There are many supernatural phenomena in Laxdaela saga. We're going to tell you about some of them.
First it's Gudrun Osvifursdottir's dreams. Her dreams were remarkable because they signified her husbands in the future. The most remarkable thing was that the dreams came true exactly in the way Gestur Oddleifsson interpreted.
Olafur pa also had a strange dream the night after he killed the bull Harri. Olafur dreamt that an angry-looking woman came to him and said that she was the mother of the bull Harri. She said that as Olafur had killed her son she would kill the one of his sons that he would miss most. When Olafur woke up it seemed that he saw the woman leaving the room. The dream came true many years later when Kjartan, Olafur's favourite son, was killed.
The violent man Hrappur came to Iceland from the Hebrides and wasn't at all popular among his neighbours as he was always bugging them. Before he died he ordered that his body was to be buried standing up in the kitchen doors of Hrappstadir. After his death he haunted the place and it's told that he killed most of his servants as a ghost. Even if Hoeskuldur moved the body and had the houses at Hrappstadir destroeyd Hrappur's ghost kept on doing evil. Hrappur's son, Sumarlidi, built new houses at Hrappstadir and tried to live there but very soon he got insane and died. Nobody could live at Hrappsstadir until Olafur pa bought the farm. Olafur unburied Hrappur's body and had it put on fire after Hrappur's ghost had attacked Olafur's workman.
More examples can be found of ghosts in the story. Gudrun Osvifursdottir saw her fourth husband and his crew, all wet of sea, standing by her church although they had drowned shortly before. They didn't do her any harm.
Kotkell, Grima and their sons, Hallbjoern and Stigandi, originally came from the Hebrides, like Hrappur. They used black magic. Even their glance of the eye was evil. When Olafur pa and his men were going to kill Stigandi they put a bag over his head so that he couldn't use his evil look. But there was a hole in the bag and Stigandi had a look up to the beautiful grassgrown hill. It seemed like a torpedo had ridden over the place because Stigandi turned the soil upside down. Since then no grass has ever grewn there.
Thuridur, Olafur pa's daughter, was married to Geirmundur gnyr. They had a little daughter called Gro. Geirmundur left her and was going to Norway. Then Thuridur went to his ship at night, took his sword, called Fotbitur, and left Gro with him instead. Gro started to cry and Geirmundur woke up. When he found out what Thuridur had done he shouted to her to give him his sword back. Thuridur said that never would she give it back to him. Then Geirmundur cast a spell on the sword Fotbitur that it would kill the most prominent and popular man in her familiy. This spell came true when Bolli killed Kjartan with the sword Fotbitur.
