There are many reasons why the dead contact the living in the Icelandic folktales. These people are the ones that have died out on the land, drowned, or other- wise lost their lives, and the locations off their bodies is unknown to the living. These spirits often contact their closest family or friends through a dream, and there they announce, often in a poem about how they lost their life, how their bodies look and where their bodies are located, and they also talk about where they have gone since dying.
When people disappeared and couldn’t be found, this kind of contact was often the only lead that living people could go after, and often it was proved that what the spirits told the living through dreams was true. What also often happened was that the people who dreamt the dreams couldn’t sleep very well and had to share with others what it was they were dreaming.
As I live in Hollow Water, I have learned about a ceremony that the First Nations people perform to communicate with the spirits and ask them questions. This ceremony is called a shaking tent ceremony. There is a story from Hollow Water that happened around 1950, about a man that was believed to have drowned out on Lake Winnipeg; but he was never found.
The people decided to ask the spirits where he could be found and a shaman was asked to do a shaking tent ceremony. There the spirits contacted the shaman and told him that the man was not to be found in the water, but that he was somewhere on land. The man’s body was found exactly where the spirits had told the people to look for him.
As I have said before, there are a lot of similarities between the Icelandic culture and the First Nations cultures in Canada.
Unnustinn / The fiancé
Once there was this young man and a young woman that lived on a farm. They were engaged and loved one another very much. In the wintertime he went fishing, and they had a talk before he left. He promised the young woman that he would write her often. Then he left and the time passed until Christmas came.
Around Christmas time the woman started to dream of her fiancé, and the dreams were so strong that it was hard for her to have a good sleep. In the dreams he was talking about himself and other people. This old lady lived also at the farm, and the young woman decided to talk to her and share her dreams with that old woman. She told her that she couldn’t sleep any more. It didn’t surprise the old woman, and she said: “When you go to sleep tonight I will take care of the door of the house that you sleep in.”
That evening the young woman went to sleep and she dreamt that her fiancé was standing by her window and he said: “You did a evil thing to me by closing the door on me, now things have turn around and I will never be able again to contact you, but I wanted to be your dream man, and now you have worked against me by closing the door.” Then he said this poem: “Vér höfum fengið sæng í sjó svipir öllu grandi; höfum þó á himni ró hæstan guð prísandi.” Then he left and the young woman woke up.
She was so upset when she woke up that she ran outside and was going to kill herself. But some people were still awake, and they were able to stop her and bring her back inside of the house. After that the girl became fine but her fiancé never visited her again. References. Íslenskar þjóðsögur og ævintýri I Jón Árnason 1961 221, 224.Björk Bjarnadóttir is an Icelandic environmental ethnologist living in Hollow Water, MB. She is also a storyteller and gives talks in schools and community centres.
Icelandic folktales. These people are the ones that have died out on the land, drowned, or other- wise lost their lives, and the locations off their bodies is unknown to the living. These spirits often contact their closest family or friends through a dream, and there they announce, often in a poem about how they lost their life, how their bodies look and where their bodies are located, and they also talk about where they have gone since dying. 
