Filmmaker explores Hegranes road’s alleged curse

Filmmaker Árni Gunnarsson’s documentary about stories of hidden forces surrounding roadworks in Hegranes, in Skagafjörður, has been screened at the ongoing RIFF film festival, mbl.is reports.

The film, titled Road 75 – Gríma’s curse, looks back at construction of a road across Hegranes in 1978. Local accounts say work went badly until a medium, at a meeting, conveyed an agreement with Gríma, a woman said to have lived in the area about 500 years earlier.

According to the account, the agreement required that workers not use explosives at Tröllaskarð, even though blasting would have made it easier to route the road down over a blind crest. In return, the hidden forces would help prevent serious accidents there. The film recounts incidents in which crashes came close to causing harm, but no one was injured.

Gunnarsson says the film includes people from the area who have stories about hidden forces, as well as people who experienced events but did not want to speak publicly. He said the visual form suited the story of Gríma and the prohibition against disturbing the place.

The documentary also tells of incidents at the farm Ríp. Shortly after 2000, several lambs separated from their mothers fell into a ditch and drowned. The farm’s residents believed this happened because they had disturbed hidden beings by covering rocks with soil without permission.

More than a decade ago, attempts to drill for drinking water near the farm and its church were also beset by problems, including stuck or broken drill rods and equipment failures. After a medium was consulted, the residents were told to move the drill about five metres west. They did so, and the work then proceeded without further problems, according to a report in Morgunblaðið in July 2016.

Hegranes is described as an island-like expanse of land between the Western and Eastern Héraðsvötn rivers. The film also features people who took part in the roadworks and residents of Skagafjörður.