Icelandic Witchcraft

      Hi guys!! Once again it has been a million years since I've written. Life is pretty crazy here, and the little free time I have I've had to spend cramming for my Human Anatomy final. Haha, because yes! I am going to school even though it doesn't seem like it. On top of my classes here I was also taking an online course from home, but now after much studying, and after dealing with the frustrating papers etc. so that I could write the exam here, I have finally completed that course at least!! Which means I have a little time to write!! Hopefully I can catch up and will not be so delinquent with my posts in the future. I also have to apologize if my writing has been a little unimpressive, I've been trying to get them done as keep as possible which has lead to kind of lame writing and some spelling errors so I've been told (thanks dad) haha. You'll have to bear with me!! Now the days are getting shorter hopefully I will have more time to actually record some of the amazing things I've been doing. But for the moment I will try to catch you up. 

In October I went on a hike to a natural hot river in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of my friends. It was such a ideal Icelandic moment. Most of the people there were locals, as we were then well past tourist season. We spent a few hours soaking in the hot water, drinking Icelandic beer and chatting with the people around us.

Two of the guys I went there with were Canadian also, making it the first time in a long while that the english speakers outnumbered the non-english europeans. We had a good time talking of Canadian things like maple syrup and peanut butter. We also had a blast singing campfire songs as we walked. It was a really funny experience. As amazing as it is getting to spend so much time with people of other cultures and learn about their ways of life, you sometimes forget how wonderful a cultural connection can be. As we were coming up with random songs to sing our european friends were all amazed that we knew so many of the same songs, and all the words to them. When you think about it, it is kind of impressive that despite being such a huge country my friend who lived in Ontario knew most of the same campfire songs as me, even though he lives so many hundreds of miles away.

 It's also fun seeing these cultural things through other people's eyes. We explained that we knew so many songs because it's really common in Canada to go either camping or to a summer camp and sing around a fire. And that it was a pretty normal thing for a bunch of friends our age to go out camping. They were amazed, very few of them had been camping. They even thought the idea of a campfire at each camping spot was strange. Anyways, we had fun teaching them all how to sing "There was a moose" and "Down by the bay."

Later that day we went caving. This was no tame tourist cave, lit up by lights with a nice flat pathway, but a pitch black twisting tunnel. Headlamps were a necessity as we scrambled up rocks and boulders. I had never experienced something like this before, but I loved every moment of it. At one point we had to walk bent in half, the tunnel was so small, and at another we were essentially climbing up a rock wall. 

The entrance of the cave

We took a moment in the middle to turn off all our lights and it was such an otherworldly experience, I've never experienced darkness like that. I don't imagine a more complete darkness even exists. All you could hear was the water dripping down the walls and other people breathing. You could feel the weight of all the earth and rock above you pressing down. I'm so happy I got to experience it. 

 The next weekend I spent up in the West fjords of Iceland with my Being Icelandic class. We went to visit the Witch craft museum and it turned out to be a very interesting trip. The town called Holmavik, where the museum was located, only had about 400 people living there. Which meant that the only restaurant in the village was at the museum. Both museum and restaurant are a one man show, run by a man named Siggi. He was museum director, tour guide, cook and waiter. And he is rumoured to be the last true witch in Iceland...

The infamous necropants

Icelandic witch craft is like no other. The charms and spells are some of the strangest I've ever heard of.  The picture above shows the most famous object in the museum, the necropants. These were the secret to never ending wealth. All one had to do was make a deal with one of your friends (they had to be willing!) that once he died you could flay his bottom half and wear his skin as a pair of pants. You then must steal a coin from a widow and put it in the scrotum of the pants along with a paper with a spell on it. From that point on you could reach into the.. ahem... pocket of the pants whenever you wanted and you would always have enough coins. 

Creation of a Tilberry

Now if you think that is strange, just wait until you hear the most common magic practiced by women. To create a Tilberry, a woman has to dig up the rib of a dead man and hide it in her shirt. Then for three communions she has to spit the wine onto the bone. After the third time the bone comes alive, from that point on she must feed it from a nipple on her thigh (so helpfully shown by the picture, haha). After all this work and effort the Tilberry will finally be mature and ready to do what it was made for, steal milk. Yep, all of that so that you can send your Tilberry to suck the milk of your neighbours cows and then have them come back and throw it up into your churn. Delicious right? Never fear though, if you suspect your neighbour to be making Tilberry butter all you have to do is draw a star above it and it will crumble into nothingness.

Me helping Siggi to return a ghost to his grave. This involved me spitting on the ghost and marking Siggi's forehead with his grandmothers blood. In return I got a protection stone also marked with blood, which I know have on my bedside table. No ghost are getting at me!!

 One last tale of weird Icelandic witchcraft as I'm sure you are all a little disturbed at this point. If however you ever are wanting to raise someone from the dead, you simple have to roll a bone over a grave while chanting an incantation. The ghost will then rise halfway through the grave, you then have to be quick and strong because a ghost comes back with 3 times it's strength in life. You have to wrestle it to the ground so you can lick the foam from around it's nose and mouth, once you've done this (if you can stomach it) the ghost is under your control. Be careful though, you may need Siggi's help to return it to the grave.

 We also visited an old Icelandic turf house that had been made up on the inside to represent what a witch's house would have looked like in the past. Unfortunately I didn't get very good pictures as the sun was already going down.

 The westfjords themselves were beautiful with high cliffs, rolling waves and hills covered in moss and berries. It's too bad I only got to see this one area. I'll just have to go back some day!

 The best part of the trip though was the time we spent hanging out in the restaurant with Siggi, my teacher, and the 6 other people from my class. It's so rare you get to spend time with your professors in such relaxed settings. I even had a heart to heart conversation with his twelve year old daughter about being vegetarian. And we managed to convince our teacher to play the ukelele for us and sing some folk songs. It was a great example of how warm and welcoming Icelanders can be once you get to know them.
I swear to write again soon!!

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Sunset: 5:26 pm

Hours of light:  8h 29 min