Medieval Ghost Stories

by Andrew Joynes

  Eventually, however, a certain knight went up the mountain to hunt. He demanded a drink, the drinking horn was brought, but instead of returning it to the conscientious butler as tradition and politeness would have required, he kept it for himself. But the knight’s overlord found out about this and, censuring his vassal, presented the horn to King Henry of England so that he should not be judged to be a participant in this act of plunder …

  The original title of this story was ‘Of Gratitude to God’. A lengthy interpretation followed the original text, in which the mountain is compared to the kingdom of heaven, and the forests on its flanks to the physical world. The hunter is any man who is overly attached to the world and its ways. The thirst and fatigue which he experiences are induced by divine love, and the drinking horn, which is constantly being filled at the fountains of divine benevolence, ‘contains the refreshment of divine mercy …’

  The Demons’ Castle

  Tale CLXII

  During the reign of the emperor Otho, there was, in the bishopric of Girona in Catalonia, a very high mountain; its ascent was extremely arduous and, except in one place, inaccessible. On the summit there was a bottomless lake of black water. It is said that on this mountain there stood a palace of demons, with a large gate which was kept continually closed. The palace itself and its inhabitants always remained invisible, but if anyone threw a stone or solid object into the lake, the demons showed their anger by generating furious storms. In one part of the mountain there was perpetual snow and ice, and an abundance of crystal. At the foot of the mountain there flowed a river with a bed of gold, which common people referred to as its ‘cloak’. The mountain itself and the nearby districts provided silver, and the entire region was remarkable for its inexhaustible fertility.

  Not far away lived a certain farmer, who was greatly bothered by the incessant sound of his little daughter crying – so much so that in one moment of exasperation he wished the child to the Devil. No sooner had he uttered these incautious words than the little girl was seized by an invisible hand and carried away.

  Seven years later, a passing traveller at the foot of the mountain near the farmer’s house saw another man hurrying along at great speed, lamenting loudly. The traveller stopped to ask the other why he was complaining, and was told that for the previous seven years the man had been a prisoner of the demons on the mountain. Ever since he had made an unwary and inadvertent exclamation, the demons had ridden around on him daily as though he were a kind of chariot. The traveller, who was both surprised and disbelieving at this news, was told that the man’s neighbour had suffered the same kind of punishment, and that his daughter had instantly been carried away by the demons as soon as he had wished her into the Devil’s power. The man added that the demons had now wearied of keeping the girl and that they were prepared to hand her back as long as the father presented himself on the mountain to receive her.

  The traveller was amazed at what he heard and determined at last to tell the girl’s father about her situation. He made his way to the farm and found the father still bemoaning the loss of his daughter. The traveller told him what he had learned from the man who was ridden by demons, and urged him to demand, in the Lord’s name, the return of his daughter.

  The father took this advice and climbed the mountain and went towards the lake, loudly calling to the demons to return to him the girl whom his folly had committed to them. Suddenly he was swept by a violent blast of wind, and a tall woman stood before him. Her eyes were staring, and her skin was stretched tight over her bones and sinews. With her wild appearance, she seemed to be completely unaware of anything around her: indeed, she was unable to speak, and could scarcely be considered human at all. Her father was astonished at her strange appearance, and, uncertain whether he should take her back to his own home, hurried to seek the advice of the bishop of Girona, to whom he related everything that had happened. The bishop, taking his spiritual responsibilities very seriously, told his flock in the diocese all the details of what had happened to the girl. He warned them against rashly committing their fortunes to the power of concealed demons, and showed that our adversary the Devil goes about like a raging lion seeking whom he may devour …

  As for the man who was ridden incessantly by the demons, he remained for a long time in this miserable condition. But his faith at last freed him. He told how there was an extensive underground palace near the summit of the mountain, whose entrance was by a single gate surrounded in deepest darkness. Through this gate the devils who had been about their business in various parts of the world returned to tell their companions what they had achieved. No one could tell of what material the palace was constructed, except for the demons themselves and those who passed under their control to eternal damnation …

  By this story the listeners are advised to take heed of all the dangers to which they are continually exposed, and to take care about invoking the Devil’s name and committing their family into his power: ‘Of Avoiding Imprecations’ was the original title. Listeners are advised to keep their hearts pure, lest the Devil should catch the sinful soul and plunge it into the lake of everlasting misery, where there is perpetually frozen snow and ice, and crystal ‘that reflects back upon itself the thoughts of a conscience awakened to agony …’

  Source: Re-told from the Latin in Gesta Romanorum, ed. H. Oesterley, Berlin 1872, pp. 533–5 and 542–4.

  The ‘Decameron’ of Boccaccio

  Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–75) was the son of a prosperous Florentine merchant. After a brief apprenticeship in his father’s bank, and after giving up his studies of canon law, he devoted all his time to literature. As a young man he spent some years in Naples, which, under the rule of Robert of Anjou, was one of the major intellectual and cultural centres of Italy. He returned to Florence in 1341 and half a decade later witnessed the effects of the Black Death on the social structure of the city, which he was to describe in the introduction to his best-known work. The setting for the Decameron is a country villa in the hills outside Florence, where a group of ten young men and women have taken refuge from the plague which has begun to infect their city. To entertain themselves, it is arranged that each of them will tell a story every day for a period of ten days. The basic theme of the ghost story which follows (that it is an offence which is punishable in the afterlife to refrain from love during one’s brief mortal existence) corresponds to the philosophy of courtly love. In the same way that the anonymous author of the Lay du Trot used an earlier medieval motif of a sorrowful procession of ghosts to uphold the tenets of this philosophy, so Boccaccio adapted the story of a woman hunted inexorably in the afterlife to accord with the specific circumstances of a lovelorn suitor and a scornful mistress. The social context and physical setting of the story-telling process in the Decameron would have underlined the message: like all the other tales, this story is related to a group of youthful listeners who, as refugees from a city infected with the plague, would have been fully aware of the fragility of mortal existence and the necessity of seizing the chance of transitory pleasure.

  The Huntsman of Ravenna

  Fifth Day, Story VIII

  In Ravenna, that ancient city of Romagna, there dwelt among the nobility a young man called Nastagio degli Onesti, who inherited great wealth after the death of his father and his uncle. Being without a wife, Nastagio fell in love, as young men do, with the daughter of Messer Paolo Traversaro. This girl was of much higher birth than himself, and he hoped to win her love by gifts and assiduous courting. But however much he tried to win her, his efforts seemed rather to have the contrary effect, so harsh and ruthless and unrelenting did the beloved damsel show herself towards him. Whether it was her uncommon beauty or her noble lineage that made her aloof, she was so haughty and disdainful that she took no pleasure in his company or in any of the things that pleased him. Nastagio found the burden of her disdain so hard to bear that he often wished to kill himself, but he refrained and resolved to give her up – or, if he was able, to hold he
r in the same contempt with which she treated him. But this was useless, for the more his hopes dwindled the greater became his love.

  As he continued to love and spend his fortune in such a lavish way, his family and friends, who were afraid that both he and his estate would waste away, implored him to leave Ravenna and travel for a time elsewhere to cool the flames of his love and reduce his costs. For a long time Nastagio replied to all this advice with jokes and banter, but as his friends insisted, he grew tired of refusing and agreed to take their advice. He prepared himself for a journey to France or Spain or other distant regions, mounted his horse and departed from Ravenna, accompanied by a number of companions. When they had come to a place called Chiassi, some three miles from Ravenna, he halted and sent for tents and pavilions. He told his friends that they might go back to the city, as he intended to stay there. Nastagio pitched his camp and began to live there in as fine and lordly a fashion as anyone could, inviting several of his friends from time to time to join him for breakfast or supper.

  One morning towards the beginning of May, when the weather was fine and mild, he began once more to brood on the cruelty of his mistress. Dismissing his servants, he sauntered slowly towards the pine woods deep in thought. It was well past the fifth hour of the day, and when he had gone about half a mile, he thought he heard the sound of a woman wailing and uttering the most piercing shrieks. As the sweet melancholy of his reverie was interrupted, he looked around and was surprised to find himself among the pines. Then he saw a beautiful young girl running towards him through a grove of trees, which was thick with undergrowth and brambles. She was naked, her hair was dishevelled and her skin was torn by the briars and she wept and cried for mercy. Running close behind her were two large fierce mastiffs which often caught up with her and bit her cruelly, and bringing up the rear Nastagio saw a knight on a black horse, dressed in dark armour and with a savage expression on his face. The knight carried a sword in his hand, and in blood-curdling words he threatened the girl with death.

  Nastagio was amazed and appalled at the sight, and, taking pity on the girl, he wondered what he might do to save her. Unarmed as he was, he ran and seized the branch of a tree to use as a cudgel, with which he prepared to confront the knight and his dogs. The knight saw what he was up to and called to him while he was still some way off: ‘Hold off, Nastagio, leave the dogs and me alone to deal with this vile woman as she deserves.’ Even as the knight spoke, the dogs bit the girl on either side and held her pinned there while their master dismounted.

  Nastagio went up to him and said: ‘I have no idea who you are – although you seem to know me – but I tell you it is a gross outrage for an armed knight to prepare to kill a naked woman and set his dogs upon her as though she were a wild beast. I will do all I can to protect her.’

  The knight replied: ‘Nastagio, I was from the same city as yourself. You were but a small boy when I, Messer Guido degli Anastagi, who was far more in love with this young woman than you are with the Traversari girl, despaired of her haughtiness and cruelty and killed myself with this very sword which you see in my hand. For this I am condemned to eternal suffering. Not long after my death, in which the girl exulted, she herself died and because she showed no repentance at the cruelty she had displayed she was also condemned to the pains of hell. As her spirit descended, it was ordained that, for our joint punishment, she should flee from me, and I, who was once so much in love with her, should pursue her not as my beloved but as my mortal enemy. Whenever I catch up with her, I am to slay her with this same sword with which I killed myself. Having cut her open down the back, I take out that hard cold heart, which was never touched by love or pity, and cast it to these dogs to eat. And immediately after that, according to the just decrees of almighty God, she gets up as though she were alive and begins once more to fly in terror from me and the pursuing hounds. Every Friday at this time I catch her in this place, and slaughter her as you are about to see. On other days there is no rest for us, for there are many other places where I overtake her, those places indeed where she treated me so cruelly when we were alive. In this way, changed as you see from her lover to her foe, it is ordained that I should pursue her for as many years as there were months when she displayed such harshness towards me. I ask you therefore to stand aside and let me carry out the decrees of Divine Justice …’

  Terrified at the knight’s words, Nastagio retreated, the hair on his head standing on end, and watched helplessly as the knight moved like a mad dog towards the girl, sword in hand. The two mastiffs gripped her tightly as she cried for mercy, but the knight thrust his sword at her with all his strength and ran her through the body. As the girl fell to the ground, shrieking and sobbing, the knight drew out a knife, opened her back and drew forth her heart and innards, which he threw towards the famished dogs. Shortly afterwards, the girl got to her feet as though nothing had happened and ran away towards the sea, pursued by the dogs which constantly savaged her and the knight who had remounted and followed them, sword in hand. They sped away from Nastagio and soon were lost to sight.

  Torn between pity and terror, Nastagio stood there a long time, musing on what he had seen. Then it occurred to him that, if this scene were re-enacted every Friday, it might prove useful to him. Having marked the place carefully, he went back to his servants and duly sent for some of his family and friends. When they arrived, he said to them: ‘It is now a long time since you urged me to give up loving the lady who showed herself to be so disdainful towards me, and to call a halt to my extravagant expenditure. I am ready to do so, as long as you do me this one favour. Next Friday you are to arrange for Messer Paolo Traversaro and his wife and daughter, and all their kinswomen and the ladies of their circle, to come to this place to breakfast with me. You will discover why when you come yourselves.’ His friends conveyed Nastagio’s invitation to his intended guests, and although she was reluctant to come, the girl whom Nastagio loved arrived with the others.

  Nastagio had a lavish breakfast prepared, and ordered the tables to be set among the pines near the place where he had witnessed the murder of the hard-hearted damsel. As he placed his guests at their tables, he arranged that the girl whom he loved should be seated immediately facing the place where the slaughter was due to be enacted once more. The last course had just been served when the despairing cries of the hunted woman became audible to all. Amazed and astonished, the guests all stood up to see what was happening, and instantly they saw the suffering young girl and the knight and his hunting dogs. They shouted at the dogs, and some of them went forward to help the girl, but the words of the knight – the same words that he had used when he spoke to Nastagio the previous week – caused them to fall back terror-stricken and amazed. And when the knight carried out the same bloody actions as he had before, all the ladies that were present at the breakfast, many of whom were related to the girl and her pursuer, remembered his love for her and his manner of death and wept bitterly.

  When it was all over, and the girl and the knight had disappeared once more, the strange scene caused many of the witnesses to ponder its significance. But among them none was so appalled as the hard-hearted young girl whom Nastagio loved; having seen and heard all that had happened, she was aware that it touched her more nearly by reason of the harshness with which she had always responded to Nastagio. In her imagination, she was already fleeing from her angered lover, with the pursuing mastiffs biting at her flanks. So great was her terror that, lest a similar fate befall her, her emotions changed from aversion to affection and that very night she took the opportunity to send a trusted maidservant to Nastagio with a request for him to come to her and take his pleasure with her. Nastagio replied that he sought no more than the honourable pleasure of marrying her. The girl realised that she alone was to blame for the fact that she was not already Nastagio’s wife, and sent her consent, at the same time telling her father and mother of her agreement to wed. With the approval of her parents, the couple were married the following Sunday and lived
happily for many years afterwards. This girl was not the only one in whom terror was productive of benefit: on the contrary, it turns out that all the ladies of Ravenna have since then been much more compliant with men’s desires than they used to be …

  Source: Adapted from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio, trans. J.M. Rigg, pub. London (Routledge) 1905, pp. 49–54. An edition of The Decameron, trans. G.H. McWilliam, was published as a Penguin Classic in 1972.

  Select Bibliography

  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. and trans. B. Thorpe, Rolls Series, London 1861.

  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: The Peterborough Chronicle, 1070–1154, ed. and trans. C. Clark, Oxford 1970.

  Beowulf and the Finnsburg Fragment: A Translation into Modern English Prose, J.R. Clark Hall, London 1911.

  Beowulf, trans. M.J. Swanton, Manchester 1978.

  Bartlett, R., Gerald of Wales, 1146–1223, Oxford 1982.

  Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. J.A. Giles, London 1903.

  Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. J. Mclure and R. Collins, Oxford 1994. Blair, P.H., The World of Bede, London 1970. Blakiston, H.E.D., ‘Two More Medieval Ghost Stories’, English Historical Review XXXVIII (1923), pp. 85–6.

  Boccaccio, Giovanni, The Decameron, trans. G.H. McWilliam, Harmondsworth 1972. Boccaccio, Giovanni, The Decameron, trans. J.M. Rigg, London 1905. Bolton, Whitney F., A History of Anglo-Latin Literature, 597–1066, Princeton 1967.

  Brooke, C.N.L., The Twelfth Century Renaissance, London 1969.