Icelandic Magic by Stephen E. Flowers

the law allowed.
    But then it so happened that Bishop Jón was traveling to Rome and passed nearby. He found out that Sæmundur was still at the Black School for the aforementioned reason, so he went in and spoke to Sæmundur and offered to help him escape, provided he would go to Iceland and behave as a good Christian. Sæmundur accepted these terms. Bishop Jón made Sæmundur walk in front of him, but he wore his cloak loosely over his shoulders, and just when Jón was about to get out, a hand came up through the floor and gripped the cloak and pulled it under, but Jón got out.
    After this the devil ( fjandinn ) came to Sæmundur and made a pact ( kontrakt ) with him: if Sæmundur could remain hidden for three nights he would be free, but if not, he would belong to him. The first night Sæmundur hid under a riverbank, both in the water and in the soil at the same time, thus the devil (Satan) thought that Sæmundur had drowned in the river; the second night he hid out at sea in a shipwreck that was drifting offshore, so the devil believed that the river must have spit him out into sea; the third night he had himself buried in consecrated earth, so the devil thought that Sæmundur must have been washed ashore dead and been buried in a churchyard, into which he dared not go to seek him. All this was done according to Bishop Jón’s advice.
    Other people say that this is how Sæmundur escaped: His fellow students made a deal with him that he would go out last; so he sewed a leg of mutton to the hem of his cloak, and as he followed the group who were rushing out through the school doors something grabbed at the cloak and caught the leg. Then Sæmundur dropped the cloak and took off on foot, saying, “He grabbed, but I slipped away,” and so he rejoined his fellow students.
    GOTTSKÁLK THE CRUEL (1497–1520)
    Bishop Gottskálk the Cruel was the greatest magician of his time; he renewed the practice of black magic ( svartagaldur ), which had not been in customary use since pagan times, and compiled a book of magic that was called Red-Skin (Rauðskinna). It was written with gold letters and was highly embellished; it was inscribed with rune staves just like all magic spells. The bishop would grant this book to no one after his day, and for this reason he had the book buried with him and did not teach all of his magical knowledge to anyone. Therefore he was harmful to everyone by way of his speech so that he could confuse the memories and minds of men to get them to do things for which he could blame them. At first he thought to hire spies to find out who was eating meat during the Lenten fast, but in the end no one wanted to conduct espionage for him. One man alone was sufficient to do the job, so the bishop taught him magic tricks ( kukl ), and among these was the donning of the helm of hiding ( hulins hjálmur ); although he did not teach him more so that he could control him.
    One time during the Lenten fast this spy went to the farm of a certain farmer and positioned himself at the window of the sitting room; it was very dark outside so the spy did not take heed and did not think it necessary to put on the helm of hiding. But the farmer saw more in front of his face than a certain somebody knew; the farmer saw how the spy came and positioned himself at the window. He then asked his wife where the side of mutton was that they had left uneaten at Shrovetide eve. His wife became angry and asked whether he knew what was at stake, but he said that they had nothing to worry about and ordered her to go fetch the meat. At that point the woman dared not do anything but what she was ordered to do and fetched the meat, and she said, “This is a good fat morsel.” She took the meat and then took a long, pointed knife and cut through the meat. The light burned dully and the spy-man crouched down at the window to see everything that was to be seen. The farmer went about