The Fossgrímur — The Waterfall Spirit Who Does Not Like to Be Counted

Skógafoss, South Iceland

Each major waterfall in Iceland has a Fossgrímur — a waterfall spirit who inhabits the curtain of falling water. They are not hostile unless disturbed. Do not measure, count, or photograph a waterfall without first acknowledging what lives in it.

Iceland has more waterfalls per unit of landscape than almost any country on earth. The abundance of glacial meltwater, the dramatic topography of the rift valley, and the relative youth of the landscape combine to produce cascades of every scale — from the 60-metre curtain of Skógafoss to the near-invisible threads that run off roadside cliffs in the Western Fjords. Each significant waterfall has, in the Icelandic folk tradition, a Fossgrímur: a spirit specific to that waterfall, resident in the falling column of water itself. The Fossgrímur is not a creature that lives behind or near the waterfall — it is the waterfall, or that part of the waterfall that is more than water. The spirits are described as generally indifferent to human presence. Travellers have passed beneath and beside Icelandic waterfalls for a thousand years without incident. The trouble arises from specific actions that the tradition describes as impolite. Measuring the height of a waterfall was understood as a challenge — as if by knowing the number you were attempting to possess what could not be owned. Counting the individual falls in a cascade was similarly inadvisable. Photography is a modern addition to the list, though its rationale is ancient: to fix an image of the Fossgrímur is an attempt at capture. The practical wisdom was simple. You acknowledge before you approach. Not elaborate ritual — a word is enough. 'I know you are here.' The falls that have the densest folklore associated with them — Skógafoss, Seljalandsfoss, Goðafoss — are the ones where this acknowledgement has historically been most consistently offered. This may explain why they continue to be spectacular.