Ethereal Chronicles

“A serious of hideous thuds, and a sickening crack, rumbled through the house. The herdsman had descended upon Thorer with a savage fury, hurling him to the ground with such force that it had broken every bone in Thorer’s body. Thorer, his form crumpled and his mouth filled with blood, attempted to drag himself into the house with desperate gasps and a searing pain, but barely made it beyond the threshold before death too claimed him.”

Here is my rewritten version of the Icelandic folk tale

Thorgunna, a free, sharp tongued traveller, had come across Froda Farm after many months of sleepless nights and wearied days. The master of the farm, Thorodd, and his wife, Thurid, were welcoming hosts, and gladly offered to share their lives with the exhausted woman in return for a helping hand.

When Thorgunna unpacked her belongings, Thurid’s warmth towards her new guest intensified as her eyes fell upon the treasures collected from the woman’s travels; precious silks, fine bedding, and gleaming jewellery, enough to sustain Froda Farm for a lifetime without another day of labour. Thurid gently urged Thorgunna to consider selling these riches, but Thorgunna coldly refused, declaring that she could not bear to sleep on a bed of hay when she had such fine things.

Thorgunna’s wealth and sharp tongue were not the only barriers to forming friendships. She worshipped a foreign faith, one that dishonoured the Old Gods worshipped by the people of Froda.

Thorgunna’s Death

One day, as Thorgunna toiled in the fields, a thick storm cloud suddenly passed over her and the other labourers. The fury of the Pagan Gods had manifested as a torrential downpour. But this was no ordinary rain; it was a deluge of blood, a crimson cascade that drenched Thorgunna from head to toe, staining her clothes and skin a sticky red. A sure omen of death.

The storm disappeared as swiftly as it had come, leaving Thorgunna pale and trembling. The weight of the blood seemed to seep into her bones, sapping her of her strength, and as the days wore on, Thorgunna’s health rapidly deteriorated.

Before Thorgunna submitted to the embrace of death, she summoned Thorodd to her bedside, begging him to take her body to a place called Skalholt, where monks following the Christian faith could pray for her soul to enter Heaven. Additionally, she ordered the burning of her belongings, warning that if this promise was not fulfilled then doom would reach Froda Farm.

After many restless nights of sickness, Thorgunna died, and Thorodd prepared to carry out her promise. But Thurid, her eyes glazed with unmistakable greed, gazed longingly at the fine clothes and bedding left behind, imploring her husband to keep at least some things because Thorgunna was dead, and she no longer had a place in the world of the living.

A Broken Promise…

Thorodd hesitated, torn between the love for his wife and the solemnity of his promise. In the end, his heart softened at the sight of Thurid’s pleading gaze, and agreed to let her keep some of Thorgunna’s belongings. Yet, even as Thurid took the clothes and bedding for herself, he felt a hideous knot of anxiety begin to form in his stomach, and he knew he had done wrong.

Thorodd remained resolute, however, in his oath to send Thorgunna’s body to Skalholt, and dispatched a group of his most trusted servants to fulfil her request.

For a short time, it seemed that all was well, but this was not to last.

The First of the Hauntings

One night, the peace that had settled over Froda following Thorgunna’s death was shattered by some strange noises coming from the kitchen. Fearing it was an intruder, Thurid and Thorodd ventured into the room with pounding hearts, and there, in the flickering candlelight, their blood ran cold.

Before their eyes was the naked figure of Thorgunna, hollow eyed, as though in a trance. They could do nothing but stare with horror, watching her silently move about the kitchen with eerie precision, reaching into the fish pantry and preparing a meal. When she finally finished, she set down on the table a hearty supper, and the couple, afraid of her wrath, dared not interfere, but called the other members of the household to sit and eat with her. Once they had done so, Thorgunna returned to her grave.

The following night, as the household sat down for their evening meal, a strange, white light manifested before their eyes; a small, bright moon in the corner of the room. This strange phenomenon persisted for the next six nights, until, on the seventh night, terror struck with a vengeance.

The Herdsman

The herdsman who tended to their flock began to display strange, erratic behaviours; running about the fields at night, bursting into Froda Farm raving about a horror lurking in the darkness. Despite Thorrod and Thurid’s attempts to calm the man, his corruption proved irreversible. And when the dawn broke on another sickening morning, he was found cold and stiff in his bed, his madness cured only by death.

The weeks following the herdsman’s death felt never-ending. Each night, once darkness had extended his hand across Froda Farm, the herdsman would awaken once more, his spirit troubled even in death as he thrashed against the walls, the doors and the windows, wailing and begging to be let in so that he could claim more souls.

His first victim was Thorer, who had been caught by the vengeful spirit as he came back from working late one night. A serious of hideous thuds, and a sickening crack, rumbled through the house. The herdsman had descended upon Thorer with a savage fury, hurling him to the ground with such force that it had broken every bone in Thorer’s body. Thorer, his form crumpled and his mouth filled with blood, attempted to drag himself into the house with desperate gasps and a searing pain, but barely made it beyond the threshold before death too claimed him.

As the nights wore on, the herdsman, now joined by Thorer, began to terrorise the people, and Froda Farm became less a home and more a prison as the spirits continued their rampage. The residents grew more and more agitated, more resentful, their faces drawn and sallow with stress and sleep deprivation.

And amidst this, Thorodd’s love for his wife began to wane, replaced with a bitter resentment as he watched Thurid continue to cling to Thorgunna’s belongings; a resentment that plagued his affections as he looked on her more and more as a curse on the family for manipulating him into not doing as Thorgunna had asked him to, for continuing to lovingly cherish the silks and the gold and the bedding that had brought such suffering upon the family.

Thorodd’s Voyage

As the days began to grow colder, Thorodd’s heart grew heavy with concern for Froda Farm and its inhabitants. With their food supply running dangerously low, and hauntings making journeys beyond Froda Farm more and more difficult, he knew that the months ahead would be harsh. With this in mind, Thorodd planned a voyage with five of his best men to buy fish from one of the nearby ports so that Froda Farm would last the winter. Before leaving, Thorodd entrusted the care of the farm to his son, Kjartan.

One day, as Thurid nestled in the stolen comforts of Thorgunna’s blankets, she was startled by a disturbance beneath the floorboards. To her horror, she saw a seal emerging from the wood, staring at her with accusing eyes. Thurid shrieked, and a servant girl, fearing for her mistress, rushed into the room, meeting the seal’s steely gaze. She, too, screamed, and lurched forwards, attempting to batter it, yet the more she did so the higher it rose, until it sat in a watery pool, eyeing Thorgunna’s belongings. In that moment, Thurid was sure that she could see Thorgunna’s hard glare in the seal’s gaze, and she recoiled, drawing the blankets around her defensively. Kjartan, having heard the commotion, burst into the room, armed with a great warhammer, not hesitating to smash it down on the seal with all his strength until it disappeared into the ground once more.

Thorodd’s Hauntings

The following day, Thurid and Kjartan received the devastating news that Thorodd and the men who had accompanied him had been taken by the sea. Thurid feared that things would take a turn for the worst, especially without her husband to protect her. Yet, determined to honour his memory, Thurid resolved to hold a funeral banquet for the fallen men. But, on the first night of the feast, the bloated, wrinkled bodies of the drowned men trudged in through the door, and, to the guests’ horror, took their seats amongst the living. For the rest of the week, as the household continued with the funerary celebrations, the dead would once again join them. Night after night the drowned men would sit at the table, their hollow eyes staring blankly ahead as their skin bled seawater. And the guests would sit in terrified silence, listening as the sour drops hit the wooden floor.

Once the guests had left, still the men returned once more, this time accompanied by the restless spirits of the cemetery, gathering before the warmth of the hearth while the living cowered in the darkness and shivered, half frozen with cold and fear.

Meanwhile, Froda Farm fell even more into despair when a new disease passed over the household, wiping out eighteen of the thirty servants. Five fled, the loyalty for their mistress diminished by their desire to remain alive, leaving only seven haggard servants behind.

Seeking a Solution

Kjartan, fearing that his mother would be the next to die, sought out the help of his uncle, Snorri. Snorri told Kjartan that the hauntings had been caused by the betrayal of Thorodd’s promise to Thorgunna, and that her dying wish must be honoured if Froda Farm was to find peace once more. Snorri instructed his nephew to burn all of Thorgunna’s belongings, and suggested that the dead should be tried for their crimes.

And so Kjartan set out to mend his parents’ mistakes. Ignoring Thurid’s protests, he tore from her grip every item that she had stolen from Thorgunna, and threw them to the flames. Once he had so, he summoned a priest to judge the dead. Each was called guilty for their crimes against the living, and banished from Froda Farm. One by one, the defeated spectres turned their heads and melted away into the darkness, never to be seen again.

The hauntings of Froda Farm were over.

REFERENCES

The legend of Thorgunna – Scandinavian folktale (worldoftales.com)

Tales of Terror (The Enchanted World Series), Chapter 4; Harvest of Horrors, by Time Life Books