{"id":1740,"date":"2012-10-07T10:42:02","date_gmt":"2012-10-07T10:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/?p=1740"},"modified":"2014-07-01T10:07:15","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T10:07:15","slug":"the-moon-is-shining-the-dead-mans-riding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/2012\/10\/07\/the-moon-is-shining-the-dead-mans-riding\/","title":{"rendered":"The moon is shining, the dead man’s riding."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Dj\u00e1kninn \u00e1 Myrk\u00e1 (=\u00a0<\/em>The deacon of the Darkriver) is one of the most famous ghost stories of Iceland. Versions of it are known throughout Europe where the story’s often told with almost an identical plot. The main figure’s occupation and the way his love interest manages to save herself in the end vary – often she gets out by sheer luck alone – but in the original story she manages to pull a feat very much like the legendary one that S\u00e6mundur fr\u00f3\u00f0i Sigfusson<\/a><\/em> came up with on his way out of the Black Arts University. Myrk\u00e1<\/a> exists, as does the church and its lychgate bell<\/a>. A longer version of the story in Icelandic can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dj\u00e1kninn \u00e1 Myrk\u00e1: Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

There once was a deacon who lived by Myrk\u00e1 in Eyjafj\u00f6r\u00f0ur. He was engaged to a woman whose name was Gu\u00f0r\u00fan and who some say lived near B\u00e6gis\u00e1.<\/p>\n

One year right before Christmas the deacon rode to meet Gu\u00f0r\u00fan and to bring her to spend the Christmas at Myrk\u00e1 with him. He went to Saurb\u00e6 and tried to cross a bridge there but it broke in the middle and both man and horse fell in the river. The next day when they found the deacon he was dead and had a large wound in the back of his head. He was taken home to Myrk\u00e1 and buried.<\/p>\n

All this time Gu\u00f0r\u00fan’s home farm had been cut off the rest of the village by snow and no one could tell her of the fate of the deacon. On the Christmas Eve there was a knock on the door. Another woman answered but saw no one outside. Gu\u00f0r\u00fan thought she needed to hurry and quickly put her arm in one sleeve of her coat, but threw the rest over her shoulder without putting her other arm in and rushed outside. There stood a horse, the deacon on his back, and the deacon helped Gu\u00f0r\u00fan sit behind him. Then he took off so fast that it felt like flying.<\/p>\n

The deacon was very quiet the whole journey. Once his hat shifted and the moon shone on his head, and Gu\u00f0r\u00fan saw the white bone of his skull. Then the deacon said:<\/p>\n

\u201cM\u00e1ninn l\u00ed\u00f0ur,<\/em>
\n Dau\u00f0inn r\u00ed\u00f0ur.<\/em>
\n S\u00e9r\u00f0u ekki hv\u00edtan blett<\/em>
\n \u00ed hnakka m\u00ednum,<\/em>
\n G\u00e1run G\u00e1run?\u201d<\/em>*<\/p>\n

(= \u201cThe moon shines, the dead rides. Don’t you see the white patch in my neck, G\u00e1run G\u00e1run?\u201d)<\/p>\n

They came to the church and the deacon asked Gu\u00f0r\u00fan to wait while he tended to the horse. She looked at the graveyard and saw to her great shock that there was an open grave. She ran to the lychgate bell but the deacon caught her coat. Gu\u00f0r\u00fan slipped out of it easily because only one of her arms was in it, and caught the bell ropes pulling them with all her might. Looking back she saw her coat disappear into the grave with the deacon and his arms sweep the dirt back to cover it.
\nThe villagers that had been alarmed by the sound of the church bells found Gu\u00f0r\u00fan still ringing them; she was so afraid that she dared not stop in fear of the afturgangur<\/em>** of the deacon getting up again.<\/p>\n

The same night the deacon came for Gu\u00f0r\u00fan for the second time and was so insistent that no one in the village got any sleep. Half a month went by and Gu\u00f0r\u00fan could not be left alone for a moment, and even at night there had to be someone watching over her. From Skagafj\u00f6\u00f0ur came a man who knew magic, and he let dig up a large stone. He managed to make the ghost of the deacon lie underneath it, but some say he was tied to the rock with chains; there he sleeps to this very day. Of Gu\u00f0r\u00fan it is said that she never became quite the same afterwards.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*According to an Icelandic belief the dead cannot say the word Gu\u00f0<\/em> (= God) and therefore the deacon could only say G\u00e1run instead of Gu\u00f0r\u00fan.<\/p>\n

**This is a type of a ghost that follows someone until they die. Some of the afturgangur<\/em> are so fierce that they follow entire families, bringing about the end of them. This is in particular true about the ghosts of the \u00fatbur\u00f0ur<\/em>, \u201ccarried outside\u201d, newborn children that have been left outside to die. Most often the afturgangur<\/em> type of a ghost bears a strong grudge against the person they’re following, but they’ve been said to follow people for other reasons as well, like the deacon in this story. More info about the different types of Icelandic ghosts can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

G\u00e6\u00f0ingur beer with two pictures of the deacon by Hugleikur Dagsson, the man also behind Should You be Laughing at This?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Dj\u00e1kninn \u00e1 Myrk\u00e1 (=\u00a0The deacon of the Darkriver) is one of the most famous ghost stories of Iceland. Versions of it are known throughout Europe where the story’s often told with almost an identical plot. The main figure’s occupation and the way his love interest manages to save herself in the end vary – often…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":1745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[90791,91060],"tags":[3,178,91392,6977],"class_list":["post-1740","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-icelandic-culture","category-icelandic-history","tag-culture","tag-history","tag-post-full-of-links","tag-supernatural"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1740"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3434,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions\/3434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}