Haunting stories and the ghosts of murdered children

“Icelandic ghosts come back for retribution and tend to attach themselves to specific areas or people,” says Gunnell. This applies particularly in the case of unwanted or illegitimate children murdered by their mothers, or left to die, who will come back to haunt them and the places of their deaths. “Other [ghosts] walk the landscape because they have been woken by magicians and not put back to sleep,” he says.

Superstition suggests that offering a stone when crossing a haunted mountain pass in Iceland will ward off the evil spirits, allowing you to pass without incident.