The Ghost of Gunnar of Hlíðarendi — Singing in the Mound

Hlíðarendi, Fljótshlíð, South Iceland

Gunnar of Hlíðarendi was outlawed from Iceland and refused to leave. He died defending his farm. Years later, his burial mound opened, and his ghost was seen inside — not weeping, but singing, 'cheerful and undaunted.'

Gunnar Hámundarson of Hlíðarendi is one of the great figures of Njáls Saga — handsome, generous, almost impossible to kill, and possessed of a quality described in the saga as an unwillingness to be anywhere other than exactly where he was. When his enemies secured his outlawry from the Althing, Gunnar saddled his horse to leave Iceland. At the last moment, his horse stumbled and threw him. He looked back at his farm, at the slopes of Hlíðarendi, and said the famous words: 'Beautiful is the hillside. It has never seemed so beautiful to me as now, with its pale fields and mown meadows. I shall ride back home and not go abroad at all.' He stayed. His enemies came for him. He fought them alone — first with bow and sword, then, when his bowstring was cut, bare-handed — and killed many before he was overwhelmed. He died at Hlíðarendi. Some time after his burial, two men passing the mound in the night saw it standing open. Inside was Gunnar, turning and looking at the moon. He was singing. The saga notes specifically that he looked 'cheerful and undaunted.' The two men who saw him found this more disturbing than weeping would have been. The ghost of Gunnar — happy in his grave, unrepentant, at home in the hillside he refused to leave — passed into the tradition as a particular type of Icelandic steadfastness: the stubbornness of the man who chooses the place over the continuation of himself. Hlíðarendi is in Fljótshlíð. The mound is pointed out.