Draugar

A draugar was a ghost or walking dead. They weren't actually ghosts in the normal sense as of a spirit or phantom. Rather, that the corpses were animated and walking again. They inhabited treasure-filled burial mounds, so they were known as mound dwellers.

Unlike the fylgjur, they were more of an abomination, a pest. They were sometimes said to have glowing, baleful eyes. Their figures were usually bloated and their bodies were in a stage of decomposition, so they would smell like rotting meat.

Sometimes, the draugar were seen as harmless, as they sometimes chose to haunt where they used to live. However, this close promixity with the dead usually upset the living, especially relatives and family.

At other times they posed a serious threat to the living, because they would attack people and animals near their mounds, particularly during midwinter. The only way to kill something that was already dead, was to decapitate the draugr and place its head on its own buttocks, before cremating the corpse.

According to the Eyrbyggja saga, there was a feud between two neighbours in Iceland – Snorri the priest and Thorolf Twist-foot. Thorolf was involved with treachery and murders against his former slaves and various neighbours. Thorolf was so upset with his son Arnkel, whom he also betrayed, that Thorolf wouldn't help him against Snorri that night while still sitting up. Arnkel had difficulty in burying his father because his body was unusually heavy and the corpse was spooking the horse.

It was soon discovered that Thorolf was haunting his properties, especially at night. Horses and cattle were dying, apparently frightened to death. People who were caught outdoors in the middle of night could die unexpectedly. Among those who had died was Thorolf's widow because of Thorolf's haunting. Eventually, Arnkel was forced to move his father's body off to some isolated location, and build a high wall around his father's grave.