The Byland Ghost Stories

The Byland ghost stories were written into a 12th or 13th century book. They refer to the reign of Richard II as having completed. They take up the afterpage and some small gaps on the pages within the volume, and they are presumably written with the consent, or perhaps encouragement, of whoever looked after the library at Byland Monastery. The stories are all from Yorkshire in the UK, save two. One of them takes place during a pilgrimage to Compostella, which is in Spain, so it could be anywhere along the way. The other is arguably in Exeter.

They demonstrate that ghosts in this period are similar to what, in Ars Magica, we would call Reveners. That is, they have a physical shape, are able to shape shift, and can be wrestled with or carried away. Their flesh, when it is touched, seems spongy or decayed. .

These ghosts aren’t able to speak to you directly until you speak to them first. This is a process that’s referred to in these stories as conjuring. Ghosts can, however, trick you into talking to them by making cries or screaming. When these ghosts speak they don’t “speak from their tongue” The sound comes from deep in their bowels. It sounds hollow. There is also heat coming from their bowels, so some of them appear to have heat or even fire coming from their mouths.

These ghosts are able to cause greater harm than the ghosts we used to purely through their physical actions. We see them wrestling, we see one tearing the clothes of a man that it’s combating. We see another one which blows out the eye of his mistress from when he was alive. What exactly that means is not entirely clear. The podcast that put me onto this “The Boggart And The Banshee” seems to suggest that blowing out the eye is a sort of breath weapon, if I’m understanding what they’re saying, however the ‘blow’ could be a blow of the hand as well I suppose.

Seeing a ghost makes light dangerous to people. The way of avoiding this danger is to see a fire before you see a candle or a lamp. Another way it’s put in the stories is “to see a light before the light sees you.”

This gives me some ideas for an enhanced version of the Ghostly Warder Virtue. The ghostly warder in Ars Magica basically flits around, being a spy and giving you information
or advice. What if, occasionally, it could turn up as a big, spongy zombie?

A lot of these ghosts have final business which is something in Ars Magica that we’re used to. Here, however, we see something new. A ghost sincerely tries to finish its final business and cannot because of human obstruction. This gives the ghost the power to curse. There is a ghost procession in one of the latest stories. These have already been stated up in Ars Magica: the king of the ghost procession is a Criamon Magus.

The original book is one of the royal manuscripts. It was copied into a magazine by M.R. James, famous ghost story author, but he did it in Latin. It was translated from the Latin into English and published in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal. I’ve cut most of the footnotes out, however, if there’s material which may be of use to roleplayers I’ve kept them in. The M.R.J. and A.H.T. which are mentioned in those footnotes are these two transcribers and translators. M.R. James puts a troll story into his footnotes which, as he admits, has little to do with the ghost stories that are around it, however I’ve included it because it might prove useful to roleplaying groups.

One: Concerning the ghost of a certain labourer at Rivaux, who helped a man to carry beans.
A certain man was riding on his horse, carrying on its back a peck of beans. The horse stumbled on the road and broke its shin bone, which, when the man saw, he took the beans on his own back, and while he was walking on the road, he saw, as it were, a horse standing on its hind feet and holding up its fore feet. In alarm he forbade the horse in the name of Jesus Christ to do him any harm.

Upon this it went with him in the shape of a horse, and in a little while appeared to him in the likeness of a revolving haycock with a light in the middle. [Footnote: in number two a ghost is said to appear as a thorn bush. In several of these stories the ghosts are liable to many changes of form, M.R.J.] To which the man said, God forbid that you bring evil upon me. At these words it appeared in the shape of a man and the traveller conjured him.

Then the spirit told him his name, and the reason of his walking, and the remedy, and he added, permit me to carry your beans, and to help you. And thus he did as far as the Beck, but he was not willing to pass over it, and the living man knew not how the bag of beans was placed again on his own back. And afterwards he caused the ghost to be absolved and masses to be sung for him, and he was eased.

Two, concerning a wonderful encounter between a ghost and a living man, in the time of King Richard II.
It is said that a certain tailor of the name of, blank, Snowball, was returning on horseback one night from Gilling to his home in Ampleforth, and on the way he heard, as it were, the sound of ducks washing themselves in the Beck, and soon after he saw, as it were, a raven that flew round his face and came down to the earth, and struck the ground with its wings as though it were on the point of death. And the tailor got off his horse to take the raven, and as he did so he saw sparks of fire, shooting from the sides of the raven, whereupon he crossed himself, and forbade him in the name of God, to bring at that time any harm upon him. Then it flew off, with a great screaming for about the space of a stone’s throw. Then again he mounted his horse, and very soon the same raven met him as it flew, and struck him on the side, and threw the tailor to the ground, from the horse upon which he was riding, and he lay stretched upon the ground, as it were, in a swoon and lifeless, and he was very frightened.

Then rising, and strong in the faith, he fought with him with his sword until he was weary, and it seemed to him that he was striking a peat-stack, and he forbade him and conjured him in the name of God, saying, “God forbid that you have power to hurt me on this occasion, but be gone.” And again it flew off with a horrible screaming, as it were, the space of the flight of an arrow.

And the third time it appeared to the tailor, as he was carrying the cross of his sword upon his breast for fear, and it met him in the likeness of a dog with a chain on its neck, and when he saw it the tailor strong in the faith thought within himself, what will become of me? I will adure him in the name of the Trinity, and by the virtue of the blood of Christ, from his five wounds, that he speak with me and do me no wrong, but stand fast, and enter my questions and tell me his name, and because of his punishment and the remedy that belongs to it, and he did so, and the spirit-painting terribly engroning said “Thus and thus did I, and for thus doing, I have been excommunicated.” [Footnote: Great paints have been taken throughout to conceal the name of the ghost. He must have been a man of quality whose relatives might have objected to stories being told about him. MRJ.] “Go therefore to a certain priest and ask him to absolve me, and it behoves me to have the full number of nine times twenty masses, celebrated for me, and now of two things you must choose one. Either you shall come back to me on a certain night alone, bringing to me the answer of those whose names I have given you, and I will tell you how you may be made whole, and in the meantime you need not fear the sight of a wood-fire.”

[Footnote: In Danish tales something like this is to be found. “After seeing a phantom funeral, the man was wise enough to go to the stove, and look at the fire before he saw candle or lamp-light. For when people see anything of the kind, they are sick, if they cannot get at fire before light…he was very sick when he caught sight of the light.”. “When you see anything supernatural, you should peep over the door before going into the house. You must see the light before the light sees you.” “When he came home he called to his wife to put out the light before he came in, but she did not, and he was so sick, they thought he would have died. These examples are enough to show that there was risk attached to seeing the light after
a ghostly encounter, MRJ.”]

“Or otherwise your flesh shall rot and your skin shall dry up, and shall fall off from you utterly in a short time. No more over that I have met you now, because today you have not heard Mass, nor the Gospel of John, namely in Principio, and have not seen the consecration of our Lord’s body and blood, for otherwise I should not have had full power of appearing to you.” [Note, this rather suggests that you might be reckoned to have kept Mass if you only came in time for the last Gospel, A.H.T.]

And as he spoke with the tailor, he was, as it were, on fire, and his inner parts could be seen through his mouth, and he formed his words in his entrails and did not speak with his tongue, then the tailor asked permission from the ghost that he might have with him on his return some companion, but the ghost said, “No, but have upon you the four Gospels, and the name of victory, namely Jesus of Nazareth, on account of two other ghosts that abide here, of whom one cannot speak when he is conjured, and abides in the likeness of fire or of a bush, and the other is in the form of a hunter, and they are very dangerous to meet. Pledge me further on this stone, that you will defame my bones, to no one except to the priests who celebrate on my behalf, and the others to whom you are sent on my behalf who may be of use to me.”
[Footnote, defaming is the formal accusation of crime which renders a man liable to spiritual censure, and puts him in a state of infamia, from which he must free himself by compurgation, or by establishing a suit against his defamer in the spiritual court. The infirmia of a dead man, resting here on his own acknowledgement, would place him outside the privilege of Christian burial, and lead to the disinterment of his remains, confer the posthumous defamation and disinterment of Wycliffe for heresy, A.H.T.]

And he gave his word upon the stone that he would not reveal the secret, as has been already explained, then he conjured the ghost to go to Hodgebeck, and await his return. [Footnote, I suppose in order that the ghost might not haunt the road in the interval before the tale’s return, M.I.J.] And the ghost said “No, no.” and screamed, and the tailor said, go then to the Byland Bank, where at he was glad.

The man of whom we speak was ill for some days, but then got well and went to York to the priest, who had been mentioned, who had excommunicated the dead man, and asked him for absolution, but he refused to absolve him, and called him another chaplain to take counsel with him, and that chaplain called in another, and that other a third, to advise secretly concerning
the absolution of this man. [Footnote: the reluctance of the priest at York to absolve, and the number of advisors called in, testified to the importance of the case, M.I.J.] And the tailor asked of him, “Sir, you know the mutual token that I hinted in your ear.”

And he answered “Yes, my son.”, then after many negotiations the tailor made satisfaction and paid five shillings, and received the absolution written on a piece of parchment, and he was sworn not to defame the dead man, but to bury the absolution, in his grave, near his head, and secretly.And when he had got it he went to a certain brother Richard of Pickering, a confessor of repute, and asked him whether the absolution was sufficient and lawful, and he answered that it was.

Then the tailor went to all the orders of the friars of York, and he had almost all the required masses celebrated, during two or three days, and coming home he buried the absolution in
the grave, as he had been ordered. And when all these things had been duly carried out he came home, and a certain officious neighbour of his, hearing that he had to report to the ghost on a certain night, all that he had done at York, adured him saying, “God forbid that you go to this ghost without telling me of your going, and of the day and the hour.”

And being so constrained for fear of displeasing God, he told him, waking him up from sleep and saying, “I am going now, if you wish to come with me, let us set off, and I will give you a part of the writings that I carry on me because of night fears.”

Then the other said “Do you want me to go with you?”

And the tailor said “You must see to that I will give no advice to you.”

Then at last the other said “Get you gone in the name of the Lord, and may God prosper you in all things.” After these words he came to the appointed place and made a great circle with a cross.

I have cut out some of the rest of the footnote here, but I am keeping this bit because it
has ritual magic in it, which may be of interest to raw players.

The magic circle plays a great part in a case of sorcery recorded in York Register, Bainbridge,
and printed in Archaeology Journal 16. It was here drawn on a huge shoot of parchment in a private house by an ingenious person who induced a number of people to combine with him in conjuring demons to reveal the hiding place of treasure at Mixindale Head near Halifax. There is no mention of its being drawn with a cross, or a cross inscribed in it. It was copied from a conjuring book. It was inscribed, however…and one deponent who arrived unexpectedly while the performance was going on saw that party had a great mass book open, before them, and wrote out what they would confer the other sacred words which the present spirit ordered his conjurer to bring with him. Are the monillia necessarily reliquaries? I should have thought that in the present case there might rather be medallions on which the title triumphalis were engraved, like the laminate of lead inscribed with figures of Oberion, Storax, and other spirits, which formed part of the Halifax conjurer’s equipment. The text seems to imply a figure of this kind. A-H-T.]

He came at length in the form of a she-goat and went thrice around the circle, saying “Ah, ah, ah!” and when he conjured the she-goat she fell prone upon the ground and rose up again
in the likeness of a man, of great stature, horrible and thin, and like one of the dead kings in pictures. [Footnote, I think the illusion is to the pictures of the three living and three dead, so often found painted on church walls, the dead and living are often represented as kings. MRJ]
And when he was asked whether the tailor’s labour had been of service to him, he answered
“Yes, praised be God, and I stood at your back when you buried my absolution in my grave
at the ninth hour and were afraid. No wonder you were afraid, for three devils were present there, who have tormented me in every way, from the time when you first conjured me to the time of my absolution, suspecting that they would have me but very little time in their custody, to torment me. Know therefore that on Monday next I shall pass into everlasting joy with thirty other spirits. Go now to a certain beck, and you will find a broad stone, lift it up, and under it you will find a sand stone, wash your whole body with water and rub it with the stone, and you will be whole in a few days. [Footnote, the need of a prescription for healing the tailor was due to the blow in the side which the raven had given him, MRJ.]

When he was asked the names of the two ghosts he answered, “I cannot tell you their names.”
and when asked about their condition he answered that “one was a layman and a soldier, and was not of these parts, and he killed a woman great with child, and he will find no remedy before the day of judgement, and you will see him in the form of a bloke without mouth or eyes or ears, and however you conjure him he will not be able to speak, and the other was a man of religion in the shape of a hunter blowing upon a horn, and he will find a remedy and he will be conjured by a certain boy who has not yet come to manhood, if the Lord will.” And then the tailor asked the ghost of his own condition and received the answer “You are keeping wrongfully the cap and coat of one who was your friend and companion in the wars beyond the seas, give satisfaction to him or you will pay dearly for it.”

And the tailor said “I do not know where he lives.” and the ghost answered “He lives in such a town, near to the castle of Alnwick.”
When further he asked, “What is my greatest fault?” The ghost answered “Your greatest fault is because of me.” and the man said, “How? And in what way?” and the ghost answered “Because the people sin telling lies concerning you, and bringing scandal on other dead men, saying the dead man who was conjured was he or he or he”, and he asked the ghost, “What shall I do? I will reveal your name?” and he said “No, but if you stay in one place you will be rich, and in another place you will be poor, and you have here certain enemies. ” [Footnote, this does not seem logically to follow upon the prohibition to tell the ghost’s name, I take it as advice to the tailor to change his abode, MRJ.]

Then the spirit said, “I can no longer stay talking with you.” and as they went their different ways the deaf and dumb and blind bullock went with the man, as far as the town of Ampleforth, whom he conjured in all the ways that he knew, but by no means could he make answer, and
the ghost that had been aided by him advised him to “Keep all his best writings by his head until he went to sleep, and say neither more nor less than I advise you, and keep your eyes on the ground and look not on a wood fire for this night at least.” And when he came home he was ill for several days. [Footnote, I do not quite understand how this fire business worked. The Danish case is cited are not quite explanatory. Presumably the spirit, whom he had helped, meant that the tailor need not look at the fire as a precaution when he went home now that it all was well, and that all he need do was to keep his thoughts under control. The force of, for this night at least, seems to be that it would be well to look at the fire another night the bullock was still about, and might be met again, A.H.T.]

Three: Concerning the ghost of Robert, the son of Robert de Boltby, of Kilburn, which was caught in a churchyard.

I must tell you that this Robert the Younger died and was buried in a churchyard, but he had the habit of leaving his grave by night. And disturbing and frightening the villagers, and the dogs of the village used to follow him and bark loudly, then some young men of the village talked together and determined to catch him if they possibly could, and they came together to the cemetery, but when they saw the ghosts they all fled with the exception of two.

One of these, called Robert Foxton, seized him at the entrance to the cemetery, and placed
him on the stile [and the other] cried…”Keep him fast until I come to you.”

The first one answered “Go quickly to the parish priest, that the ghost may be conjured, for, with God’s help, I will hold firmly what I have got until the arrival of the priest.” The parish priest made all haste to come and conjured him in the name of the Holy Trinity, and in the virtue of Jesus Christ, that he should give him and answer to his questions. And when he had been conjured he spoke in the inside of his bowels, and not with his tongue, but as it were in an empty cask, and he confessed his different offences. And when these were known the priest absolved him, but charged those who had seized him not to reveal his confession in any way, and henceforth as God-willed he rested in peace.

It is said more over than before his absolution, he would stand at the doors of houses and windows and walls, as it were, listening. Perhaps he was waiting to see if anyone would come out and conjure him and give help to him in his necessity. Some people say that he had been assisting and consenting to the murder of a certain man, and that he had done other evil things, of which I must not speak, in detail at present.

Four
Moreover, the old Ben tell us that a certain man, called James Tankley, formerly rector of Kirby, was buried in front of the chapter house at Byland, and used to walk at night as far as Kirby, and one night he blew out the eye of his concubine there. And it is said that the abbot and the convent caused his body to be dug up from the tomb along with the coffin, and they compelled Roger Wainman to carry it as far as Gore Mire. And while he was throwing the coffin into the water, the oxen were almost drowned for fear. [Footnote, when Wainman was throwing the coffin into Gormire, the oxen, which drew his cart almost sank into the town from fear. This, I suppose, is the sense of this rather obscure sentence, M.I.J.] God forbid that I be in any danger, for even as I have heard from my elders so have I written, made the Almighty have mercy upon him, if indeed he were of the number of those destined to salvation.

Five
What I write is a great marvel. It is said that a certain woman laid hold of a ghost and carried him on her back into a certain house. In presence of some men, one of them reported that he saw the hands of the woman sink deeply into the flesh of the ghost as though the flesh were rotten and not solid but phantom flesh. [Footnote, this is most curious. Why did the woman catch the ghost and bring it indoors? M.I.J.]

Six
Concerning a certain canon of Newburgh, who was seized after his death by blank. It happened that this man was talking with the master of the plowmen, and I was walking with him in the field, and suddenly the master fled in great terror, and the other man was left struggling with a ghost who…tore his garments, and at last he gained the victory and conjured him, and he being conjured confessed that he had been a certain canon of Newburgh, and that he had been excommunicated for certain silver spoons which he had hidden in a certain place.
He therefore begged the living man that he would go to the place he mentioned and take them away and carry them to the prior and ask for absolution. And he did so, and he found the silver spoons in the place mentioned, and after absolution the ghost henceforth rested in peace, but the man was ill and languished for many days, and he affirmed that the ghost had appeared to him in the habit of a canon.

Seven
So, serving a certain ghost in another place who being conjured, confessed that he was severely punished because, being the hired servant of a certain householder, he stole his master’s corn and gave it his oxen that they might look fat, and there was another thing which
troubled him even more namely, that he plowed the land not deeply but on the surface, wishing his oxen to keep fat, and he said there were fifteen spirits in one place severely punished for sins like his own which they had committed. He begged his conjurer therefore to ask his master for pardon and absolution so that he might obtain the suitable remedy.

Eight
Concerning another ghost that followed William of Breadforth, and cried, “How, how, how” thrice on three occasions. It happened that on the fourth night, about midnight, he went back
to the new place from the village of Ampleforth, and as he was returning by the road he heard
a terrible voice shouting far behind him, and as it were on the hillside, and a little after it cried again in like manner but nearer, and the third time it screamed at the crossroads ahead of him, and at last he saw a pale horse, and his dog barked a little, but then hid itself in great fear between the legs of the said William.

Whereupon he commanded the spirit the name of the Lord, and in virtue of the blood of Jesus
Christ to depart and not to block his path, and when he heard this he withdrew like a revolving
piece of canvas with four corners and kept on turning, so that it seems that he was a ghost that mightily desired to be conjured, and to receive effective help. [For three nights William of Breadford had heard the cries, on the fourth he met the ghost, and I suspect he must have been imprudent enough to answer the cries for there are many tales Danish and other, a person who answered the shrieking ghost with impertinent words, and the next moment they hear it close to their ear. Note the touch of the frightened dog, M.I.J.]

Nine: Concerning the ghost of a man of Ayton in Cleveland.
It is reported that this ghost followed a man for four times twenty miles, that he should conjure and help him, and when he had been conjured he confessed that he had been excommunicated for a certain matter of six months, but after absolution and satisfaction he rested in peace. In all these things as nothing evil was left unpunished nor contourwise anything good and unrewarded, God showed himself to be a just rewarder.

It is said too that the ghost before he was conjured through the living man over a hedge and caught him on the other side as he fell. When he was conjured he replied, “If you had done so first I would not have hurt you, but here and there you were frightened, and I did it.”
[The ghost throws him over the hedge and catches him as he falls on the other side, so the troll, who’s supposed daughter married the blacksmith, when he heard that all the villagers shunned her, came to the church on Sunday before service, when all the people were in the churchyard and drove them into a compact group.

“Then he said to his daughter, Will you throw or catch?”

“I will catch.” said she, in kindness to the people.

“Very well. Go round to the other side of the church”. And he took them one by one, and threw them over the church and she caught them and put them down and hurt.

“[Next] time I come” said the troll, “She shall throw, and I will catch, if you don’t treat her better.”
Not very relevant, but less well known than it should be, M.I.J.,]

Ten: How penitent thief after confession vanished from the eyes of the demon.
It happened formerly in Exeter, that a ditcher, a hard worker, and a great eater lived in the cellar of a great house, which had many cellars, with connected walls but only one living room. The ditcher, when he was hungry, used often to climb up into the living room and cut off slices from the meat that was there hung up, had cooked them, and eat them, even if it were lent.
And the Lord of the House, saying that his meat was cut, examined his servants concerning
the matter, and, as they all denied, and cleared themselves by oath, he threatened that he
would go to a certain, sorceress necromancer and make inquiry through him into this wonderful event.

With the ditcher heard this, he was much afraid, and went to the friars and confessed his crime, and received the sacrament of absolution, but the Lord of the House went, as he had threatened, to the necromancer, who anointed the nail of a small boy and by incantation, asked him what he saw, and the boy answered, “I see a serving man with cliqueur.”

The necromancer said “Conjure him, therefore, to appear to you, in the fairest form he can.”
and so he did, and the boy said, “Behold, I see a very beautiful horse”, and then he saw a man in a form like that of the ditcher, climbing up the ladder and carving the meat, with the horse following him, and the clerk said, “What are the men in the horse doing now?”

And the child said, “look, he is cooking and eating the meat.” And when he was asked again, what is he doing now, the little boy answered, “They are going both of them to the church of the friars, but the horse waits again outside, and the man is going in and he kneels and speaks with the friar, who places his hand on his head.”

Then the clerk asked the boy “What are they doing now?”

And he answered “They are both vanished from my eyes, and I can see them no longer, and
I have no idea where they are.”

Eleven: Concerning a wonderful work of God, who calls things which are not as though they were, things which are, and who can act when and how he wills, and concerning a certain miracle.

It has been handed down to memory that a certain man of Cleveland called Richard Roundtree left his wife great with child, and went with many others to the Tomb of St James, and one night they passed the night in a wood near to the king’s highway. Wherefore one of the party kept watch for a part of the night against night fears and the other slept in safety, and it happened that in that part of the night in which the man we speak of was guardian and night watchmen. He heard a great sound of people passing along the king’s highway, and some rode sitting on horses and sheep and oxen, and some on other animals and all the animals were those that had been given to the church when they died. [Footnote. There are multitudinous examples of the nightly processions of the dead, but I do not know another case where they ride on their own mortuaries, the beasts offered to the church or claimed by it at their decease. It is a curious reminiscence of the pagan fashion of providing means of transport for the dead by bearing beasts with them, M.I.J.] and at last he saw what seemed a small child wriggling along on the ground wrapped in a stocking, and he conjured him and he asked him who he was and why he thus wriggled along, and he made answer. “You ought not to conjure me, for you were my father and I was your abortive son buried without baptism and without name.” and when he heard this the pilgrim took off his shirt and put it on his small child and gave him a name in the name of the Holy Trinity and he took with him the old stocking in witness of the matter, and the child when he thus received a name jumped with joy and henceforth walked erect upon his feet though previously he had wriggled.

And when the pilgrimage was over he gave her banquet to his neighbours and asked his wife for his hose, she showed him one stocking but could not find the other, then the husband showed her the stocking in which the child was wrapped and she was astonished, and as the midwives confessed the truth concerning the death and burial of the boy, in the stocking a divorce took place between the husband and the wife, inasmuch as he was the godfather of the abortive child, but I believe that this divorce was highly displeasing to God.
[Evidently the wife was not an accessory to the indecent burial of the child and the sympathy of the writer is with her, the divorce does seem superfluous, since those sponsors were not allowed to marry, he is but one sponsor, but I know not the canon law, M.I.J. I cannot conceive what the grounds of the divorce were unless it could be argued that the father by standing godfather to his own child after marriage entered into a relationship which was irregular, parents could not be sponsors for their children and if the story is true, it may have been held that this irregular act dissolved the marriage and that in taking upon him the sponsorship he renounced his rights as a husband. On the face of it this was the view taken, the incident was so remarkable that it must have been hard to cite precedent, A.H.T.]

Twelve: Concerning the sister of Old Adam of Lund and how she was seized after her death according to the account given by Old Men.
It must be understood that this woman was buried in the churchyard of Ampleforth and shortly after her death she was seized by William Trower, the elder, and being conjured she confessed that she wandered in his road at night and I count as certain charters which she had given wrongfully to Adam her brother. This was because a quarrel had arisen between her husband and herself and therefore she had given the papers to her brother to the injury of her husband and her own children, so that after her death her brother expelled her husband from his house, namely from a toft and croft in Ampleforth with their appurtenances and from an ox gang of land in Hesleton and its appurtenances and all this by violence.

She begged therefore this William to suggest to her brother that he should restore these charters to her husband and her children and give back to them their land for otherwise she could by no means rest in peace until the day of judgement. So William according to her commands made this suggestion to Adam but he refused to restore the charter saying, “I don’t believe what you say”, and he answered, “My words were true in everything therefore if God will you shall hear your sister talking to you of this matter ere long.”

And on another night he seized her again and carried her to the chamber of Adam and she spoke with him and her hardened brother said, as some report, “If you walk forever I won’t give back the charters.”

Then she groaned and answered, “May God judge between you and me. Know then that until your death I shall have no rest wherefore after your death you will walk in my place.” It is said moreover that her right hand hung down and it was very black and she was asked why this was and she answered that it was because often in her disputes she had held it out and sworn falsely. At length she was conjured to go to another place on account of the night fear and terror which caused the folk of that village.

I ask pardon if by chance I have offended in writing what is not true. It is said however that Adam…the younger, mqde partial satisfaction to the true heir, after the death of the elder
Adam.