458. The Ghosts of the North Atlantic

Scare You To Sleep

Host Shelby Novak returns from a month-long hiatus to share paranormal accounts gathered during her travels through Iceland, Greenland, Newf

Key takeaways

• The 1953 tragedy at Dillon's House involved pharmacist Sigur Jón Magnusson poisoning his family.
• Gudrun Oddsdottir is believed to act as the eternal guardian of Hóla Vala Gardar Cemetery.

Main topics

• Icelandic folklore and ghosts
• Greenlandic Inuit culture and legends

Notable quotes

I am here to read you a bedtime story.

Conclusion

A chilling journey through North Atlantic history that highlights how

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Today's episode is presented by The Influencer Project, in theaters this Friday, October 2nd. Based on true events, the film follows an influencer who travels to Copenhagen for a documentary about her online fame. However, when an obsessive stalker begins tracking her movements, she must confront the terror and reclaim her power. Beauty and fashion influencer Kiara King stars as herself in the found footage movie, which was produced by The Blair Witch Project co-creator Eduardo Sanchez and producer Greg Hale. The Influencer Project hits theaters this Friday, October 2nd. Get tickets now. And Speaker 2 (1:07) welcome to Scare You to Sleep. I'm your host, Shelby Novak, and I'm here to read you a bedtime story. I am so happy to be back. Well, I guess on your end, I never really left. But for me, I haven't sat down to do this show in almost a month. And I'm feeling a little rusty. So bear with me. Before we begin this episode, I do want to remind you that submissions for the kids episode are nearing their deadline. Please have them all submitted to scare you to sleep. at gmail.com by September 30th with kids submission in the subject line. Rules for submissions are available in the show notes of this episode. So, I went on a journey that began in Iceland and ended in New York City. I climbed mountains and kayaked in a fjord and ate fermented shark and visited the Titanic's dead and so many things, but one thing I didn't manage to sneak into my travels despite. us trying was any sort of ghost or paranormal tour. Many of the places I went had zero cell service too, so I couldn't even google local ghosts in the moment. So I thought I'd do a little research and share with you a few of the ghosts of the places I went. Let's begin at the beginning of my trip Speaker 1 (2:48) in Iceland. Speaker 2 (2:51) I did take a local folklore tour during my time in Reykjavik, but there were very few stories about ghosts. We learned many things about elves, hidden people, and trolls, which I was so delighted to learn about. And these aren't just told as whimsical musings about the simple beliefs of their ancestors. Like, this is a day-to-day thing there, but I'm going to contain myself. I'm going into talks about all those guys. I did promise you ghosts, and maybe talk about more highly strange creatures should be saved for another episode, or Speaker 1 (3:28) perhaps a whole other show completely? Speaker 2 (3:33) Hmm, Speaker 1 (3:35) maybe. Speaker 2 (3:38) ghosts it is. Now, before I begin, any Icelanders listening, I will try my darndest with pronunciations, but even in my time there, it was as if my mouth was incapable of forming most of these names and words properly. I do so with no disrespect, and I promise I am trying my best. Same goes for any Greenlanders who may be listening as well when I get to the Greenland section. I was surprised to learn that there aren't as many older buildings around Reykjavik as I would have expected. Because of weather and a growing population, there's a lot of newer infrastructure. And the oldest building in the city was only built in 1762. That's a little old to me as an American, but to most of my listeners from other countries, that's practically brand new. So, Let's talk about the haunting of a home that is no longer there. Well, it exists, but it was moved at one point to an open-air museum. The house was built in 1835 by D. Dillon, a.k.a. Lord Dillon, who was a young English Irishman of noble descent, the younger son of Viscount Dillon, and thus it's called Dillon's House. The ghosts of Dylan's house are allegedly those of much later inhabitants than the original Lord Dylan. You see, in 1953, there was a great tragedy at the house. At that time, a pharmacist named Sigur Jón Magnusson lived there with his wife, Hulda, and their three children. On February 23, 1953, He gave them all poison and took some himself. Speaker 1 (5:39) None of them survived. Speaker 2 (5:42) After the murder-suicide, new residents moved in and reported flickering lights and cold spots, furniture moving, all the classic ghost moves, really. The scariest report allegedly came from some Danish students staying in the house. One of the students claimed that every single night, he saw the same phantom scene play out in the dining room. A family. seated at a dining room table, as the father in the scene passed around a bottle. According to one of my sources, which by the way, all of my sources are listed in these show notes, there was a book written about the murders in 2023 called The Murders in Dillon House, The Fateful Story of Sigrior Ogwunz Dottir and Hulda Karen Larson, which was written by a niece of Hulda. And as you can tell, the name of the pharmacist is A little different than the other name. I found both names, so I decided to include both. I'm not sure which is correct, or maybe they are both correct in some way. I'm not sure. But the only link I found to the book was dead, however, and I couldn't find much about the murders online at all. So I'm curious as to what the pharmacist's motives were. How did he convince the whole family to drink poison? Or did they know it was poison? If you happen to know more about this story, then please comment or email. I would love to learn more. The house, as I stated before, has since been moved to the Arbère Open Air Museum. That was another place where I found a few different spellings for that. So if that name sounds incorrect... It's either my pronunciation or the fact that I found a few different spellings and probably a combination of both. Either way, their house now serves as a cafe at the Open Air Museum, and some say they feel like someone is watching them while they're in there. Could it be the family? Hoping they can put a little extra something in your drink? I do want to mention I will do a whole ramble about all of my travels on Patreon. I had a few requests for that while I was gone, and I'm happy to oblige. It made me feel good that you want to hear more. I really can't wait to talk to you about all the Viking sites I saw while I was in Iceland, including a pond where they would drown each other if they didn't like the laws that the other one proposed. I posed in front of it, smiling, I don't know, just... brought me joy to be in a place so ancient where they passed laws and used to have markets and things. But again, I'll get into all of that on Patreon. But let's go with a type of haunting that, this will sound strange, but this type of haunting always perplexes me. And that is a haunted cemetery. I just never really understood why a cemetery would be haunted. That might sound silly, but Bear with me. You're already dead when you got there. Most people don't spend a significant amount of time in them. And I'm saying most people. I know a lot of my listeners probably do spend significant amounts of time in cemeteries because you're you and I love that. But I'm saying most people don't. And I feel like it's actually probably one of the least likely places to be murdered. Speaker 2 (9:31) Nonetheless, haunted cemetery stories are a classic, and they're always a chilling good time, and this is no exception, and provides a little bit of extra information that makes the haunting itself make a lot more sense to me. Hola Vala Gardar Cemetery opened in 1838 and was a replacement for an old burial ground used since the Vikings were still up and kicking. I've heard, and so goes the tale of the cemetery, that there's an Icelandic tradition that the first person buried in a cemetery becomes its guardian, watching over the dead, making sure they are left in peace to rest. Speaker 1 (10:21) Gudrun Speaker 2 (10:22) Oddsdottir was the unfortunate first resident of the cemetery when it opened in 1838, and she got the job. And oh, what a good job she does. There have been many, many sightings over the years of a woman in black at the cemetery. Some say you can feel her standing near you, or hear her footsteps behind you as you walk along. Some experience an overwhelming stillness, and more terrifying yet, some have seen her. Those who have beheld her say when you see the woman in black, her face is blurred, which is one of the most terrifying details I have ever heard of a ghost. When you get near her, she disappears. Although when you see a woman in black, in Victorian clothing, with a blurry face, I don't know why you'd want to get near her. But if you try to, she does disappear. And even those who don't believe in ghosts say there is something eerie about that cemetery. A presence that they Speaker 1 (11:35) can feel, Speaker 2 (11:36) that they Speaker 1 (11:37) can't explain. Speaker 2 (11:41) I love it. So before we move on from Iceland, I thought I'd also read a couple of very specific Reddit entries for you. We Speaker 1 (11:49) love Speaker 2 (11:49) our Reddit ghost stories around here. And these I found while perusing the Iceland subreddit, which, by the way, came in very handy while I was actually in Iceland. My sister-in-law and I, who I was traveling with, referred to the Iceland subreddit a few times for suggestions about things. So this was posted two years ago by a now-deleted user who asked, Icelanders, what are your best true ghost stories? And a different deleted user said, Mom worked at a bakery for many years, and a man came there almost daily to shop. He always had his dog with him. The dog was unleashed and always waited quietly outside until the owner came back out. One day the man came, but no dog. And mom asked, what? The dog isn't with you today? Uh, what dog? I don't own a dog. Mom described the dog to him while she served the man, and then when she turned back to him with the pastries, she saw he had turned pale and stammered, Shadow? Shadow died nine years ago. He continued to come daily, but mom never saw the dog again. This is special because Mom is down to earth and has never told any such stories before or since. Of course, there's always a chance the man had recently lost his dog and used the opportunity to create a ghost story. A good actor then, though, to be able to turn so pale. Speaker 1 (13:25) I thought that one was really cute. Speaker 2 (13:30) The next is from Sven Hassan. Speaker 2 (13:33) From a fish processing plant founded by an old man around 1950. He himself worked in the net workshop on the second floor for many years. On the third floor are apartments that employees can rent. I rented one of them and was a foreman along with another man. Only five people in total had a key to the workshop on the second floor. It was often said that the old man is still working despite having died many years earlier. I probably didn't believe it until one evening. I went out and heard hard plastic net floats dropping on the floor below me. Quite a few floats. Then I heard, quote unquote, him dragging the net along the floor in the same direction I was going. I put my ear to the floor and yes, 100 % sure someone was dragging a net along the floor. I decided to go down to the workshop and check it out since I had a key. Completely dark and no movement. Everything in its place. Then I quickly walked out. I told people about this on Monday and apparently most people knew about it and everyone had just started ignoring him. Speaker 2 (14:56) This next one gave me a weird pit in my stomach, I admit, because he doesn't specify what house at this museum he was in, but this is the same museum where Dylan's house now resides. The one I told you about earlier. So this is from Ice Viking, and they said, I have a memory from when I was a child. I went with the school to the... Speaker 2 (15:28) Bayar Sifin Museum, we are looking inside an old house. I sneak up to the second floor of