Titling Block

May I share a little story I’ve cooked up last year? I’s the embellished version of a story my grandmother told me once, and it involves a graveyard, too. It’s not exactly my usual fare – I normally don’t write in present tense – but I had fun with it. (I would link to it, but I have no place where to post it):

THE GHOST IN THE CHURCHYARD

Imagine a cold night in November. The village seems to huddle in the shelter of the hills rising on both sides, grown with fir and spruce, and beeches whose bare branches are outlined against a pale moon like an intricate net. The river in the valley gleams faintly in the moonlight. Wisps of mist begin to rise from its surface, increasing, dancing between the boles and fluttering over the tips of the spruces like the wings of ghost birds.

The houses of the village, most of them half-timbered, some covered with slate shingles in the local fashion, meander along the river, the lane widening to a market square after a few hundred metres. A well stands in its centre, though it is no longer used to draw water except by some poor villagers. Around the place, the school building with the teacher’s house on its side, the village meeting hall and the inn line up, some of the few houses made of the local yellowish sandstone. But now they look pale in the silver light of the moon.

The shutters of the houses’ windows are closed and no lanterns burn at night. This is no town with lights, theaters, and people in high wheeled cars driving around even at night. It is but a village in the Thuringian forests, home of farmers and husbandmen mostly, a smith, a baker, the miller, the butcher and the major, and some poor hirelings who live in the timber huts on the other side of the river, connected to the village by an old stone bridge; its rail partly collapsed in the last flood when an uprooted tree hit it.

A few steps left of the market square stands an ancient little stone church, with a sturdy rectangular tower and small windows with round arcs. It has seen Heinrich the Fowler and King Otto ride through this valley long ago, when the ancient king’s road followed the course of the river, legend claims. Behind the church lies the old churchyard, its moss covered grave stones half veiled by mist. The dry leaves of the large chestnut tree rustle in the cold breeze that blows from the river. The air smells of ripe apples and wood fires, of wet leaves and smoked meat the butcher has prepared in the morning.

This mist grows more dense, obscuring the moon, wavering around the houses like giant birds. From the hills the song of the trees can be heard, a faint whistling and rustling of twigs and needles. Not a night to be outside. A night of faeries dancing on the rocky summit of the Forest Ghost’s mountain, the farmers’ wives would whisper, a night where witches were abroad.

The men would not heed those old stories and brave the fog and the song of river and forest. They have walked to the inn, or drove there in a horse cart: the major and the teacher, the village curate, the smith and the rich farmers, those who owned more than a dozen milking cows and a pair of sturdy plough horses. The men met every Thursday to discuss important matters, it was said. In truth, those discussions involved the imbibing of a lot of ale and the local wine, a rich, earthy beverage. As the hours went by, the curate would start to sing, and the teacher, a tall and handsome young man, declame the speeches of Cicero in Latin.

Indeed, the melodious cadences of speech could now be heard. If someone dared to go near the inn and peered inside through a crack in the shutter, they would see a room lit by two petroleum lamps with green screens, a table covered with glasses of wine, tankards of beer and cards.

The night darkens, with only the occasional ray of moonlight breaking through the clouds that begin to gather, heavy with rain. ‘The men will be so drunk that they don’t fear the ghosts,’ their wives say and lock the doors against the mist and darkness and witches hissing past on their brooms.

But there is one woman who does not believe in ghosts. She is town bred, used to lanterns burning in the streets and the light coming out of the theatre she liked to visit. She is an educated woman who plays the piano and has French, who read all the famous works of Goethe and Schiller and can quote the poems of Fontane and Eichendorff. She is also very young and has problems to adapt to the village life and the villagers.

But she is the wife of the teacher and that makes her a person of respect for the villagers, no matter how young she is. And thanks to her education, she knows a lot about preparing food and running a household and can teach the farmwives some new ways of preserving fruit and curing meat. Eventually she becomes more popular than the curate’s wife who turns every talk into a sermon and quotes the Bible and the catechism more often than even the most pious village women can tolerate.

The smith’s wife, a stout and resolute woman, is the first to notice that the men are about their meeting even later than usual. She peers out of a crack of the door into the night. But there is no sound of footsteps, the creaking of the cart, or the drunken voices of men. That won’t do. Fog or no fog, ghosts or witches, she will drag that drunken sod home and woe betide him in the morning. She dons a pelerine, takes a lantern and walks over to the neighbouring farm. It takes a while for the farmer’s wife to open, and even longer for her to sum up the courage to follow the smith’s wife.

On their way through the village, they gather some more women, and slowly, they begin to feel less afraid. Surely, no ghost would attack a dozen of them, and witches … well, those could be argued with. The lanterns cast a soft gleam to the mists, and the black forest seems to be further away, while the women are surrounded by the gentle comfort of the lights.

Finally, the women arrive at the market square. But the moment they decide to enter the inn, the curate’s wife comes running at them, her hairdo askew, a shawl hastily cast over her shoulders. She trembles all over. “God and Jesus be blessed. The devil has come into the graveyard.”

“The devil,” the women whisper. “Old beelzebub himself. In our churchyard?”

“Yyyes, with hhhorns and bbbeard and cloven foot,” the curate’s wife stammers.

After a bit of murmuring, the women decide to have a look. After all, you don’t see the devil every day. Or night. And with their lanterns and the pious curate’s wife’s presence, they need not fear anything, do they? Maybe call the men? But no, they were likely too drunk to deal with a devil. “Stumble over one of those sunken stones and break their necks, and then the devil will take them right there,” one farmwife said. The smith’s wife has a better idea. They should call the young teacher’s wife to accompany them. She knows so much, maybe she also knows how to deal with the devil. They agree.

After the teacher’s wife has joined them, the women slowly walk to the graveyard. The mists swirl around the old stones, which are but black shapes in the darkness. A ray of the moon flashes through the silver and grey clouds chasing each other on the sky, tinting the mist with a faint faerie gleam.

And there he stands, close to the chestnut tree in the middle of the graveyard, exactly as described by the curate’s wife. A shadow with horns and a beard and a cloven foot. He lowers his head as if reading the inscription on one of the gravestones. The curate’s wife, encouraged by the other women, begins to intone the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ….but deliver us from evil …”

“Maah”, the devil says and rises his horned head, seemingly not impressed by the deliverance wished upon him. He emits some air that smells rather unpleasant.

Sulfur, the women decide, it must be sulfur.

The curate’s wife takes a step back. “This doesn’t work,” she murmurs. “I need to go and find my husband’s book of incantations against the devil.” She draws another few steps back from the rickety fence around the graveyard. That fence would never keep the devil out if he wanted to possess one of them.

The women whisper and mutter some more. Finally, the young teacher’s wife has enough. She does not believe the devil actually walks the earth, except on the stage of the theatre in town. She takes a lantern to get a closer look. The gate of the churchyard opens with a creak. The devil jumps back a step. The young woman holds the lantern high and steers her way between the grave stones until she comes head to head with the devil.

The women outside the yard hold their breath.

Suddenly, the teacher’s wife laughs; it sounds like pearls softly rattling in a box. “That is no devil. It’s a billy goat, you fools. Miller’s brown billy goat who has slipped off his tether again to nibble some of the long grass that grows on the old Mayor’s grave.”

The women shake their heads thoughtfully and murmur some more. Could it really be Miller’s billy goat? It was true, that long bearded rascal was prone to wandering.

“Well, then bring him out,” the smith’s wife finally says. “So we can see for ourselves.”

There is only one little problem, though. The teacher’s wife, town bred as she is, does not go near the cows and horses of the farmers. She fears a billy goat much more than the devil and will not touch him.

It takes some more arguing and coaxing until the smith’s wife decides to brave the creature and bring it out of the churchyard. Sighs of relief can be heard when the women see that the devil is indeed nothing but a billy goat. The loudest sigh comes from the curate’s wife.

“And now,” the smith’s wife adds in a threatening tone, “we will go into the inn, and our drunken husbands will hear a few words. Listen to the curate singing; that would scare even the faeries off. And the miller can take that silly goat of his home.”