Medieval Ghost Stories

by Andrew Joynes

  ‘You have many superstitions,’ he said, ‘but I do not see that much comes of them. I do not know that men are any better off than when there was nothing of that kind. The ways of men seemed to me better when they were called heathen. I want my food and no foolery.’

  ‘I am certain,’ she said, ‘that it will fare ill with you today if you commit this sin.’

  Glam told her that she should bring his food, or it would be the worse for her. She did not dare do otherwise. When he had eaten, he went out, his breath smelling abominably. It was very dark; there was driving snow, the wind was howling and it became worse as the day advanced. The shepherd’s voice was heard in the early part of the day, but less later on. Blizzards set in with a terrific storm in the evening. People went to mass and so the time passed. In the evening Glam did not return. They talked about going out to look for him but the storm was so violent and the night so dark that no-one went. The night passed and still he had not returned; they waited till the time for mass came.

  When it was full day, some of the men set forth to search. They found the animals scattered everywhere in the snow and injured by the weather; some had strayed into the mountains. They came upon some well-marked tracks up above in the valley. The stones and the earth were torn up all about as if there had been a violent tussle. On searching further they came upon Glam lying on the ground a short distance off. He was dead; his body was as black as Hel [the goddess of the underworld] and swollen to the size of an ox. They were overcome with horror and their hearts shuddered within them. Nevertheless they tried to carry him to the church, but could not get him any further than the edge of a gully a short way off. So they left him there and went home to report to the bondi what had happened. He asked what could have caused Glam’s death. They said they had tracked him to a big place like a hold made by the bottom of a cask thrown down and dragged along beside the mountains which were at the top of the valley, and all along the track were great drops of blood. They concluded that the evil spirit which had been about before must have killed Glam, but that he had inflicted wounds upon it which were enough, for that spook was never heard of again.

  On the second day of the festival they went out again to bring Glam’s body to the church. They yoked oxen to him, but directly the downward incline ceased and they came to level ground, they could not move him; so they went home again and left him. On the third day they took a priest with them, but after searching the whole day, they failed to find him. The priest refused to go again, and when he was not with them, they found Glam. So they gave up the attempt to bring him to the church and buried him where he was under a cairn of stones.

  It was not long before men became aware that Glam was not easy in his grave. Many men suffered severe injuries; some who saw him were struck senseless and some lost their wits. Soon after the festival was over, men began to think they saw him about their houses. The panic was great and many left the neighbourhood. Next he began to ride on the housetops by night, and nearly broke them to pieces. Almost night and day he walked, and people would scarcely venture up the valley, however pressing their business. The district was in a grievous condition …

  Glam continues to rampage through the district for the rest of the winter, although as spring comes ‘and the sun rose higher in the sky’ the hauntings diminish somewhat. When autumn returns and the night-time disturbances increase once more, the landholder Thorhall asks for Grettir’s help in ridding his estate of the troublesome ghost of his former ‘thrall’, or bonded servant.

  The Fight with Glam’s Ghost

  Chap. XXXV

  Thorhall was delighted that Grettir wished to remain, and received him with both hands. Grettir’s horse was placed securely under lock and key and they both went to bed. The night passed without Glam showing himself. ‘Your being here has already done some good,’ said Thorhall, ‘Glam has always been in the habit of riding on the roof or breaking open the doors every night, as you can see from the marks.’

  ‘Then,’ Grettir said, ‘either he will not keep quiet much longer, or he will remain so more than one night. I will stay another night and see what happens.’ Then they went to Grettir’s horse and saw it had not been touched. The bondi thought that all pointed to the same thing. Grettir stayed a second night and again the thrall did not appear. The landholder became hopeful and went to see the horse. There he found the stable broken open, the horse dragged outside and every bone in its body broken. Thorhall told Grettir what had occurred and advised him to look to himself, for he was a dead man if he waited for Glam. Grettir answered: ‘I must not have less for my horse than a sight of the thrall.’ The bondi said there was no pleasure to be had from seeing him: ‘He is not like any man. I count every hour a gain that you are here.’

  The day passed, and when the hour came for going to bed, Grettir said he would not take off his clothes, and lay down on a seat opposite to Thorhall’s sleeping apartment. He had a shaggy cloak covering him with one end of it fastened under his feet and the other drawn over his head so that he could see through the neck-hole. He set his feet against a strong bench which was in front of him. The frame-work of the outer door had been all broken away and some bits of wood had been rigged up roughly in its place. The partition which had once divided the hall from the entrance passage was all broken, both above the cross-beam and below, and all the bedding had been upset. The place looked rather desolate. There was a light burning in the hall by night.

  When about a third of the night had passed, Grettir heard a loud noise. Something was going up on the building, riding above the hall and kicking with its heels until the timbers cracked again. This went on for some time, and then it came down towards the door. The door opened and Grettir saw the thrall stretching in an enormously big and ugly head. Glam moved slowly in, and, on passing the door, stood upright, reaching to the roof. He turned to the hall, resting his arms on the cross-beam and peering along the hall. The bondi uttered no sound, having heard quite enough of what had gone on outside. Grettir lay quite still and did not move. Glam saw a heap of something in the seat, came farther into the hall and seized the cloak tightly with his hand. Grettir pressed his foot against the plank and the cloak held firm. Glam tugged at it again still more violently, but it did not give way. A third time he pulled, this time with both hands and with such force that he pulled Grettir up out of the seat, and between them the cloak was torn in two. Glam looked at the bit which he held in his hand and wondered who could pull like that against him. Suddenly Grettir sprang under his arms, seized him round the waist and squeezed his back with all his might, intending in that way to bring him down, but the thrall wrenched his arms till he staggered from the violence. Then Grettir fell back to another bench. The benches flew about and everything was shattered around them.

  Glam wanted to get out, but Grettir tried to prevent him by stemming his foot against anything he could find. Nevertheless Glam succeeded in getting him outside the hall. Then a terrific struggle began, the thrall trying to drag him out of the house, and Grettir saw that however hard he was to deal with in the house, he would be worse outside, so he strove with all his might to keep him from getting out. Then Glam made a desperate effort and gripped Grettir tightly towards him, forcing him to the porch. Grettir saw that he could not put up any resistance, and with a sudden movement he dashed into the thrall’s arms and set both his feet against a stone which was placed in the ground beside the door. For that Glam was prepared, since he had been tugging to drag Grettir towards him; he reeled backwards and tumbled out of the door, tearing away the lintel with his shoulder and shattering the roof, the rafters and the frozen thatch. Head-over-heels he fell out of the house and Grettir fell on top of him. The moon was shining very brightly outside, with light clouds passing over it and hiding it now and again. At the moment when Glam fell, the moon shone forth, and Glam turned his eyes up towards it. Grettir himself related that that sight was the only one which ever made him tremble. What with fatigue and all else he had endured, whe
n he saw the horrible rolling of Glam’s eyes, his heart sank so utterly that he had not strength to draw his sword, but lay there between life and death. Glam possessed more malignant power than most fiends, for he now spoke in this way:

  ‘You have expended much energy, Grettir, in your search for me. Nor is it to be wondered at, if you should have little joy thereof. And now I tell you that you shall possess only half the strength and firmness of heart that were decreed to you if you had not striven with me. The might which was yours till now I am not able to take away, but it is in my power to ordain that never shall you grow stronger than you are now. Nevertheless your might is sufficient, as many shall find to their cost. Hitherto you have earned fame through your deeds, but henceforward there shall fall upon you exile and battle; your deeds shall turn to evil and your guardian-spirit shall forsake you. You will be outlawed and your lot shall be to dwell ever alone. And this I lay upon you, that these eyes of mine shall be ever before your vision. You will find it hard to live alone, and at last it shall drag you to death.’

  When the thrall had spoken, the faintness which had come over Grettir left him. He drew his short sword, cut off Glam’s head and laid it between his thighs. Then the bondi came out, having put on his clothes while Glam was speaking, but he did not venture to come near until he was dead. Thorhall praised God and thanked Grettir warmly for having laid this unclean spirit. Then they set to work and burned Glam to cold cinders, bound the ashes in a skin and buried them in a place far away from the haunts of man or beast. Then they went home, the day having nearly broken. Grettir was very stiff and lay down to rest.

  … In one thing a great change came over him; he had become so frightened of the dark that he dared not go anywhere alone at night. Apparitions of every kind came before him. It has since passed into an expression, and men speak of ‘Glam’s eyes’ or ‘Glam visions’ when things appear otherwise than as they are …

  Source: The Saga of Grettir the Strong, trans. G.A. Hight, London (Dent) 1914, pp. 43–4, 89–90 and 95–100.

  The Fragmentary Tales of the Monk of Byland

  At the end of the fourteenth century, a monk at the Cistercian abbey of Byland in Yorkshire wrote down a series of stories concerning ghosts and spirits which he had been told by local people, and set them in the villages and dales of the countryside around his monastery. The stories were written on a few blank pages in a collection of manuscripts dating from the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, and the anonymous monk must have intended them to be used as exempla in the tradition of Caesarius of Heisterbach. A number of modern scholars, including the antiquary M.R. James, who transcribed the Latin text of these stories in the early 1920s and who was himself a well-known teller of ghost stories, have detected overtones of Scandinavian folklore about revenants in some of the stories. For instance, in the story which I have called ‘The Frightened Oxen’, the wagon-team drawing the corpse of James Tankerlay almost drowns in panic, like the oxen which hauled Thorolf Halt-Foot’s remains in Eyrbyggja Saga. There are also resemblances, in the story which I have called ‘The Child of Richard Rowntree’ to Guibert of Nogent’s account of the ghostly crying child which appeared to his mother, and to the procession of the dead which Orderic Vitalis called Hellequin’s Hunt. Above all, it is worth noting that the monk of Byland seems to have been more concerned to record the eerie, grotesque, and fantastic details of ghostly occurrences than to draw moral conclusions from his stories. In that sense, these fragments of popular legend, written down by the person to whom they were recounted in the neighbourhood where the various spirits supposedly appeared, bear a basic resemblance to the modern notion of a ghost story as an entertaining narrative which can be both frightening and enjoy

  able. Indeed, M.R. James himself used a motif common to a number of these tales – whereby the unquiet spirit takes on a number of guises, writhing into different physical manifestations as though trying to thrust its way through the barrier between the worlds of the dead and the living – in some of his best-known ‘Ghost Stories of an Antiquary’.

  The Basket of Beans

  Story I

  A man was riding home on his horse, which was also carrying on its back a pannier of beans. Suddenly the horse stumbled and fractured its foreleg, so that the man had to dismount and shoulder the sack of beans himself. As he went on his way, he saw what appeared to be the phantom shape of a horse rearing up on its hind legs and striking into the air with its front hoofs. Terrified, the man invoked the name of Jesus Christ and forbade the horse to harm him in any way. Whereupon the phantom horse began to follow him, and after a while the ghost manifested itself in the form of a whirling heap of hay, with a light shining in the middle of it. At this the man said: ‘Begone, whatever or whoever you are that wishes me ill!’ With these words, a figure in human shape appeared, and this ghost addressed him with a solemn oath, giving its name and the reasons for its distress. The ghost then said: ‘Permit me to carry your load of beans and help you in some way.’ It carried the load as far as a nearby river, but did not wish to cross to the other side. Somehow – the living man was not sure by what means – the sack of beans was placed once more on his own back. Afterwards he made sure arrangements were made for masses to be sung so that the spirit which had appeared to him might be helped and absolved …

  The Haunting of Snowball

  Story II

  The story is told of how a tailor called Snowball was riding home one night from Gillyng to Ampleforth. As he went along, he heard the kind of sound that ducks make splashing in a river, and soon afterwards he saw something that looked like a crow whirling around in the sky and falling towards the earth. It struck the ground and shook so violently that it could only have been dying, so the tailor got down from his horse to try to catch the crow-shape, and as he did so, he saw sparks leaping out from its side. He crossed himself and forbade it in the name of God to harm him or bring any evil upon him; whereupon it flew off with a great wailing a stone’s throw away. He got back on his horse to ride on, but as he did so, the crow-shape flew up to confront him and strike at him, so that he fell headlong to the ground. He lay there for a moment, stunned and fearful, but then got up again and valiantly fought it off with his sword. Finally, exhausted, he once more invoked the name of God and said: ‘Begone, whatever you are that wishes me ill!’ Once more it flew off with a terrible wailing about a bowshot’s distance away.

  Fearfully, the tailor advanced holding the cross-shaped hilt of his sword against his breast, until it appeared to him a third time and barred his way in the form of a chained dog. ‘What is to become of me?’ Snowball asked himself fearfully, but then, summoning his faith, he resolved to conjure it in the name of the Trinity, and by virtue of the blood of the five wounds of Jesus Christ, so that he might speak with it and find out the reasons for its distress. And so, conjured in this way, the spirit said, with much wailing and groaning: ‘Thus and thus have I done, and have been executed for such and such a crime. Go therefore to such and such a priest requesting absolution for me.’ … And while it was speaking to him, it seemed to be almost on fire, and he could see through its mouth into its interior, so that it was forming its words in its intestines and not speaking with its tongue …

  The story then goes on to give a lengthy account of the spirit’s requirements, in the form of masses and prayers, for absolution. It points out that the reason it has been able to appear to Snowball is that he had not attended mass, taken communion or recited the creed on that particular day. Snowball does as he is asked and eventually secures an absolution for the dead man, which is contained in a scroll which he buries in the man’s grave. He then keeps a pre-arranged appointment with the spirit, which is accompanied by two other ghosts.

  … He came to the agreed location, carrying on his person the four texts of the gospels as well as other sacred texts, and made a great circle. He stood in the middle of the circle, having placed four reliquaries in the form of a cross on its edges … and awaited the arri
val of the spirit. It came at length in the shape of a goat, and went bleating round the circle three times. When it was conjured to declare itself, it fell prone upon the earth and then re-formed into a huge and horrible figure of a man, cadaverous, like the depictions [in contemporary wall-paintings] of the kings of the dead. And as the tailor timidly advanced, the ghost said: ‘God be praised. I was standing behind you at the hour of noon when you so fearfully buried my absolution in the tomb. It is no wonder that you were afraid, because three devils were present at that place, punishing me with all kinds of torments on account of the absolution which you obtained for me, realising they would have me in their custody for only a short time thereafter. You may know that next Monday I and thirty others will enter upon eternal joy …’

  The ghost is then asked about its companions, but declares that it cannot reveal their names. It says that Snowball will in due course see one of them, the ghost of a knight who had killed a pregnant woman, in the shape of a calf ‘without mouth and eyes and ears and in no way, however much it is conjured, will it be able to speak …’ The other, a former religious functionary, will take the form of a hunter with a horn carved of bone. Snowball then interrogates the ghost about his own prospects for punishment or redemption in the afterlife. The ghost reproves him for cheating a friend who was away on crusade out of a measure of cloth with which to make a cloak, and, so that Snowball might make the necessary recompense, tells him the friend is now living near the castle of Alnwick.

  … Then Snowball asked: ‘And what is my greatest sin?’ The ghost replied that it had itself been the cause of his greatest public offence, ‘because people mistakenly say of you that you go about consorting with the dead, and remark to each other: “It must be such and such a person that he’s summoning now” … But if you reside in a certain place, you will be rich, and in another place you will be poor, since in that place you will have enemies who will speak ill of you.’ At length the spirit said: ‘I can no longer stay with you’ and departed. The deaf, mute, blind calf then accompanied the living man as far as the village of Ampleforth, but however keenly it was addressed, it could not be persuaded to make any reply. Then the other spirit [the ‘hunter’] advised him to place the most sacred texts under his pillow as he slept. ‘And you should say no more nor less than what I have told you, and you should keep your eyes cast downwards, and should not look at the flames of a fire for tonight at least.’ And when the tailor at last got home, he remained sick for a number of days …