Norse terrors

[cauldronbrewer]

A recent reread of an excellent Jessie Douglas Kerruish tale set me to thinking about horror stories inspired by Norse folklore and/or set in Scandinavia. So here's a place for all your trolls, huldrefolk, and Loki worshippers.

Short stories

Sabine Baring-Gould - Glámr
M.R. James - Count Magnus
Jessie Douglas Kerruish - The Wonderful Tune
Sterling Lanier - The Kings of the Sea
Frank Norris - Grettir at Thorhall-stead
M.P. Shiel - The House of Sounds
H.R. Wakefield - Lucky's Grove
T.H. White - The Troll

Novels

Jack Mann - Grey Shapes
Jack Mann - Her Ways Are Death
Adam Nevill - The Ritual
Peter Tremayne - Trollnight (I haven't read this one, so I'm going by the description)

Films

The Ritual
Thale
Trollhunter

I'm sure that only scratches the surface ...

[cromagnonman]

"The Cairn on the Headland" by Robert E Howard [Strange Tales January 1932]

"Twilight of the Gods" by Edmond Hamilton [Weird Tales July 1948]

The Starkadder trilogy by Bernard King. An exceptional fantasy series ostensibly but one which in the character of the cannibalistic vargr veers into out and out horror.

But, as you say, there must be plenty more.

[andydecker]

I am not so convinced that there are really so many horrorstories based on norse myth. While in Fantasy this was kind of a cottage industry - the strangest I read back when I did read for publishers was a urban fantasy which had Thor living on the beach in contemporary L.A. I think; it even wasn't half bad if I remember correctly - in horror fiction I would be hard pressed to name even one novel.

[bluetomb]

I remember enjoying the 1991 film The Runestone. Possibly a standard studio affair of its time, but a nice cast and some enjoyable style and atmosphere come to mind. There was also 1987 slasher Berserker, which I remember being in the skippable unless you have to have to see every 80's slasher tier.

[Middoth]

"Skule Skerry" by John Buchan

"The Selkie" by David Bischoff, Charles Sheffield

[Dr Strange]

Adam Nevill - The Original Occupant (originally appeared in Bernie Herrmann's Manic Sextet, ed. Gary Fry 2005; collected in Nevill's Some Will Not Sleep, 2016). Henry Berringer travels to a remote part of Northern Sweden to try to find out what has happened to his friend, William Atterton, who left his career in the City of London for a simpler life in a cabin located in "a prehistoric forest festooned with runestones". Only a few weeks into what was supposed to be a stay of at least 12 months, Atterton had written to Berringer saying "I plan to be gone from here by the week's end... there is something not right about this place" - and he has not been heard from since. This short story eventually mutated into The Ritual, but was written 4 years before and is very much in the spirit (and style) of MR James - if it wasn't for some blink-and-you'll-miss-them references to telephone masts, rental cars, and helicopter searches you could be forgiven for thinking that Atterton and Berringer were a couple of well-to-do Edwardian gentlemen.

[Shrink Proof]

"On Skua Island" by John Langan (from his collection "Mr Gaunt and Other Uneasy Tales") would probably fit. Set on a tiny, remote, uninhabited and impossibly bleak island off the north coast of Scotland (of which there are many...), it all kicks off when an archaeologist is asked by members of the British security service to investigate some peculiar Viking runes found there. With the help of a small party of soldiers, the expedition makes it to the island and discovers the leathery remains of an ancient woman. She shows evidence of having had her throat cut, presumably by the sword that's found lying on top of her. The archaeologist translates the runes, which describe a plague afflicting the area and a wizard choosing a young woman, Frigga, as a sacrifice who would take the plague into herself. She's been buried under an obelisk with the sword on top of her; the runes add that the latter must never be moved. In the great tradition of "don't enter that spooky house on Halloween", the expedition memebers go ahead and remove it.

Frigga returns to life and wreaks havoc. A squad of soldiers with sub-machine guns don't stand a chance against a pissed off Viking woman risen from the grave...

[cauldronbrewer]

Jan 9, 2021 22:50:18 GMT Shrink Proof said:

"On Skua Island" by John Langan (from his collection "Mr Gaunt and Other Uneasy Tales") would probably fit. Set on a tiny, remote, uninhabited and impossibly bleak island off the north coast of Scotland (of which there are many...), it all kicks off when an archaeologist is asked by members of the British security service to investigate some peculiar Viking runes found there. With the help of a small party of soldiers, the expedition makes it to the island and discovers the leathery remains of an ancient woman. She shows evidence of having had her throat cut, presumably by the sword that's found lying on top of her. The archaeologist translates the runes, which describe a plague afflicting the area and a wizard choosing a young woman, Frigga, as a sacrifice who would take the plague into herself. She's been buried under an obelisk with the sword on top of her; the runes add that the latter must never be moved. In the great tradition of "don't enter that spooky house on Halloween", the expedition memebers go ahead and remove it.

Frigga returns to life and wreaks havoc. A squad of soldiers with sub-machine guns don't stand a chance against a pissed off Viking woman risen from the grave...

I thought this sounded familiar, and it was: I read the story in The Mammoth Book of the Mummy.

[Dr Strange]

Christopher Harman - A True Yorkshireman (Terror Tales of Yorkshire, ed. Paul Finch, 2014). Modern-day story of a Yorkshire troll and his bridge, which for some reason I found especially creepy and disorientating.

[Shrink Proof]

May 19, 2021 18:03:00 GMT Dr Strange said:

Christopher Harman - A True Yorkshireman (Terror Tales of Yorkshire, ed. Paul Finch, 2014). Modern-day story of a Yorkshire troll and his bridge, which for some reason I found especially creepy and disorientating.

Yes, but it's well known that you can always tell Yorkshire folk.





But you can't tell 'em much...

[cauldronbrewer]

Eleanor Scott's "The Cure" features a character who unearths dark secrets on his Nordic journeys:

"Well, you know how he went off into the North to find out sagas and charms and things? He found out a lot ... and ... I can't quite follow it all. He was alone, you know, alone there in the dark and the ice. He seemed--fascinated ... He went about, farther and farther north. He opened tombs and things ... and he found odd things, and heard--dreadful things..."