Thorgunna, ghostly vampiress, takes out half a town. Circa a 1855 retelling anyway.
This excellent old lady having, a short time previous to her death, appointed one Thorodd her executor, and the wife of the said Thorodd having covetously induced her husband to preserve some bed-furniture which the deceased particularly desired to have have burnt, a series of ghost-visits ensued. Thorgunna requested that her body might be conveyed to a distant place called Skalholt ; and on the way thither her ghost appeared at a house where the funeral party put up. But the worst visitations occurred on the return of Thorold to his own house. On the very night when he reached his domicile, a meteor resembling a half-moon glided round the walls of the apartment in a direction opposed to the apparent course of the sun (an ominous sign), and remained visible until the inmates went to bed. The spectral appearance continued throughout the week ; and then one of the herdsman went mad, evidently under the persecutions of evil spirits. At length he was found dead in his bed ; and, shortly after, Thorer, one of the inmates of the house, going out in the evening, was seized by the ghost of the dead shepherd, and so injured by blows, that he died. His spirit then went into partnership with that of the herdsman, and together they played some very awkward and alarming pranks. A pestilence appeared, of which many of the neighbors dies ; and one evening something in the shape of a seal-fish lifted itself up through the flooring of Thorodd's house, and gazed around.
The terrified domestics having in vain struck at the apparition, which continued to rise through the floor, Kiartan, the son of Thorodd, smote it on the head with a hammer, and drove it gradually and reluctantly into the earth, like a stake. Subsequently, Thorodd and several of his servants were drowned ; and now their ghosts were added to the spectral group. Every evening, when the fire was lighted in the great hall, Thorodd and his companions would enter, drenched and dripping, and seat themselves close to the blaze, from which they very selfishly excluded all the living inmates ; while from the other side of of the apartment, the ghosts of those who had died of pestilence, and who appeared gray with dust, would bend their way toward the same comfortable nook, under under the leadership of Thorer. This being a very awkward state of affairs in a climate like Iceland, Kiartan, who was now master of the house, caused a separate fire to be kindled for the mortals in an out-house, leaving the great hall to the specters; with which arrangement their ghostships seemed satisfied. The deaths from the pestilence continued to increase ; and every death caused an addition to the phantom army.
Matters had now reached so serious a pitch, that it was found absolutely necessary to take some steps against the disturbances of the neighborhood. It was accordingly resolved to proceed against them by law ; but previously to commencing the legal forms, Kiartan caused the unfortunate bed-furniture, which had been at the bottom of all the mischief, to be burnt in sight of the specters. A jury was then formed in the great hall ; the ghosts were accused of being public nuisances within the meaning of the act in that the case the made and provided ; evidence was heard, and finally a sentence of ejectment was pronounced. Upon this, the phantoms rose ; and, protesting that they had only sat there while it was lawful for them to do so, sullenly and mutteringly withdrew, with many symptoms of unwillingness. A priest them damped the room with holy-water – a solemn mass was performed, and the supernatural visitors were thenceforth non est inventus.
Harper's New Monthly Magazine Vol 10
December 1854 to May 1855
EXCERPT from pgs 681-685;
“Vampyres”
