Iceland · Ghosts and hauntings · Medieval saga narrative
Glámr’s haunting is one of the most unsettling episodes in Grettis saga: a shepherd dies, returns as a destructive revenant, and leaves the hero frightened of darkness even after their physical struggle has ended. Its importance lies in the surviving story and its treatment of fear. The saga provides no independently recorded investigation, authenticated remains or contemporary witness statements establishing a supernatural event.
The farm was haunted before Glámr
The opening of chapter 32 places Þórhallr’s farm in Forsæludalur, above Vatnsdalur. William Morris and Eiríkr Magnússon’s English translation calls these places Shadyvale and Waterdale. This is a specific Icelandic landscape within the narrative, but identifying a valley does not authenticate its supernatural incidents or establish an accessible encounter site.
A detail easily lost in abbreviated versions is that Þórhallr already has a problem. Shepherds suffer or leave, and the farm’s reputation makes replacements difficult to find. At the Alþingi he asks the lawman Skapti for advice. Skapti recommends Glámr, a strong Swede whose courage seems useful despite his disagreeable character. Glámr accepts the work after being warned about the haunting. He is a response to an existing threat, rather than its original cause.
The narrative makes his religious hostility conspicuous. He avoids the farm’s church, dislikes its services and demands food on Christmas Eve despite the household’s fast. After an argument with the farmer’s wife he eats and goes out to the sheep. Snow and darkness worsen, and he does not return. These exchanges belong to the saga’s explanation of his character; they are not a transcript preserved independently of the story.
The death and the first return
A search after worship the following day finds scattered sheep, disturbed ground and Glámr’s body. The searchers see enormous tracks and blood leading towards rocks. From these signs they conclude that the earlier evil presence killed him, but that he wounded it fatally. The conclusion is attributed to the people within the narrative. No separate encounter with this earlier being is described for readers to examine.
Moving the body proves impossible. Attempts to bring it to church fail, and a search with the priest cannot find it, although it is found when he is absent. Eventually it is buried where the men have managed to drag it. The revenant then appears around the farm, terrifying people and riding on roofs hard enough to damage them. The danger is physical and domestic: buildings, livestock and the ability to continue farming are under attack.
The account also describes variation rather than uninterrupted activity. Summer light brings some relief and Þórhallr resumes life at the farm. The respite makes another attempt at employing a shepherd possible. It does not constitute a controlled test of light, weather or belief; it is part of the sequence through which the saga allows the household to hope that ordinary work can restart.
Thorgaut and the abandoned household
The replacement shepherd, Thorgaut, laughs at the warning. He too disappears after going out on Christmas Eve. His body is found near Glámr’s burial place, with his neck and bones broken. There is a significant difference between their endings: Thorgaut is brought to church and does not become another returning dead man.
Further violence makes the farm uninhabitable. A cattle keeper is found with his back broken across a stone edge in the cowshed; animals are attacked, and the farmer eventually withdraws. Another summer lull is followed by renewed trouble in autumn. Þórhallr’s daughter Thurid is especially affected and dies. These deaths are events asserted by a literary narrator, rather than a set of parish, medical or legal records corroborating the haunting.
The repetition of recruitment, warning and failure prepares the arrival of Grettir. Hearing about the trouble, he sees an opportunity to test his strength. His kinsman Jokull warns that confidence in fighting men may be a poor guide to dealing with such a being. The dispute already raises the question on which the episode turns: whether courage and muscular strength are enough.
The struggle and the moonlit eyes
Grettir’s first two nights pass without Glámr appearing. His horse is then found dead in a damaged building, its bones broken. On the third night he lies clothed on a bench, wrapped in a cloak but able to look out, with his feet braced against a beam. The preparation gives the encounter a practical setting among the farm’s damaged doors and fittings.
Glámr is heard on the roof before entering. He is so large that he must stoop beneath the roof, and he repeatedly pulls at the cloak. When the fabric tears, Grettir grips him. Benches break during their wrestling, and the struggle moves towards the doorway. Grettir tries to prevent being dragged outside, then uses the threshold to drive his opponent backwards. The doorway gives way and they fall outside with Glámr underneath.
At this apparent moment of success the encounter changes. Moonlight breaks through cloud, Grettir sees the revenant’s eyes, and terror prevents him from drawing his sword. Glámr pronounces a curse: Grettir will retain his present strength but fail to gain its remaining potential, his deeds will go badly, and the memory of those eyes will make solitude unbearable. The narrative gives the defeated creature a lasting power that physical victory cannot remove.
Grettir eventually regains movement and beheads the body. In the Morris–Magnússon translation he places the head at its thigh. The remains are burnt, and the ashes are carried away and buried apart from pastures and ordinary routes. Þórhallr rewards him with clothes and a horse. Yet Grettir subsequently describes a worsening temper, fear of darkness and recurring impressions of Glámr’s eyes. The household’s deliverance and the hero’s injury are simultaneous outcomes.
When was the account written?
The story’s setting and the date of its surviving literary treatment must be kept separate. In his historical introduction for the William Morris Archive, Peter Wright argues that composition well into the fourteenth century is more plausible than older attribution to a thirteenth-century author. This is a judgement about the saga, not an exact date for a supposed haunting.
Wright’s notes also caution that the farmers’ detailed Christian observance may reflect the narrator’s own period more than the early setting. The contrast between Glámr and the properly buried Thorgaut therefore deserves attention as religious storytelling. It does not establish a demonstrated mechanism by which burial either causes or prevents a revenant.
Marjorie Burns’s literary introduction explores the saga’s moral ambiguity and comparisons with Beowulf. Such comparisons help explain why the episode matters as literature, without requiring the monsters to be historical animals or the hero’s experiences to be a clinical case. Here, the enduring mystery is how a victory can leave its victor less able to live among others.
Sources and related reading
The principal source is Grettis saga, chapters 32–35, in the Morris–Magnússon translation; the Icelandic text supplies the place names. The University of Iowa’s translation catalogue records first publication in 1869. The hosted Saga Database English text is labelled as a 1900 edition. Readers can compare this bodily revenant with the separately collected Icelandic legend of the Deacon of Myrká. Sources checked 5 November 2026.
Map location. Approximate regional area: rounded Vatnsdalur valley reference in Northwest Iceland. Grettis saga places the farm in tributary Forsæludalur; this broader valley pin is not the literary farm, a private residence, grave or verified encounter. Coordinate source.