Meet the modern-day witches of Iceland

Iceland is a land that has been long shrouded in mystic and magic. If you peer back into the annals of history, one of its peoples’ most important bodies of work, the Sagas, are filled to the pages with trolls, ghostly apparitions and hauntings. Though first written between 1200–20, these stories remain intrinsic to an Icelander’s sense of cultural identity – children even read pages from the poems in school – so perhaps it's not surprising that to some in these parts, magic isn’t exactly make-believe.

“We're reading stories of people encountering all these spirits, dreams and elves and we're still living in the same land that my ancestors came to a thousand years ago,” explains Ísvöld Ljósbera, 41, a völva from Stokkseyri, a small town in Southern Iceland. In fact, 62% of Icelanders admit they believe elves are more than just fairy tales, according to a study carried out by the University of Iceland, which will tell you something about the role magic plays in Icelandic society.

Growing up though, Ljósbera says the word ‘witch’ wasn’t something that was ever in her vocabulary, but she’s certain that she felt surrounded by “some sort of sorcery magic” almost on the daily. Now, years later, she’s embraced this notion in her everyday work: “I bring prophecies through ceremonial trance. And I give people oracle readings through spirits,” she explains.

Certainly, it’s not quite the pointy hat, cauldron-stirring cackling witch that pop culture might have you believe, but still, some modern portrayals of witchcraft have been influential to some of the country’s contemporary practitioners. Albert Björn Shiell, 28, first had his interest piqued in the witchy arts as a teenager bingeing on nineties TV programmes such as Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer before delving in with his own research. “I was raised Catholic, so it didn't really click. I was probably around 13 when I started getting into it, buying some books on Wicca; the main one was Scott Cunningham's Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner which is a classic.”

Shiell, who follows the customs of Planetary magic – the belief that everything is ruled by the first five planets created, along with the Sun and the Moon – takes the approach that “everything is part of a whole system and everything affects everything within it,” he says. His practice ranges from the psychological to the highly practical. For instance, if on the lookout for a new job, he might try his hand at casting a job spell – carrying it out on his home altar fashioned with crystals and found animal bones.

“I would collect a few different herbs to do with work,” he explains, “typically bay leaves and basil. I would then gather them all together and add in a bit of colour magic (all the colours have associations). I would use a green candle [as green represents physical or mental growth] or draw out a pentacle of Jupiter in green ink, and put the herbs on it. I would then say what I want to happen and then burn everything.” His beliefs are also a help in everyday trials and tribulations too, when he’s searching for a solution or answer to a hard-to-crack question he’ll use a sheep’s knuckle for guidance, almost like an eight ball: “Sheep’s knuckle bones are a thing that are used for divination – you would roll them and if they land on the side that's up, it's a yes. And if they land on the side with the indent, it's a no,” he explains.

The extremity of Iceland’s weather, conditions which are often brutal and harsh, could have something to do with people’s historical urge to look beyond the human realm for rhyme and reason. If, for instance, the harvest failed or sickness fell upon your household, seeking comfort by whatever means they could, either religious deities or powers beyond. “The island itself is just so extremely alive. You can't help being humbled to the powers of nature here,” says Ljósbera. “We’ve always had to grab on to anything to help us survive. A lot of our sorcery and magic spells have to do with illness, sickness and food… and still today we're still calling for good weather and for good fishing and things like that – it has to do with survival.”

Embracing nature and its wild powers is something which is prevalent in both Ljósbera and Shiell’s work and the pair spend stretches outdoors, treating nature like an extension of their home altars. “I have a specific waterfall. I have a specific rock. Everybody here has their place, the part in nature that they will connect especially to,” shares Ljósbera. “Sometimes, if a person is requesting a healing or a ceremony, I might ask them where they feel most comfortable and most of the time it will be outside.”

Shiell too works out-of-doors in Reykjavík’s wilds, going to a nearby nature reserve where he has a designated space set up “with a big stone” to carry out his witchy deeds, day or night (if “you're working with darker things”) but always doing so in a considered, “low impact” manner leaving the spot as he first found it. Here he will attune with the spirits of the area and sometimes he will enact a meditation-style Icelandic tradition known as Utiseta, which means ‘sitting-out’, where you contemplate for hours at a time. “You ask your questions to the land and you meditate on what the answers might be,” he says.

Sometimes he will act alone, but at other times within a group who he meets up with for the equinoxes and the solstice. The communal aspect is something which has cast a spell over him – leaving him feeling like he’s part of something bigger than himself, particularly as a transplant from the UK. “Being an immigrant here, it's a thing that's really helped me get into a life here,” he says, “It’s a self-empowerment thing for most people, well, for me at least.” This ‘taking back the reins' aspect of witchcraft is something which Ljósbera identifies with too. “I think that everybody has power they can utilise,” she smiles, “it doesn't always have to be this kind of fantasy hocus pocus – empowering yourself was considered witchcraft at some point.”