This is my retelling of a story from The Eyrbyggja Saga.

The same summer that Christ’s faith was made law in Iceland, a ship came from over the sea to Snowfellness, and docked at the great holding of Frodis-water. On board was a woman named Thorgunna who bore many fine goods with her.

Now Thurid was the goodwife to the Thane of Frodis-water. When she heard of Thorgunna she wanted to see those fair things for she was fond of glitter and show. So she went to the ship and found Thorgunna, and marveled at her beautiful things and offered to buy them. Thorgunna would not sell but Thurid thought that given time she could persuade Thorgunna to sell them, so she invited the woman to come and live with her and her husband at the great hall of Frodis-water.

They struck a bargain and Thorgunna came to live at the great hall, her and her fine linens and finer bedclothes. For she had a bolster and mattress made of feathers, and bed hangings and embroidered quilts and English sheets, and it was a wonder. Thurid lusted after the bedclothes but Thorgunna would not sell.

Thorgunna was more sixty winters in age, but she was a strong woman and a hard worker. One day, Thane Thorod – Thorgunna’s host — got up early in the morning and set his folk to work to harvest the hay. Three hours after the noon hour the sky grew dark with rainclouds. All save Thorgunna quickly raked their hay into shelter, but Thorgunna would not rake hers up.

The crowd grew and cast a great darkness over the homestead of Frodis-water, and a hard rain followed. The rain fell only on Frodis-water and did not last long, but when the men ventured forth they saw that the rain had been mixed with blood. The sheltered hay dried quickly and without traces of the bloody rain, but Thorgunna’s hay was dark with it and would not dry. Goodwife Thurid asked Thorgunna what she thought that this wonder might mean. “I do not know,” she said. “But I think this will be the weird of some of those gathered here.”

That very night Thorgunna went home and took to her bed. She would not eat that night or in the morning. Thane Thorod came to her and she said that she wished him to hear her will. She bequeathed some fine clothing to Thurid and arranged for masses to be said for her soul. But she refused to bequeath her fine bedclothes and ordered them to be burned upon her death.

Thorod agreed to all this but Thorgunna added, “I do not wish to be any trouble. But if you do not do as I say, I will be.”

In three days time she died, and as he had promised Thorod had her body borne into the church. The next day he lit a bonfire but his wife Thurid met him there. When she found what he was doing she cried and pleaded and begged so that he finally agreed to save the bedclothes and burn only the mattress and bolster. But neither of them were pleased with their bargain and Thorod remembered what Thorgunna’s warning.

Thorod readied the burial party. He had Thorgunna’s body wrapped in a shroud and  laid in a chest and it was loaded onto a cart pulled by good horses. They went south to Northwater where they meant to cross the Whitewater river by Isleford. But night was falling and the river was wild and deep, so they decided to spend the night. They asked for guesting from a holding there, but the householder would give them no food or drink but only shelter. They pulled the cart into the outer hall and came hungry into the house to sleep.

But later that night the entire household heard a great clatter in the kitchen. The holders went downstairs to see a tall woman with not a stitch of clothing on her preparing a meal. They shrank back for they knew her to be a draugr, the walking dead. Now Thorod and his men came down and they recognized the corpse of Thorgunna, who was practicing hospitality where the householders would not. For she readied the meats and brought them into the hall and lay them on the table for eating.

Thorod said to the householders, “Maybe you should have fed us.”

Said the man and his wife, “We will give you anything you need if she will just lie down.”

And with that, Thorgunna went out of the hall and out the door and back to her place in the cart. The householders had light and fresh dry clothes brought and had the whole house besprinkled with holy water. The household ate the meats so they would not offend the draugr, and came to no harm after even though she had made it with her own hands.

Thorod and his men continued their journey the next day. The story went on before them so they received good hospitality wherever they went. At last they delivered Thorgunna’s body to the holy house of God and the priests took charge of her gladly. She was laid in the earth and the burial party returned home – although it took them some time since word had spread like a fire, and there was scarcely a holding that did not insist that they take food and drink.

The burial party arrived safely back at Frodis-water and took their ease with others by the long fire. There everyone saw a strange sight: a glowing half-moon appeared and made a circuit all around the walls of the fire hall. Thane Thorod asked his fellow holder Thorir Wooden-leg what it meant. “It is the Moon of Weird,” Thorir said, “and there will be many deaths now.”

And the Moon of Weird made its strange circuit every night for a full seven days.

The farm’s shepherd was the first to die. He grew distraught and talked to himself, and after two weeks he laid down and died. He was buried at the church at Frodis-water.

A little while later Thorir Wooden-leg saw the shepherd again. The dead man attacked him by the door of the great hall and Thorir sickened and died. Now folk started to see the two together as the undead roamed the night.

After Thorir’s death a house-carle of Thorod’s fell sick and died, and five others shortly after him.

Early one morning Thane Thorod and his men went to fish. But they were lost at sea, and only their empty boat and its net full of fish came ashore. News came to Frodis-water, and the thane’s wife Thurid bid their neighbors come to the wake.

But that very night as the holders and the guests held the wake, Thane Thorod and his lost men walked slowly into the hall. They dripped with salt water. The living greeted Thorod gladly at first, for they believed that if the drowned men took some cheer they would lie quiet thereafter.

But Thorod and his men greeted no man as they set themselves down by the fire. The fires dimmed and died but still Thorod and the dead men sat, and both householder and guest fled that place.

The haunting grew worse the next night and for all the nights after, for after Thorod and his company came Thorir Wooden-leg, the shepherd, and the other plague dead came in as well and sat opposite Thorod’s crew.

And the deaths continued. Now Thorgrima Witch-face, the wife of Thorir Wooden- leg, fell sick and died. The very same evening that she was buried she walked into the fire-hall with her dead husband Thorir. More women died then and men, and the living began to desert the hall. And even Thorod’s wife Thurid, she who had lusted after Thorgunna’s things, was close to death.

At that, Thorir’s and Thorgrima’s son Kiartan rode to Holyfell to seek counsel from his uncle Snorri the Priest, who was his mother’s brother. Snorri gave him his counsel and sent his own son Thord Kausi back with him and a Christian priest, and six more men. When the party arrived at Frodis-water they burned Thorgunna’s bed clothes as the thane had once promised to do. They then summoned all of the walking dead to a trial called a door-doom. The priest sang the holy hours and sprinkled the holy water and shrove the living.

Evening fell and the fires were lit in the fire-hall. The dead walked and took their places as they had done for many nights before. Kiartan saw his own father and mother sit in dead silence by the fire and they did not greet him.

Then Kiartan summoned his father Thorir Woodenleg, and Snorri’s son Thord Kausi summoned Thane Thorod. In that hall the living judged the dead, one by one the dead were judged and sentenced to the long darkness of death. When Kiartan gave this sentence to his father Thorir, the ghost stood up and said, “I have sat here as long as I could,” and went out the door. The shepherd was next. “I am going. I wish it had been a better farewell.” And he disappeared out the door. The sentence on Thorir’s wife Thorgrima Witch-face was spoken. “I stayed where I wish I still belonged,” she said, and left.

One after the other the ghosts were charged, and one after the other they said they did not wish to depart, but depart they did. The last was Thane Thorod, whose hall this had been. “No peace remains here,” he said. “So let us seek it elsewhere.” And he went out.

The next morning the people all gathered, householders and guests, and the priest sang all the mass through. Over time goodwife Thurid recovered and there were no more haunting ever again in Frodis-water. There were no children from Thorod and Thurid and so Kiartan inherited the house. Great and good use he made of it, and long he dwelled — dead-free — at Frodis-water.

Performance History

• Caid Pentathlon 2009
• Potrero War 2009