Vikingology Podcast · The Art and Science of the Viking Age

Viking Ghost Stories

·1 hr 19 min·4 clips

Glamr in Grettir's saga curses Gretir the Strong, and the story says an unnamed entity caused contagion at the farm.

1. Vikingology Podcast's "Viking Ghost Stories" focuses on revenants, ghosts, and magic in Viking Age and Icelandic saga traditions. 2. CJ Adrian and Terry Barnes host the episode, and Dr. Irina Minea joins from Germany with a University of Bucharest degree in Norse mythology. 3. The episode asks how Icelandic sagas use ghosts and revenants to handle pagan ancestors after Christianization. 4. Dr. Minea points to Christianization around the year 1000 as a milestone that changes how authors write about the dead. 5. She cites the Vinland sagas as a place where characters come back because they were not buried on consecrated ground. 6. Egil is discussed as being buried with clothes and weapons, then later placed by the outer edge of a church. 7. Thorolwyr from Eyrbyggja saga is presented as one of the most aggressive revenant figures in the saga material. 8. The conversation says some undead are marked as foreigners from the Hebrides or as late settlers in land-taking narratives. 9. Thor Gunnar is raised as a Christian character who still functions as a potential revenant because he is socially misfitting. 10. Dr. Minea says revenants question rules, norms, and regulations, and force people to confront both present and past. 11. She links monster theory to revenants by describing them as transgressive and liminal between society, paganism, Christianity, life, and death. 12. The discussion turns to plague and contagion, with Glamr in Grettir's saga and an unnamed entity causing sickness at a farm. 13. Dr. Minea says the Saga of the Greenlanders explains some deaths through pagan burial status rather than naming a disease. 14. William of Newborough is mentioned as another source that uses restless dead who make others sick. 15. Madness appears as another effect, including Vigastir's haunting and the servant girl who disobeys and then dies. 16. Thorolwyr is also said to haunt his household, drive servants away or to death, and drive his own wife to madness. 17. A door trial in the "Miracles of Froda" becomes a ritual for gathering ghosts at a threshold and telling them to leave. 18. The episode stays conversational and speculative, with CJ Adrian and Dr. Minea comparing saga details to Ibn Fadlan, Neil Price's The Viking Way, and later folklore. 19. Listeners interested in Icelandic sagas, Norse mythology, and ghost stories tied to Christianization will get the most from this discussion. 20. Listeners looking for a simple retelling without sagas, burial practices, or religious context may want to skip it.

As heard by us

Ghost stories, ritual, and the limits of what Viking sources can support.

Viking ghost stories provide the hook, but the stronger draw is how the discussion keeps circling back to a world where magic, ritual, and ordinary life are hard to pull apart. CJ Adrian and Terry Barnes bring in Dr.

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Why you'd press play

You get Viking ghost stories, liminal Yule talk, and a guest who knows where the evidence gets fuzzy.

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