And now for something deeply worrying from our Icelandic cousins. These are the necropants, and they are apparently very useful for acquiring supernatural wealth.
Harvested from a willing individual, if you can believe that, they are formed from the skin of the person’s lower body, carefully removed and fashioned into wearable clothing. This skin, meticulously preserved, is supposed to merge with the sorcerer’s own flesh.
It gets weirder. A curious ritual follows, where a coin, clandestinely obtained from a destitute widow during specific times of the year, is placed in the scrotum. This coin, a conduit for gathering monetary fortune from the living, ensures the sustenance of wealth within the pants.
Curiously, while the necropants offer a conduit to affluence, they also harbor a cautionary note. If the sorcerer fails to part with these enchanted trousers before their demise, their spiritual equilibrium is jeopardized.
Upon death, the sorcerer’s body becomes plagued by infestation, a macabre consequence of neglecting to shed the pants. Thus, a successor must be found, willing to don the right leg of the pants as the sorcerer relinquishes the left.
Through generations, this peculiar attire continues to attract prosperity, threading an uncanny connection between the living and the realms beyond.
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Top image: Necropants in the Sorcery Museum in Hólmavík. Source: Steenaire / Flickr.
