By Phyllis Smith
There is a murder mystery/ghost story that appears in multiple collections of Icelandic folklore and is discussed in articles about Icelandic beliefs in the supernatural. The star of the story is my great-great-grandfather, Páll Pálsson (IR#I196718) and features a ghost named Tungu Brestur. The following is “inspired by the true story.” - Phyllis Smith
It was a chilly fall evening in 1860 when Páll was sorting hay in the barn on his farm called Kverkártunga in Skeggjastaðasókn in the county of Norður Múlasýsla. He was startled by a sudden thump on the side of the building. He went out to discover the source of the noise, perhaps a horse, but he saw nothing. He returned to the barn and the banging started again, this time on the roof. Three times Páll ran outside to catch the prankster pounding on his barn, but he found no one.
Over the following days, these strange noises occurred at all hours. It didn’t matter where Páll was, the banging followed him. Sometimes the racket was all around him and sometimes it sounded as if it came from underneath his chair. Helga, his wife, questioned him about the noise but Páll had no answers.
Being superstitious, as were most Icelanders, Páll began to wonder if a ghost was responsible for this harassment. He had no idea who the ghost might be. He did not know many people who would be so vengeful in death.
Helga wondered aloud, “Could it be your first wife, Anna? You told me she came to you in a dream last winter and insisted that you name our baby after her. Perhaps she is punishing us for denying her request. My Amma came to me in a dream and told me to name the baby Guðríður. What else could I do?”
Páll pondered Helga’s suggestion. “Perhaps we did anger Anna. But she was so young and timid. I cannot imagine her banging on the house like this. And why did she wait so many months to begin this campaign of terror?”
Even if Páll doubted that Anna could be the source of his aggravation, he was certain that the perpetrator was a ghost. But what had he done to deserve such torment? He became so frightened that he could barely close his eyes at night. He hired Gestur to work as a farmhand so that he could rest. The new farmhand was unmoved by the supernatural being. In fact, Gestur began to order the ghost around. The noise subsided for a time but soon Gestur claimed to be sick when he sensed the spectre hovering nearby and the banging intensified.
One day, Páll received a letter with the news that his father had died the previous winter. And then a neighbour claimed to have had a dream in which he saw Páll’s father with a young boy. A young man in town claimed to have dreamt about a strange boy who came to him asking where he could find Páll.
“Could it be Þorkell?” Páll mused as he sat with Helga working wool in the dim candlelight of the baðstofa where everyone gathered in the evenings.
“Who’s Þorkell? You’ve never mentioned him,” responded Helga. Gestur looked up from his reading, interested in the conversation.
Páll took a deep breath and began to speak.
“One morning some months ago, I had pulled myself out of a drunken sleep. The windows of the turf house were covered with soot and the room was dark. As I opened the door, I was blinded by the late morning light and banged my aching head against the low door frame. My eyes finally focused on the crop of hard, grass-covered lumps sprouting from the land like tumours despite my efforts to eradicate them. The sheep picked their way over the mounds looking for the tender grass. Helga, you must have tended to them while I was sleeping off the drink.
“I ran a hand over my face and could feel the swelling along my jaw where Sigurður had landed a punch. He was a mean one, and I was probably lucky that my neighbour had pulled me away and forced me home. I was not much of a fighter, especially while drunk. Sigurður had years of practice both drinking and using his fists. I had been a mere boy when I last saw him, but I would never forget that voice or that face. He had killed my brother.
“Þorkell was six years older than me, and I worshipped him. We were still living with my parents at the Hraunshöfði farm in Bakkasókn in 1828 when Sigurður asked Pabbi if he would loan him Þorkell to work as a shepherd on his Þverbrekka farm over the summer. Þorkell begged Mamma to let him stay at home. Mamma argued with Pabbi because she didn’t like Sigurður, who drank too much and was known for his short temper. Pabbi told Mamma that Þorkell was a 16-year-old man now and should already be out working. Mamma warned that she’d had a dream that foretold the terrible fate of someone close to her. Pabbi didn’t listen and told Þorkell to do a good job but to stay out of Sigurður’s way if he was drinking.
“I saw Sigurdður’s farmhand, Stefán, coming up the path, so I snuck into the fjárhús with the sheep so I could hear him talking to Pabbi and Mamma. Stefán said that Þorkell had disappeared a few days earlier— he’d probably run away. Mamma was angry and did not believe Þorkell would simply run off. Her dream foretold a tragedy.
“Pabbi went to see Sigurður and called on his friends to help search for Þorkell. He later told Mamma that Sigurður watched all of them calling for Þorkell, unconcerned that his shepherd was missing. Mamma cried that another of her babies was lost.
“Later, rumours spread that Sigurður probably knew exactly where Þorkell could be found. People reported dreams of Þorkell being buried in sod, but new searches came to nothing. Pabbi continued to search for him, but Þorkell was never found. We knew he was dead because he would never run away without telling Mamma.
“The gossips claimed that Sigurður had discovered Þorkell asleep in the field when he was supposed to be watching the sheep. Sigurður punished him with a beating that went too far. In a panic, he sought advice from his father, the priest at Bægisá, who told him to hide Þorkell’s body under the church floor. Someone said that Sigurður later moved the body to Hrafnagili where it remains to this day.
“My anger grew as I drank, which gave me the courage to approach Sigurður who had already been drinking for hours. He looked up at me with blank eyes when I walked up to his table and spoke to him by name. I pointed at him, “You—you are the devil who killed my brother.”
I saw a flash of recognition in his bloodshot eyes. I was a stranger to him, but he knew exactly who my brother was. He knew exactly who he’d killed. I slapped the cup from Sigurður’s hand and called him a murderer to his face.
He spat at me and said, “You must be Páll, son of Páll. You were a snivelling brat the last time I saw you. Prove your slander or you’ll be cursed.” He staggered to his feet and stood tall over me. As I had also been drinking, I could not avoid his meaty fist. My friends pulled me away, but not before I told Sigurður that I would see justice for my brother.
“What you’ll see is your cursed brother again,” were the last words I heard from the murderer."
Helga had put down her work and stared at Páll.
Gestur slapped his book in amazement. “It must be your brother who makes so much noise!” he exclaimed. “He’s furious that Sigurður never paid a price for murdering him so viciously. He’s demanding that you get him the justice he’s been denied all these years.”
“You’re right,” Pall agreed. “I must find Þorstein Jónsson and ask him to launch a lawsuit against Sigurður.” Páll went to bed that night with a plan and he was rewarded with a peaceful sleep.
But the peace did not last.
Páll tried. He really did. He knew the name of a farmhand who said he had been drinking with Stefán, who used to work for Sigurður. Stefán had admitted that he’d helped to hide a boy’s body at Sigurður’s command. This farmhand had promised Páll that he would share what he knew. He gave him everything the local official would need to bring a suit against Sigurður.
Meanwhile, the ghost, who the townspeople had taken to calling Tungu Brestur, which described his lack of voice, continued to harass Páll. Helga, who was pregnant again, had taken the girls back to her father’s farm. She had been tormented by Tungu Brestur while grinding grain and she could no longer handle the banging and thumping at all times of day and night.
Þorstein finally came to the farm to tell Páll that Sigurður had threatened the farmhand if he spoke against him, so the witness refused to speak on the record. Without that testimony, there was nothing that Þorstein could do. He handed Páll his bill.
“You did nothing. Why should I pay?” Páll threw the bill on the dung fire and waved him away.
Þorstein cursed Páll. “I’ll send you a boy that you will have enough of!”
Páll begged his brother for forgiveness whenever he heard the banging on the stable walls or the farmhouse roof.
“Þorkell, I did my best! I am unimportant and no one will listen to me. I can’t force them to punish Sigurður.” But Þorkell—or Tungu Brestur—continued to follow Páll around the farm and gave him no peace.
Helga decided to return to Kverkártunga with their new son, Páll, after three-year-old Holmfriður had died suddenly of fever. Helga’s mother agreed to keep young Guðríður saying she should not be on a farm where there was an angry ghost.
One day when Helga was working in the kitchen, she heard Tungu Brestur at the doorway. She tried to leave, but a mighty crash in the kitchen left her shaking. Páll was away one night, and Helga was kept awake by hammering on the windows and other noises. This was more than Helga could stand. When Páll returned home, Helga left him and took young Páll further north where she found work on another farm.
Once his family had deserted the farm, Páll was unable to carry on alone. He soon gave up his tenancy at Kverkártunga and returned to working as a labourer on farms throughout the northeast. He never managed a farm again. Páll did see Helga occasionally, but they never lived together as a family again. They even had one more son together; Páll Eiríkur was born a week after his father died of poisoning from contaminated brandy in Vopnjafjörður in 1873.
The locals claimed that Tungu Brestur never strayed from Kverkártunga. He never hurt anyone, caused damage, nor showed himself in any other way than thumping and banging around the farm. If it really was Þorkell, he damaged his brother’s family and never got the justice he sought. The name of Páll Pálsson, my great-great-grandfather, is forever linked to the story of Tungu Brestur in the Icelandic folklore of the Northeast.
Selected Sources
Árnason, Jón, Árni Böðvarsson og Bjarni Vilhjálmsson. (1955). “Reimleikarnir í Kverkártungu”Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og ævintýri. [6 bindi.] Reykjavík: Þjóðsaga, v3: p408. Retrieved from https://baekur.is/bok/26f746bd-5a16-419b-8e84-c20e29dfbdd8/3/680/Islenzkar_thjodsogur_og#page/n679/mode/2up
Árnason, Jón, Árni Böðvarsson og Bjarni Vilhjálmsson. (1955). “Tungudraugurinn”Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og ævintýri. [6 bindi.] Reykjavík: Þjóðsaga, v3: p366–9. Retrieved from https://baekur.is/bok/26f746bd-5a16-419b-8e84- c20e29dfbdd8/3/680/Islenzkar_thjodsogur_og#page/n679/mode/2up
Davíðsson, Benedikt. (Date Unknown). “Strange Phenomenon 178: Tungu-Brestur.” SATT: Fytur Aðeins Sannar Frásagnir, p167.
Eydal, Igmar. (10 Dec 1924). “Guðbjargardraumur” Heimskringla, Winnipeg MB: p.170.Retrieved from https://timarit.is/page/2159461.
Sigfússon, Sigfús. (1982-1993). “Tungu-Brestur I” Ísenskar Þjóðsögur og sagnir, 2 útgáfa. (Rits. Óskar Halldórsson og fl). Reykjavík: Þjóðsafa hf, p323-330.
Sigurðsson, Magnús. 25 Jan–07 Feb 2020. Smalinn (1–5 hluti). [blog posts]. Retrieved from 1. hluti: https://magnuss.blog.is/blog/magnuss/entry/2244877/
5. hluti endir: https://magnuss.blog.is/blog/magnuss/entry/2244885/