The Book of Dreams and Ghosts, Andrew Lang [free children's online books txt] 📗

all those who were present.  It went round the room backwards and against the sun’s course, nor did it disappear so long as they sat by the fires.  Thorodd asked Thorir Wooden-leg what this might portend.  “It is the Moon of Fate,” said Thorir, “and deaths will come after it.”  This went on all that week that the Fate-Moon came in every evening.

The next tidings that happened at Fródá were that the shepherd came in and was very silent; he spoke little, and that in a frenzied manner.  Folk were most inclined to believe that he had been bewitched, because he went about by himself, and talked to himself.  This went on for some time, but one evening, when two weeks of winter had passed, the shepherd came home, went to his bed, and lay down there.  When they went to him in the morning he was dead, and was buried at the church.

Soon after this there began great hauntings.  One night Thorir Wooden-leg went outside and was at some distance from the door.  When he was about to go in again, he saw that the shepherd had come between him and the door.  Thorir tried to get in, but the shepherd would not allow him.  Then Thorir tried to get away from him, but the shepherd followed him, caught hold of him, and threw him down at the door.  He received great hurt from this, but was able to reach his bed; there he turned black as coal, took sickness and died.  He was also buried at the church there, and after this both the shepherd and Thorir were seen in company, at which all the folk became full of fear, as was to be expected.

This also followed upon the burial of Thorir, that one of Thorodd’s men grew ill, and lay three nights before he died; then one died after another, until six of them were gone.  By this time the Christmas fast had come, although the fast was not then kept in Iceland.  The store-closet, in which the dried fish were kept, was packed so full that the door could not be opened; the pile reached nigh up to the rafters, and a ladder was required to get the fish off the top of it.  One evening while the folk were sitting round the fires, the fish were torn, but when search was made no living thing could be found there.

During the winter, a little before Christmas, Thorodd went out to Ness for the fish he had there; there were six men in all in a ten-oared boat, and they stayed out there all night.  The same evening that Thorodd went from home, it happened at Fródá, when folk went to sit by the fires that had been made, that they saw a seal’s head rise up out of the fireplace.  A maid-servant was the first who came forward and saw this marvel; she took a washing-bat which lay beside the door, and struck the seal’s head with this, but it rose up at the blow and gazed at Thorgunna’s bed-hangings.  Then one of the men went up and beat the seal, but it rose higher at every blow until it had come up above the fins; then the man fell into a swoon, and all those who were present were filled with fear.  Then the lad Kjartan sprang forward, took up a large iron sledge-hammer and struck at the seal’s head; it was a heavy blow, but it only shook its head, and looked round.  Then Kjartan gave it stroke after stroke, and the seal went down as though he were driving in a stake.  Kjartan hammered away till the seal went down so far that he beat the floor close again above its head, and during the rest of the winter all the portents were most afraid of Kjartan.

Next morning, while Thorodd and the others were coming in from Ness with the fish, they were all lost out from Enni; the boat and the fish drove on shore there, but the bodies were never found.  When the news of this reached Fródá, Kjartan and Thurid invited their neighbours to the funeral banquet, and the ale prepared for Christmas was used for this purpose.  The first evening of the feast, however, after the folk had taken their seats, there came into the hall Thorodd and his companions, all dripping wet.  The folk greeted Thorodd well, thinking this a good omen, for at that time it was firmly believed that drowned men, who came to their own funeral feast, were well received by Rán, the sea-goddess; and the old beliefs had as yet suffered little, though folk were baptised and called Christians.

Thorodd and his fellows went right along the hall where the folk sat, and passed into the one where the fires were, answering no man’s greeting.  Those of the household who were in the hall ran out, and Thorodd and his men sat down beside the fires, where they remained till they had fallen into ashes; then they went away again.  This befel every evening while the banquet lasted, and there was much talk about it among those who were present.  Some thought that it would stop when the feast was ended.  When the banquet was over the guests went home, leaving the place very dull and dismal.

On the evening after they had gone, the fires were kindled as usual, and after they had burned up, there came in Thorodd with his company, all of them wet.  They sat down by the fire and began to wring their clothes; and after they had sat down there came in Thorir Wooden-leg and his five companions, all covered with earth.  They shook their clothes and scattered the earth on Thorodd and his fellows.  The folk of the household rushed out of the hall, as might be expected, and all that evening they had no light nor any warmth from the fire.

Next evening the fires were made in the other hall, as the dead men would be less likely to come there; but this was not so, for everything happened just as it had done on the previous evening, and both parties came to sit by the fires.

On the third evening Kjartan advised that a large fire should be made in the hall, and a little fire in another and smaller room.  This was done, and things then went on in this fashion, that Thorodd and the others sat beside the big fire, while the household contented themselves with the little one, and this lasted right through Christmas-tide.

By this time there was more and more noise in the pile of fish, and the sound of them being torn was heard both by night and day.  Some time after this it was necessary to take down some of the fish, and the man who went up on the pile saw this strange thing, that up out of the pile there came a tail, in appearance like a singed ox-tail.  It was black and covered with hair like a seal.  The man laid hold of it and pulled, and called on the others to come and help him.  Others then got up on the heap, both men and women, and pulled at the tail, but all to no purpose.  It seemed to them that the tail was dead, but while they tugged at it, it flew out of their hands taking the skin off the palms of those who had been holding it hardest, and no more was ever seen of the tail.  The fish were then taken up and every one was found to be torn out of the skin, yet no living thing was to be found in the pile.

Following upon this, Thorgrima Charm-cheek, the wife of Thorir Wooden-leg, fell ill, and lay only a little while before she died, and the same evening that she was buried she was seen in company with her husband Thorir.  The sickness then began a second time after the tail had been seen, and now the women died more than the men.  Another six persons died in this attack, and some fled away on account of the ghosts and the hauntings.  In the autumn there had been thirty in the household, of whom eighteen were dead, and five had run away, leaving only seven behind in the spring.

When these marvels had reached this pitch, it happened one day that Kjartan went to Helga-fell to see his uncle Snorri, and asked his advice as to what should be done.  There had then come to Helga-fell a priest whom Gizurr the white had sent to Snorri, and this priest Snorri sent to Fródá along with Kjartan, his son Thord, and six other men.  He also gave them this advice, that they should burn all Thorgunna’s bed-hangings and hold a law court at the door, and there prosecute all those men who were walking after death.  He also bade the priest hold service there, consecrate water, and confess the people.  They summoned men from the nearest farms to accompany them, and arrived at Fródá on the evening before Candlemas, just at the time when the fires were being kindled.  Thurid the housewife had then taken the sickness after the same fashion as those who had died.  Kjartan went in at once, and saw that Thorodd and the others were sitting by the fire as usual.  He took down Thorgunna’s bed-hangings, went into the hall, and carried out a live coal from the fire: then all the bed-gear that Thorgunna had owned was burned.

After this Kjartan summoned Thorir Wooden-leg, and Thord summoned Thorodd, on the charge of going about the homestead without leave, and depriving men of both health and life; all those who sat beside the fire were summoned in the same way.  Then a court was held at the door, in which the charges were declared, and everything done as in a regular law court; opinions were given, the case summed up, and judgment passed.  After sentence had been pronounced on Thorir Wooden-leg, he rose up and said: “Now we have sat as long as we can bear”.  After this he went out by the other door from that at which the court was held.  Then sentence was passed on the shepherd, and when he heard it he stood up and said: “Now I shall go, and I think it would have been better before”.  When Thorgrima heard sentence pronounced on her, she rose up and said: “Now we have stayed while it could be borne”.  Then one after another was summoned, and each stood up as judgment was given upon him; all of them said something as they went out, and showed that they were loath to part.  Finally sentence was passed on Thorodd himself, and when he heard it, he rose and said: “Little peace I find here, and let us all flee now,” and went out after that.  Then Kjartan and the others entered and the priest carried holy water and sacred relics over all the house.  Later on in the day he held solemn service, and after this all the hauntings and ghost-walkings at Fródá ceased, while Thurid recovered from her sickness and became well again.

CHAPTER XIV

Spiritualistic Floating Hands.  Hands in Haunted Houses.  Jerome Cardan’s Tale.  “The Cold Hand.”  The Beach-comber’s Tale.  “The Black Dogs and the Thumbless Hand.”  The Pakeha Maori and “The Leprous Hand”.  “The Hand of the Ghost that Bit.”

HANDS ALL ROUND

Nothing was more common, in the séances of Home, the “Medium,” than the appearance of “Spirit hands”.  If these were made of white kid gloves, stuffed, the idea, at least, was borrowed from ghost stories, in which ghostly hands, with no visible bodies, are not unusual.  We see them in the Shchapoff case, at Rerrick, and in other haunted houses.  Here are some tales of Hands, old or new.

THE COLD HAND

[Jerome Cardan, the famous physician, tells the following anecdote in his De