Sæmundr fróði and the Devil at the Black School

Oddi, South Iceland

Sæmundr the Wise studied at a Paris school run by the Devil, where students learned by leaving no shadow. When they graduated, the Devil took the last one out. Sæmundr stepped aside — and the Devil grabbed his shadow instead.

Sæmundr Sigfússon — Sæmundr the Wise — was a real historical figure: a scholar and chieftain who lived at Oddi in South Iceland from 1056 to 1133. He was educated in continental Europe and returned to Iceland with an extraordinary breadth of learning. The folklore tradition, however, has a different account of his education. In the stories, Sæmundr studied at a Black School — Svartiskóli — somewhere in Germany, where the curriculum was taught by the Devil himself. Students at the Black School cast no shadow during their studies: the Devil owned the shadows, holding them as collateral against the knowledge being transferred. When each student completed his studies, he had to leave the school faster than his shadow could catch him — for the last student out would be taken by the Devil in shadow's place. Sæmundr was clever. When the cohort of graduates fled the school, he stepped aside at the last moment and let the others run past. The Devil reached in and grabbed the shadow at the end of the line. The shadow was Sæmundr's own — but a shadow, not a man. Sæmundr walked out into the sunlight, shadowless. He remained shadowless for the rest of his life, which was long, learned, and evidently productive. Oddi under his influence became the primary intellectual centre of medieval Iceland. His descendants included Snorri Sturluson. The story survives in dozens of variants across Scandinavia, but Iceland made it Sæmundr's own. The farm at Oddi is still visited. The fields around it are said to be slightly cooler than those adjacent.