Icelandic Witchcraft: A History of Magic, Witch Trials and Survival

When people hear the words Icelandic witchcraft, they often imagine Viking sorcerers carving mysterious runes beneath the northern lights. The truth is more complicated—and far more interesting.

The history of magic in Iceland was shaped by many different influences. Old Norse beliefs survived in medieval stories, Christian prayers appeared beside magical signs, European occult traditions entered handwritten books, and ordinary people used charms in the hope of protecting their homes, livestock and livelihoods. Later, during the seventeenth century, fear and religious authority turned some of those practices into evidence of a crime.

Icelandic witchcraft was never a single, organised religion or one unchanging magical system. It developed over centuries, changing with the people who recorded, feared and practised it.

What Does “Icelandic Witchcraft” Mean?

The English word witchcraft can flatten several different Icelandic ideas into one convenient label. Historical sources use words connected with magic, knowledge and spellcraft, but they do not always mean the same thing.

Galdur can refer to magic, charms or sorcery. The word is related to the idea of chanting or singing, reminding us that magic could be spoken as well as written.
Galdrastafir are magical staves or symbols. The singular form is galdrastafur.
Fjölkynngi describes unusual, hidden or magical knowledge—the condition of being “many-knowing.”
Seiðr is a form of magic described in Old Norse literature and associated with prophecy, altered states, influence and the shaping of events.
Galdrabækur or magical books contained signs, prayers, coded alphabets, charms and instructions copied by hand.

These traditions overlapped, but they were not identical. A healer using a prayer, a scholar copying a magical alphabet and a person accused of sending illness could all be placed beneath the broad modern label of witchcraft, even though their actions and social roles were very different.

Magic in the Old Norse World

Iceland was settled mainly by Norse people during the late ninth and early tenth centuries. The settlers brought stories, religious customs and ideas about a world inhabited by gods, land spirits, the dead and other supernatural beings.

Magic appears throughout Old Norse mythology and the Icelandic sagas. The god Óðinn seeks forbidden knowledge, learns charms and is associated with seiðr. The goddess Freyja is also connected with seiðr, while human practitioners in the sagas use prophecy, curses, dreams and ritual to understand or influence events.

These literary accounts are important, but they must be treated carefully. Most surviving saga manuscripts were written by Christian authors generations after Iceland’s conversion. They preserve memories and stories about the pre-Christian world, but they are not straightforward manuals showing exactly how every ritual was performed.

It is therefore safer to say that medieval Icelanders remembered and wrote about magical practices than to claim that every later Icelandic charm came directly from the Viking Age.

Christianity Did Not Erase Magic Overnight

Iceland formally accepted Christianity around the year 1000. That change did not instantly remove older beliefs from everyday life. Stories about elves, prophetic dreams, ghosts, land spirits and supernatural warnings continued to circulate alongside Christian teaching.

Over time, magic also absorbed Christian material. Icelandic magical manuscripts may contain crosses, invocations of God, Christ, angels and saints, Latin words, biblical names and symbols associated with European ceremonial magic. A charm might look “pagan” to a modern viewer while containing deeply Christian language—or combine elements from several traditions on the same page.

This mixture matters. Icelandic magic was not simply a sealed remnant of an untouched pagan past. It changed as books, religious ideas and learned traditions travelled to Iceland from elsewhere in Europe.

Recent manuscript research has traced important elements of the galdrastafir tradition to medieval and Renaissance European esoteric sources, including the wider Solomonic tradition. Icelandic scribes adapted those ideas into a distinctive local form rather than merely preserving a single ancient runic system.

The Reformation and a Growing Fear of Sorcery

The Lutheran Reformation was completed in Iceland in the sixteenth century. In the decades that followed, religious and secular authorities became increasingly concerned with practices they considered superstition, heresy or harmful magic.

Before the great wave of seventeenth-century prosecutions, people could still face serious punishment for possessing magical books or being accused of using charms. An early case recorded in 1554 involved a priest in Eyjafjörður and grimoires found in his possession.

In 1617, the Danish crown issued an ordinance defining punishments for witchcraft. Iceland was under the Danish crown, but the exact legal path of that order in Iceland is not entirely simple; the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft notes that it may never have been formally ratified by the Alþingi at Þingvellir. Even so, accusations and court cases became increasingly visible during the seventeenth century.

The first person known to have been burned for sorcery in Iceland was Jón Rögnvaldsson, a farmhand from Eyjafjörður, in 1625. He was accused of raising a ghost and sending it to trouble a neighbouring farm. Jón denied the charges, but papers bearing runic characters and signs were discovered among his possessions. That was enough for the local sheriff to have him burned.

Twenty-nine years passed before the next recorded executions.

The Burning Times in Iceland

The most intense period of Icelandic witch persecution is often called brennuöldin—the Age of Burning, or the Burning Times. It lasted from the seventeenth century into the early eighteenth century, although the executions themselves were concentrated between 1625 and 1683.

The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft lists 21 people burned for sorcery between 1625 and 1683. Twenty were men. Only one, Þuríður Ólafsdóttir, was a woman.

Historical totals can vary slightly between modern accounts depending on which disputed or earlier cases are included. The museum’s named list of 21 documented victims provides the clearest basis for discussing the Icelandic burnings themselves.

Important moments in the Icelandic witch trials

1625: Jón Rögnvaldsson became the first known person burned for sorcery in Iceland.
1654: Þórður Guðbrandsson, Egill Bjarnason and Grímur Jónsson were burned in Trékyllisvík in the Strandir region.
1656: A father and son, both named Jón Jónsson, were burned after the Reverend Jón Magnússon accused them of causing his illness through magic.
The 1670s: Prosecutions and executions reached their height. Several cases were connected with alleged illnesses in the household of the Reverend Páll Björnsson and his wife, Helga Halldórsdóttir, in Selárdalur.
1678: Þuríður Ólafsdóttir, the only woman on the museum’s list of those burned, was executed with her son Jón Helgason.
1683: Sveinn Árnason became the last person burned for sorcery in Iceland.
1690: A royal decree required capital cases to be referred to authorities in Copenhagen, helping bring local executions to an end.
1719: The Alþingi rebuked a sheriff for wasting the court’s time with a magical accusation. The museum treats this as the symbolic end of Iceland’s Burning Times.

The accusations were varied. People were said to have caused illness, raised ghosts, killed animals, prevented boats from catching fish, used magical signs, owned forbidden books or taught magic to someone else. Some confessed after imprisonment; others denied every charge. Rumour, personal conflict, fear and the influence of powerful accusers could decide a person’s fate.

Why Were Most Accused Icelandic Witches Men?

This is one of the clearest differences between the Icelandic witch trials and the better-known persecutions in many parts of Europe, where women formed the majority of the accused.

In Iceland, learned magic, written charms and the ownership of magical books were strongly associated with men. Literacy, formal education and access to manuscripts were also more available to men, particularly clergymen and other educated figures. Magical skill could therefore be imagined as a dangerous form of specialised knowledge rather than as an inherently female power.

Many Icelandic accusations focused on what a person supposedly knew: how to carve a sign, speak a charm, control a ghost, heal an illness or harm an enemy. The feared figure was often a galdramaður—a man believed to possess magical knowledge.

This does not mean that Icelandic women had no relationship with magic or folk belief. Women appear as healers, wise women, dreamers and supernatural figures in folklore and literature. However, the surviving trial record shows that the seventeenth-century legal stereotype of the Icelandic sorcerer was overwhelmingly male.

Magical Books, Runes and Galdrastafir

Handwritten books were central to the history of Icelandic magic. They could contain protective prayers, healing charms, curses, secret alphabets, astrological material, Christian invocations, runic characters and complex magical staves.

One seventeenth-century manuscript now catalogued as Lbs 143 8vo contains Icelandic and Latin texts, Christian material and protective staves. Later collections preserved older material while adding new signs and explanations. The manuscript Huld, written by Geir Vigfússon in 1860, contains hundreds of alphabets and a collection of magical staves.

The dates are important because many symbols marketed today as “ancient Viking runes” are known primarily from manuscripts written centuries after the Viking Age. That does not make them meaningless or inauthentic. It means their real history belongs to a living manuscript tradition that borrowed, transformed and preserved ideas over a long period.

Galdrastafir were created for many purposes, including protection, healing, luck, love, finding thieves, controlling animals, surviving dangerous weather and gaining advantage over an opponent. Some were intended to harm, but many reveal more ordinary fears: hunger, sickness, isolation, loss and the constant uncertainty of life in a harsh environment.

Folk Magic as a Tool for Survival

It is easy to let the drama of witch trials dominate the story. Yet most Icelandic folk magic was not about grand ceremonies or imagined alliances with the Devil. It was about trying to survive.

For people living on isolated farms, a failed fishing season, sick livestock or a sudden storm could be catastrophic. Medical help was limited, travel was dangerous and poverty left little room for misfortune. Prayers, herbs, signs, spoken formulas and protective objects offered a sense of action when ordinary solutions were unavailable.

This does not prove that the charms produced the results promised in manuscripts. It does show why people might value them. Magic gave shape to hope, fear and practical need.

The supernatural also helped people explain experiences they could not otherwise understand. Sudden illness might be blamed on a curse. Strange behaviour could be attributed to a spirit. Repeated bad luck might create suspicion around a neighbour already rumoured to possess hidden knowledge. In that way, folk belief could comfort a community—but it could also place vulnerable people in terrible danger.

The Legacy of Icelandic Witchcraft Today

Iceland’s magical history survives in manuscripts, court records, folktales, place-names, family stories and modern art. Galdrastafir appear on jewellery, clothing and tattoos, while symbols such as Ægishjálmur and Vegvísir have become known around the world.

Modern interest has also created confusion. Not every Icelandic magical stave is a Viking symbol, not every folktale records a literal event, and not every historical charm belongs to pre-Christian religion. The tradition is valuable precisely because it is layered: Norse memory, Christian belief, European occult learning and Icelandic folk culture all left their marks.

The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft in Hólmavík has played an important role in preserving and presenting this history, especially the stories of people accused during the seventeenth-century persecutions. Its second site, the Sorcerer’s Cottage in Bjarnarfjörður, places magical beliefs within the difficult living conditions of poor tenant farmers.

Today, people may approach Icelandic witchcraft as history, spirituality, art, ancestry or folklore. Whatever the reason, the people who suffered during the witch trials deserve to be remembered as human beings—not reduced to frightening legends or decorative symbols.

Common Myths About Icelandic Witchcraft

“All Icelandic magical staves are Viking runes.”

No. Some signs may contain runic elements or reflect older Germanic ideas, but the surviving tradition also includes Christian symbols, Latin, coded alphabets and material connected with medieval and Renaissance European magic.

“Most people executed as witches in Iceland were women.”

No. The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft lists twenty men and one woman burned between 1625 and 1683.

“Christianity completely replaced older beliefs.”

No. Religious change was gradual. Older supernatural ideas survived in stories and custom, while Christian prayers and names became part of later magical practice.

“Every galdrastafur is ancient.”

No. The age of a symbol depends on the manuscript or object in which it is documented. Several famous staves are preserved in post-medieval or nineteenth-century collections.

“Icelandic witchcraft was only harmful magic.”

No. Historical charms addressed protection, healing, safe travel, fishing, livestock, love and many other everyday concerns, although harmful magic received more attention from courts and chroniclers.

A History Written in Layers

The history of Icelandic witchcraft is not a simple tale of pagan magic surviving unchanged from the Viking Age. It is a history of adaptation.

Old Norse stories, Christian devotion, imported occult knowledge, handwritten books and local folk belief became entangled over centuries. For some people, magic offered protection or hope. For others, an accusation of magic led to punishment, exile or death.

To understand Icelandic witchcraft, we must look beyond the symbols and see the world that created them: isolated farms, dangerous seas, scarce resources, religious change, powerful authorities and people trying to gain some control over an unpredictable life.

That human struggle—not fantasy—is the true heart of Iceland’s magical history.

Continue Exploring Icelandic Witchcraft

Icelandic Folk Magic: Everyday Charms, Beliefs and Superstitions
Galdrastafir: The History and Meaning of Icelandic Magical Staves
The Icelandic Witch Trials: The People Behind the Burning Times
Icelandic Grimoires: Magic Preserved in Handwritten Books