Ghosts, Trolls and the Hidden People

An Anthology of Icelandic Folk Legends

By: Dagrun Osk Jonsdottir (Editor)

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Hardcover | 1 September 2025

At a Glance

Hardcover
248 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
20.8 x 15.6 x 3.0

Hardcover

RRP $39.99

$37.75

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From the land of the sagas, a collection of little-known, little tales from myth and lore many available in English for the first time.

This unique and enchanting book opens the door to a captivating world of Icelandic folk legends unfolding across six chapters, each based on a different setting: farm, wilderness, darkness, church, ocean, and shore. The anthology provides translated tales from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as introductions by the author that place these often supernatural happenings in the context of Icelandic society. The legends include tales of hidden people, trolls, ghosts, sea monsters, and even polar bears, exploring themes of love, revenge, and conflict. The book highlights the tension between Christianity and heathen beliefs, past and present, nature and humanity, and divides within society. Drawing from a wide variety of Icelandic sources, the book makes these colourful, entertaining, lively stories available to non-Icelandic speakers, many for the first time.

'Many of the legends assembled in Ghosts, Trolls and the Hidden People blend the otherworldly with the everyday...Dagrn provides helpful context for these charming stories, which deserve a readership far beyond those murky Icelandic farms.' Times Literary Supplement

'One of the book's great strengths is the effort Dagrn has made to contextualise the tales within Icelandic social history...These are vividly told, sometimes brutal, sometimes hilarious tales which offer a wonderfully representative and engrossing conspectus of the long Icelandic past.' Carolyne Larrington, Fortean Times

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