I have never heard of Old Man Gimli and I was born in Gimli and lived there for years. I called an old friend who still lives there and she said it was probably the cottagers who made it up. There was a hermit who lived in South beach he scavenged along the beach and checked out trash cans for things..he once had a house across the road from my grandparents. It’s been so long I forgot his name…
Thanks for the reply! By the way Edith Fowke and other folklorists wrote about it, it seemed like it was a big deal amongst teens and summer camp kids throughout the 70s and 80s, so interesting to hear it’s not as popular as it seems.
I totally heard about this at the school camp I’d go to every year in the area. There was a shed on the campgrounds he apparently kept his treasures in. I think the adults told us that so we’d stay away from the sharp tools tbh.
Camp Morton maybe…all those unusual structures and the tragic story connected to the bell tower. Someone built a miniature castle and the stones marking the foundation are still there also pieces of the stone fence.
It stopped being a summer camp in the late 60’s early 70’s we would go there and explore the buildings. It was in the 80’s when the kid was killed and another seriously injured in the bell tower. As a teenagers we would build a bonfire on the beach near the pump house drinking beer and watch the sun come up.
I do not know the folk tale but would be curious to hear more about it. When I was camping at Camp Morton as a teen (early 2000’s) my friends and I were coming back to our campsite after exploring all the grounds. It was dark and we were all casually chatting, then simultaneously all looked in the same direction and saw a glowing figure/ghost walk behind a tree, nothing came out the other side, and no one was behind the tree after we went to look. Keep us posted if you learn more!
Edit to add: I just spoke with my grandma and apparently my great great grandpa was one of the carpenters that built the church at the cemetery. I’m not very familiar with that area, but interesting to know! Maybe it was him we saw walking behind the tree..
So I posted on the "Meanwhile in Gimli" Facebook group and here are some of the replies:
1. The story of Thorgeir’s Bull is that Thorgeir was skinning a bull in his field in Iceland and his wife called him in for dinner before he was finished. The half skinned bull haunted Thorgeir and followed his descendants when they moved to New Iceland. Here is a photo https://www.flickr.com/photos/valmestad/12998324264
2. Story is in David Arnason’s BALDUR’S SONG Page 18. Also a very powerful painting by Mike Olito in St.Johns College called “Thorgeir’s Bull”.
3. There's a book, Icelandic Folktales and Legends, by Jacqueline Simpson, that has 3+ pages on Thorgeir's bull. You can read the pages on Google if you search Thorgeir's bull. Thorgeir was from Fnjoskadal, Iceland, and the tale originates prior to migration to Canada. No mention of Hekla or Manitoba in the book.
4. here is a longer article (in Icelandic)https://www.snerpa.is/net/thjod/thorgeir.htm
5. The apparition is called Thorgeirsboli (Thorgeir's Bull) and is not specific to any one location in New Iceland - but rather to certain families. This supernatural bull calf (half-flayed) was believed to be a curse that was to follow the sorcerer's (Thorgeir's) descendants for nine generations. One of Thorgeir's known descendants did settle on Hecla Island - though I have never heard the tale associated with the island. I have heard claims that Thorgeirsboli was seen in the Geysir district in fairly recent times (1960's?), but cannot say how reliable that story is. I did once speak with a woman originally from the Winnipeg Beach-Húsavík area who told me that when she was a little girl, cattle and horses would always get spooked around her - and the old people said it was because she was followed by Thorgeirsboli. She was of the Hrolfsson-Matthews family. David Arnason of Gimli heard some version of the Thorgeirsboli story at some point and had a painting of the apparition done by Michael Olito. He could tell you where he heard the story - not sure if it was an old family source or someone he knew from elsewhere... Thorgeirsboli was not your typical "ghost", but rather a material form of animal "zombie" that had been conjured from the dead. It was one of many such "apparitions" said to follow specific families from Iceland to North America. Similar "beings" in human form were various female figures called "Skotta" and little boy figuires called Móri. There were more than one and they were associated with farms of origin in Iceland - "Írafells Móri" and "Ábæjar Skotta" to name just two.
6. https://grapevine.is/mag/articles/2008/09/26/more-monsters-and-mythical-beings-thorgeirsboli/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1scl1fQJEYhbEapJWlo648fXfz9BtiwTNUPYfm-k8srx4U6ruymsCXNkE\_aem\_BFilYlAQYaNyRHo2ASiftQ
7. Jack Turbes | February 16, 2013 at 5:10 pmWell, OK, let’s take “Thorgeir’s Bull” for an example. In Konrad (von) Maurer’s collection of then-contemporary Icelandic folk beliefs, he also tells the story of the bull — but not quite as in the recounting. Von Maurer nets it out in his German vol. as follows where he deals with beings awakened from the dead:“…it’s not always that the awakened have human bodies to thank for their reawakening. In one case — although I was emphatically assured by Sèra Magnús that this was the only case he knew of — it is rather an animal that is used for a similar purpose. At the start of the 18th century, a powerful magician named Þorgeirr lived in Fnjóskadalur (just east of the Eyjafjördur). He came into conflict with another magician in the valley, and tried repeatedly to send a draugr (ghost) or uppvakníngr (awakened one) to kill the other magician. Finally he killed a bull, skinned it and then using magic arts gave it such strength that it killed his antagonist.Since then, “Þorgeirr’s bull”, as it is called, roams the valley hunting all the descendants of the dead magician and trying to cause them harm. It still drags its rotted hide behind it by its tail, similar to a cattle plague demon (Viehschelm) in some parts of Germany. It is often seen rustling around outside farmyards and occasionally it has been known to break in to the farm.”His reference to his source is “Sèra Magnús” (Rev. Magnús Grímsson), one of Iceland’s foremost story collectors along with Jón Árnason (http://en.wikipedia.org/.../J%C3%B3n\_%C3%81rnason...) and others. You see that this tale varies quite a bit from the one you’ve read — but that’s one of the neat things about folktales and lore. My own work includes links to the real places in Iceland where you can actually see them; the location of this version of the “bull” story can be seen on the excellent Iceland map at:http://goo.gl/meGFJ I’m presently translating von Maurer’s volume, and if you like you can have a peek at parts of my previous translations (Hugo Gering, Avenstrup/Treitel) as e-books here:https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/webistratorCheers!
I have never heard of Old Man Gimli and I was born in Gimli and lived there for years. I called an old friend who still lives there and she said it was probably the cottagers who made it up. There was a hermit who lived in South beach he scavenged along the beach and checked out trash cans for things..he once had a house across the road from my grandparents. It’s been so long I forgot his name…
Thanks for the reply! By the way Edith Fowke and other folklorists wrote about it, it seemed like it was a big deal amongst teens and summer camp kids throughout the 70s and 80s, so interesting to hear it’s not as popular as it seems.
Yeah, this seems like the most likely scenario. A homeless person with mental health issues scared some cottagers a few times.
His name was Siggi..he lived alone and in the summer lived in a tarpaper shed near the beach.
I totally heard about this at the school camp I’d go to every year in the area. There was a shed on the campgrounds he apparently kept his treasures in. I think the adults told us that so we’d stay away from the sharp tools tbh.
Do you remember the general story? Was he a ghost? Was he violent, like the classic "man with a hook for a hand" urban legend? I'd love to hear more.
He was a ghost that haunted the area as far as I remember. Like an old caretaker who died at one of the camps.
I just shared your post to the gimli Facebook group.
Must be a Camp Arnes thing. Mind you, I never heard it when I was a kid. Would have been 70s in the campground.
Camp Morton maybe…all those unusual structures and the tragic story connected to the bell tower. Someone built a miniature castle and the stones marking the foundation are still there also pieces of the stone fence.
Doubt it. My family used to go there when I was a kid. It was a Catholic family camp. Ghost stories weren’t a thing. Praying was.
It stopped being a summer camp in the late 60’s early 70’s we would go there and explore the buildings. It was in the 80’s when the kid was killed and another seriously injured in the bell tower. As a teenagers we would build a bonfire on the beach near the pump house drinking beer and watch the sun come up.
I do not know the folk tale but would be curious to hear more about it. When I was camping at Camp Morton as a teen (early 2000’s) my friends and I were coming back to our campsite after exploring all the grounds. It was dark and we were all casually chatting, then simultaneously all looked in the same direction and saw a glowing figure/ghost walk behind a tree, nothing came out the other side, and no one was behind the tree after we went to look. Keep us posted if you learn more! Edit to add: I just spoke with my grandma and apparently my great great grandpa was one of the carpenters that built the church at the cemetery. I’m not very familiar with that area, but interesting to know! Maybe it was him we saw walking behind the tree..
So I posted on the "Meanwhile in Gimli" Facebook group and here are some of the replies: 1. The story of Thorgeir’s Bull is that Thorgeir was skinning a bull in his field in Iceland and his wife called him in for dinner before he was finished. The half skinned bull haunted Thorgeir and followed his descendants when they moved to New Iceland. Here is a photo https://www.flickr.com/photos/valmestad/12998324264 2. Story is in David Arnason’s BALDUR’S SONG Page 18. Also a very powerful painting by Mike Olito in St.Johns College called “Thorgeir’s Bull”. 3. There's a book, Icelandic Folktales and Legends, by Jacqueline Simpson, that has 3+ pages on Thorgeir's bull. You can read the pages on Google if you search Thorgeir's bull. Thorgeir was from Fnjoskadal, Iceland, and the tale originates prior to migration to Canada. No mention of Hekla or Manitoba in the book. 4. here is a longer article (in Icelandic)https://www.snerpa.is/net/thjod/thorgeir.htm 5. The apparition is called Thorgeirsboli (Thorgeir's Bull) and is not specific to any one location in New Iceland - but rather to certain families. This supernatural bull calf (half-flayed) was believed to be a curse that was to follow the sorcerer's (Thorgeir's) descendants for nine generations. One of Thorgeir's known descendants did settle on Hecla Island - though I have never heard the tale associated with the island. I have heard claims that Thorgeirsboli was seen in the Geysir district in fairly recent times (1960's?), but cannot say how reliable that story is. I did once speak with a woman originally from the Winnipeg Beach-Húsavík area who told me that when she was a little girl, cattle and horses would always get spooked around her - and the old people said it was because she was followed by Thorgeirsboli. She was of the Hrolfsson-Matthews family. David Arnason of Gimli heard some version of the Thorgeirsboli story at some point and had a painting of the apparition done by Michael Olito. He could tell you where he heard the story - not sure if it was an old family source or someone he knew from elsewhere... Thorgeirsboli was not your typical "ghost", but rather a material form of animal "zombie" that had been conjured from the dead. It was one of many such "apparitions" said to follow specific families from Iceland to North America. Similar "beings" in human form were various female figures called "Skotta" and little boy figuires called Móri. There were more than one and they were associated with farms of origin in Iceland - "Írafells Móri" and "Ábæjar Skotta" to name just two. 6. https://grapevine.is/mag/articles/2008/09/26/more-monsters-and-mythical-beings-thorgeirsboli/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1scl1fQJEYhbEapJWlo648fXfz9BtiwTNUPYfm-k8srx4U6ruymsCXNkE\_aem\_BFilYlAQYaNyRHo2ASiftQ 7. Jack Turbes | February 16, 2013 at 5:10 pmWell, OK, let’s take “Thorgeir’s Bull” for an example. In Konrad (von) Maurer’s collection of then-contemporary Icelandic folk beliefs, he also tells the story of the bull — but not quite as in the recounting. Von Maurer nets it out in his German vol. as follows where he deals with beings awakened from the dead:“…it’s not always that the awakened have human bodies to thank for their reawakening. In one case — although I was emphatically assured by Sèra Magnús that this was the only case he knew of — it is rather an animal that is used for a similar purpose. At the start of the 18th century, a powerful magician named Þorgeirr lived in Fnjóskadalur (just east of the Eyjafjördur). He came into conflict with another magician in the valley, and tried repeatedly to send a draugr (ghost) or uppvakníngr (awakened one) to kill the other magician. Finally he killed a bull, skinned it and then using magic arts gave it such strength that it killed his antagonist.Since then, “Þorgeirr’s bull”, as it is called, roams the valley hunting all the descendants of the dead magician and trying to cause them harm. It still drags its rotted hide behind it by its tail, similar to a cattle plague demon (Viehschelm) in some parts of Germany. It is often seen rustling around outside farmyards and occasionally it has been known to break in to the farm.”His reference to his source is “Sèra Magnús” (Rev. Magnús Grímsson), one of Iceland’s foremost story collectors along with Jón Árnason (http://en.wikipedia.org/.../J%C3%B3n\_%C3%81rnason...) and others. You see that this tale varies quite a bit from the one you’ve read — but that’s one of the neat things about folktales and lore. My own work includes links to the real places in Iceland where you can actually see them; the location of this version of the “bull” story can be seen on the excellent Iceland map at:http://goo.gl/meGFJ I’m presently translating von Maurer’s volume, and if you like you can have a peek at parts of my previous translations (Hugo Gering, Avenstrup/Treitel) as e-books here:https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/webistratorCheers!