This is episode is part of my Folklore Friday series where I am sharing a Folklore story every Friday in 2024. To hear other stories, I have shared so far, check them out on my website All Things Iceland.
How Icelandic Necropants are Created
Imagine making a pact with your best friend—if one of you dies, the other gets to use the body for something truly bizarre: making a pair of magical pants. These aren’t just any pants though. They’re called Necropants, and they’re made from human skin, specifically from the waist down.
So, when one friend dies, the surviving one digs up the body, carefully peels off the skin from the legs (without making any holes, of course), and puts them on right away. Sounds grim, right? But here’s the catch—the pants don’t just sit on you like a creepy costume. They actually fuse to your body, becoming a part of you. You can wear them as long as you like, but eventually, you’ll have to pass them on to someone else if you want to keep the magic going.
But wait, what magic, you ask? Just wearing the pants isn’t enough to unlock the wealth. For that, you need to perform a twisted ritual. First, you must steal a coin from a desperately poor widow, and the timing is key—it has to be done during a church service, right between specific readings on Christmas, Easter, or Whit Sunday.
You then place this stolen coin into the “pocket” of the Necropants. And here’s where things get even stranger: that “pocket” is more like the, ahem, scrotum area of the pants. Once the coin is in, the pants magically start producing more coins. Free money, but with a dark price.
Why Some People Feel Necropants are Worth it
But these aren’t your average enchanted pants. If you remove the original stolen coin, the magic stops working. And then there’s the even darker part—when you’re ready to pass the pants to someone else, you can’t just hand them over. There’s a strict process.
You have to remove the pants one leg at a time. First, the right leg comes off, and the new wearer has to immediately put on that same leg. Once they’re in, there’s no turning back. Even if they try to stop, they’re cursed to wear the full pants, like it or not.
If you fail to pass them on properly, your soul could be in danger, and your body, once you’re dead, will be consumed by vermin. Some say these
Necropants are a gift from the devil himself, a symbol of the pact made with dark forces in exchange for earthly riches. But no matter how much wealth you gather, wearing them comes with a heavy cost.
Random Fact of the Episode
A replica of what these pants are supposed to look like are in the Icelandic Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft in Hólmavík in the Westfjords region of the country.
Icelandic Word of the Episode
Nábrók – necropants
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