“To acquire a tilberi, the woman has to steal a human rib from a churchyard in the early hours of Whitsunday, wrap it in gray wool and keep it between here breasts. The next three times she takes holy communion, she must spit the sacramental wine over the bundle. The third spurt of holy wine will bring the tilberi to life. When it grows larger and the ‘mother’ can no longer conceal it in her bosom she must cut loose a piece of skin on the inside of her thigh and make a nipple which the tilberi will hand on to, and draw nourishment from her body fluids.”
Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft
This museum is really fun and I highly recommend it. What's even cooler is that there's a satellite location called the Sorcerer's Cottage which is a recreation of a small home decorated with the tools and furnishings of a magician's abode!
The Cottage is in an even more remote part of the Westfjords in a village named
PS- There's a movie on Shudder right now called Tilbury that's an Icelandic made for TV movie from the 80s that is loosely inspired by this folklore. Don't watch it. It's poorly made, acted and full of inexplicable antisemitism.
So I love this guy. I became obsessed with tilberies when I visited The Museum Of Icelandic Sorcery And Witchcraft in Hólmavík. The museum itself is small and in a remote part of Iceland called the Westfjords but well worth the journey. Inside are replicas of all sorts of Icelandic folk magic items and descriptions of practices. My favorite was the necropants. A sorcerer would make a deal with a friend, when that friend died the sorcerer would remove the skin from the friend's lower half without tearing. The the sorcerer would put coins in the scrotum, put them skin on like pants, which would adhere to his skin, and this would render him invisible!
There is also a really rad hooded skeleton busting up through the concrete floor! What's interesting about Icelandic sorcery is that, unlike the rest of Europe, it was mostly thought to be practiced by men. Except the tilberi that is. Only a woman can make a tilberi. And the museum had fabrications of, not one, but a bunch!
There is also a really rad hooded skeleton busting up through the concrete floor! What's interesting about Icelandic sorcery is that, unlike the rest of Europe, it was mostly thought to be practiced by men. Except the tilberi that is. Only a woman can make a tilberi. And the museum had fabrications of, not one, but a bunch!
This museum is really fun and I highly recommend it. What's even cooler is that there's a satellite location called the Sorcerer's Cottage which is a recreation of a small home decorated with the tools and furnishings of a magician's abode!
The Cottage is in an even more remote part of the Westfjords in a village named
Kaldrananeshreppur. It's gorgeous and empty there, with not ticket takers, not supervision, just you and a sorcerer's house. "The aim of the cottage is to give visitors a chance to experience the living condition of the poor tenants who were the majority of those whipped or burned for practicing superstitious and simple magic. It was difficult to live in a harsh environment with the world picture in chaos."
I'll leave you with this signage from outside the Sorcerer's Cottage...make use of it how you will.
I'll leave you with this signage from outside the Sorcerer's Cottage...make use of it how you will.
PS- There's a movie on Shudder right now called Tilbury that's an Icelandic made for TV movie from the 80s that is loosely inspired by this folklore. Don't watch it. It's poorly made, acted and full of inexplicable antisemitism.
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