw a knife against an Utburd before it reaches you then you may escape its grasp by forcing it to vanish from sight.
THE TRANSFORMATION
Harsh conditions of the North were not the only desperate justifications for the murder and abandonment of babies. Young, unmarried mothers driven by societal pressures and the reality of raising a child alone may have thought it safer, not only for their own status but for the child’s future, to pretend that the birth had never existed. Additionally, babies who were born with physical deformities and disabilities were frequently murdered because they were seen as burdens too heavy to bear.
Although Utburds are the spirits of children, not all of them are the result of infanticide. In other versions, an Utburd does not necessarily emerge from an act of murder but from a state of impurity. It is simply an unclean spirit, a soul tainted with evil from the short life it led. Stillborns, illegitimate children and unbaptised babies that died before reaching adulthood were left unprotected and therefore susceptible to sin or evil influence, or indeed the transformation into an Utburd after death.
References
Ghosts; The Enchanted world, Time Life Books, 1984
Ethereal Chronicles 
Leave a comment