Submission Feb 2009, Version 1.0

The Haunted Farmhouse by the Fjord

By Peter Drake



Jemma had never been to Norway before. She had impressions of a fresh, unspoilt wilderness filled with forests and rivers and mountains. But she never imagined that her trip would have her trapped in a haunted farmhouse.

I interviewed Jemma after learning about her bizarre experiences from a friend. She is perfectly ordinary, as she would admit herself: working as a health care professional in the West Midlands, living with her boyfriend and their dog, and struggling to cope with a mortgage. She seemed more worried about nearing the age of thirty than anything else.

An unexpected financial windfall recently gave them the opportunity for an overseas holiday, and they set their minds on Scandinavia. They loved the idea of roaming the countryside and getting away from crowds, and the thought of the long, summer nights seemed romantic.

Because of its northerly latitude, the summers in Norway have long hours of daylight, and around the time of the midsummer solstice the evenings never really darken. In contrast, the winter has extremely long nights where the sun does not rise for long.

They arranged to hire a large, traditional farmhouse in the Norwegian fjords, where the sea runs for many miles inland along rivulets. The farmhouse was situated directly next to the sea.


“I felt boxed in and trapped”
After arriving at the location the couple were surprised by how remarkably eerie it appeared to be.

“The countryside was bleak,” said Jemma, “it wasn’t so populated as the countryside in our country. It was different. There were whole swathes where no one went to.

She was also surprised by the area around their holiday accommodation. It was immediately next to the sea, and surrounded by orchards, on the outskirts of a small settlement. It was far from civilisation.

“We had the hills and mountains on one side, and on the other side there was the sea, so I felt boxed in and trapped.

“It was creepy because of the water - I’m scared of water – and it was quiet, you couldn’t hear any birds, there were no animal or traffic noises, not even sound of the sea. It was disturbingly quiet.

“The daylight was weird, not what I’m used to. Most of it was like twilight, not very bright. I kept expecting it to get dark but it never did. I think it would have been worse in winter with permanent darkness.”

The farmhouse was not what they had anticipated, even after taking into consideration it was in a different country with a different sense of style to Britain’s. Its décor was outdated, almost unchanged from the 1960s, and the dark wooden panelling gave an impression of deep shadows. Photographs of dying deer taken by hunters were morbidly hung in many of the rooms. There was a horribly twisting wooden staircase to the upper floor, and several of the rooms were locked up and inaccessible, which nurtured paranoia over the coming week.

The atmosphere was heavy and thick, pressing in upon them.

“It seemed like someone had died in there,” said Jemma. “It was like the kind of house you’d get locked up in and tortured, or see a terrified face at a window when driving past. I kept thinking of witches, maybe because of a big, old-fashioned picture at the top of the stairs, showing a house in a forest.

“I kept thinking that this was the house in the picture, and that it was a haunted house.”


“He saw something, some kind of a ghost”
Even the landlord was acting peculiar when she showed the couple around the property. What struck Jemma was the odd way the landlord reacted, almost flinching when they said which bedroom they would be using.

This was the main bedroom of the house, distinguishable from the other five bedrooms by its larger size and furnishings. Jemma hated it.

“I really didn’t like the main bedroom,” she explained. “I didn’t like the cupboards which lined the entire wall on the one side of the room. It was hollow behind them, and it was like a long corridor where you could walk if you stooped.

“I always had the feeling of being watched in that room. It wasn’t so bad in the daytime, but I still felt it, and I was glad to get downstairs. It was much worse at night. I didn’t even like getting undressed.

“I didn’t like the first night, it was creepy in that room. When I was in bed I didn’t want to turn away from my boyfriend, I snuggled up to him, in case I saw something standing there looking at me. I didn’t want to say anything to him because I didn’t want to seem like a scaredy-cat. The next day he told me that he had saw something, some kind of a ghost.”

At one point during the night Jemma’s boyfriend had woken slightly, opening his eyes. At the bottom of the bed he saw standing there a ‘shadowy figure,’ which was looking at them as they slept and was now staring directly at him, knowing he was awake.

Jemma told me that her boyfriend had ashamedly admitted that he had been scared, and had felt an urge to cover his face, or shut his eyes and pretend that he was asleep so that nothing would happen to him. He did not want to be noticed by the thing in the room.

In hindsight he acknowledges that it could have just been a ‘waking dream’ or caused by the unusual shadows in a strange room. He had felt uneasy in the house after they had arrived, the same as Jemma, but had not told her until the next morning in order to avoid worrying her.

“At first I thought he was joking,” she said, “trying to scare me. I was not very pleased. It confirmed my fears, and was disconcerting. I felt even worse after that! I didn’t feel altogether safe afterwards. It was a little better when we put some suitcases up against the door, but as the door opened outwards it wasn’t much of an obstacle.”


“Something was following us, watching us”
They were never altogether comfortable after that, and Jemma seems to have had growing feelings of dread.

“The house felt malicious or malignant,” she said, “as if something was in there and it didn’t like us.

“I know that all houses have a different feel – some are nice and others feel bad. This one had a really bad atmosphere. It felt like something was following us, watching us, and I never felt entirely secure.

“There were weird noises at night, in the other bedrooms and the bathroom. My boyfriend went to check, but he didn’t like to!

They saw the landlord on a few more occasions, and she seemed to be unduly worried that there was something wrong with the house. It did not seem the usual kind of concern over whether they were enjoying their holiday. The landlord’s questions seemed pointed, probing for information, and Jemma connected this interest with their experiences in the farmhouse.

The week passed quickly for the couple as they enjoyed travelling and sightseeing in the region. took trips into the mountains, hiking through wild valleys and taking boats along the fjords. They liked Norway.

But every evening they returned to the farmhouse, and always felt their unease increase as the hours passed. Though it never became truly dark outside with the midsummer twilight, the house seemed filled with perpetual gloom.

“I didn’t want to go upstairs for the rest of the week,” Jemma declared, “and I would not have slept in the house by myself. I hated it when my boyfriend went outside to look at the sea and drink a cup of tea. I couldn’t stand being by myself in the house and I had to make excuses for going out to him.

“It got worse, a growing sense that something wasn’t right. It was building like electricity. I was glad to leave before anything else happened.”