Selatangar — Tanga-Tómas

OVERVIEW

Selatangar is the ruin of a coastal fishing station on the south of the Reykjanes peninsula, about fourteen kilometres east of Grindavík, where a strip of black sand and lava meets the Atlantic. From the middle ages until the late nineteenth century this was a seasonal fishing base. What is left are the collapsing shells of the drying huts where fish were hung and the foundations of the stone hovels the crews slept in. The station was abandoned in the 1880s.

HISTORY

The men who worked here lived, for the length of the season, in rough stone shelters on an exposed lava shore with no fuel, little water and the open Atlantic in front of them. The ghost they named Tanga-Tómas — Tómas of the spit — was said to harass them: to throw things about the huts, interfere with the fish, and be seen and heard about the shelters at night.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

Tanga-Tómas is among the best-known named ghosts of the Icelandic working coast, recorded in the folklore of the Reykjanes district, and sightings have been reported all through the twentieth century. The station's abandonment is sometimes given locally as being partly on his account. The entry records a haunting attached to an identifiable, still-standing set of ruins and to a documented way of life that was extremely hard.

VISITING

A short walk from a rough track off Route 427 between Grindavík and Krýsuvík; unmarked, unlit and unstaffed. The lava is sharp, the shore is exposed and the sea is dangerous. Note that the Reykjanes peninsula has been volcanically active since 2021 — check official advisories before going.