The Dead Man Who Kept His Promise

Several days before Christmas Eve, the deacon from Myrká rode across the valley to visit Guðrún, the woman he was courting. A deacon was a church official, and Myrká was the farm and church where he served in northern Iceland.

He spent part of the day with Guðrún at her home. Before leaving, he invited her to the Christmas Eve gathering at Myrká and told her that he would return **on Christmas Eve** to take her there.

Then he mounted Faxi, his gray-maned horse, and started home alone.

When the deacon had crossed the river earlier that day, winter ice had covered it from bank to bank. During his visit, however, the weather had warmed. Water rose beneath the ice, splitting the frozen surface and carrying broken sheets of it downstream.

By the time he reached the river again, the crossing he had used that morning had disappeared.

He turned Faxi along the bank and followed the water, looking for another way across. Farther along, he found a stretch where the ice still reached from one side to the other. With no safer crossing nearby, he guided the horse onto it.

Faxi had carried him well out over the river when the ice broke beneath them.

Horse and rider dropped into the water.

Faxi struggled through the broken ice and reached the bank. The current carried the deacon away.

The next morning, a farmer saw Faxi grazing alone and recognised him as the deacon's horse. He had seen the young man riding through the valley the day before, so he went down to the river and searched along the bank.

He eventually found the body farther downstream. The drifting ice had struck the back of the deacon's head while he was in the water and torn away the flesh there, leaving part of his skull exposed.

The body was carried back to Myrká and buried in the churchyard.

On Guðrún's side of the valley, no one knew she was still expecting him.

The thaw had left the river difficult to cross for several days, and news of the drowning did not reach her farm. Christmas Eve arrived with Guðrún still believing that the deacon would come for her as he had promised.

That afternoon she dressed for the gathering at Myrká.

She was fastening the last of her clothes when a knock sounded at the farmhouse door. Guðrún was not ready to go out yet, so one of the other women in the house went to see who had arrived.

She opened the door and looked outside.

No one was standing there.

Clouds covered the moon, and beyond the light from the house the yard was difficult to make out. Thinking the visitor might have stepped away from the doorway, she called for the person to wait while she fetched a light.

She had barely gone back inside when the knocking came again.

Guðrún heard it from the room where she was dressing. She had been waiting for the deacon, so she assumed he had arrived.

Only her winter cloak remained to be put on. Instead of stopping to arrange it properly, she slipped one arm through a sleeve and threw the loose half across her other shoulder before hurrying outside.

Faxi stood near the house.

Guðrún knew the horse at once.

A man was standing beside him, and in the darkness she took him for the deacon she had been waiting for.

He did not greet her. He helped her onto Faxi, mounted in front of her, and rode away from the farm.

Neither of them spoke as they crossed the valley.

The cold had returned, and ice was beginning to form over the river again. It stretched out from both banks, but the stronger current in the middle was still open, leaving a strip of dark water between the frozen sections.

Faxi stepped onto the ice and moved toward the open channel. When they reached it, the horse gathered himself and jumped.

The landing threw the deacon forward in the saddle. His hat slipped as he bent over Faxi's neck, and Guðrún, sitting directly behind him, saw the back of his head.

A wide patch of bone showed through his hair.

While Faxi steadied himself on the ice, the clouds moved away from the moon. In the sudden light, Guðrún could see the bare curve of the skull clearly.

The deacon straightened and began speaking in verse. He spoke of the moon overhead, of death riding with them, and of the white place on the back of his head.

At the end of the verse, he called her **Garún**.

Guðrún heard the difference immediately.

Her name was **Guðrún**. The first part, *Guð*, means **God** in Icelandic. In the old belief preserved with this tale, a ghost could not speak that word. The rider in front of her had been able to say the rest of her name, but not its first syllable.

Guðrún did not answer him. She had climbed onto Faxi expecting the man she loved. Now she was sitting behind a rider with bare skull showing through his hair, already across the river from home. She stayed where she was as Faxi carried them toward Myrká.

Faxi carried them across the rest of the river and on toward Myrká.

When they reached the church farm, the deacon stopped beside the churchyard and helped Guðrún from the horse. He told her to wait while he took Faxi beyond the hedge, then led the horse away.

Guðrún watched him disappear from view.

When she looked into the churchyard, she saw a grave standing open only a short distance away. Fresh earth had been thrown up in heaps along both sides.

Her stomach turned.

She could not remain beside it. Guðrún turned from the open grave and started toward the church, putting distance between herself and the dark hole behind her. Her pace quickened as she crossed the churchyard. By the time she reached the porch, she was running.

The bell rope hung in front of her. She caught it with both hands and pulled with all the strength she had.

The bell broke the silence above the churchyard.

Before she could pull again, her cloak jerked tight across her back.

The deacon had caught it from behind.

He pulled her backwards with such force that the cloth bit into the arm still inside the sleeve. Guðrún held on to the bell rope while he dragged at her cloak, trying to pull her away from the church and back toward the open grave.

But she had left home in a hurry. Only one arm was properly inside the garment. The other half had been hanging loose over her shoulder throughout the ride.

The deacon pulled again.

The cloak tore at the shoulder.

Guðrún stayed beside the bell rope.

A few paces behind her, the deacon was still clutching the torn cloak. He had been pulling her toward the open grave, and when the cloth gave way, he fell headfirst into it.

The loose earth piled along both sides broke away and poured into the hole after him, covering him until the grave had filled to the edge.

Guðrún caught the bell rope again.

She kept ringing.

People from Myrká came out to the churchyard and found her there. Once they had brought her inside, they told her what had happened at the river several days earlier.

The man who had ridden to her farm that evening had already been buried.

The open grave had been his.

The people at Myrká gave Guðrún shelter in the farmhouse and put her to bed. She had escaped the churchyard, the grave had closed over the deacon again, and there were now other people around her.

Before the night was over, he came back.

He rose from his grave and entered the farmhouse. When he reached Guðrún, he tried once more to drag her away. She fought against him, and the struggle grew so violent and noisy that no one in the house could sleep.

When the night passed, they did not leave her by herself.

The deacon returned the next night.

He returned the night after that.

For two weeks, this continued. Guðrún could not be left alone even for a moment. During the night, someone remained beside her bed and waited with her for the deacon to come again.

At times a priest from a neighbouring farm came to Myrká and took his place beside her. He sat on the edge of the bed reading aloud from the **Psalms**, prayers and sacred songs from the Bible, while Guðrún remained under watch.

The deacon still returned.

Night after night, the people at Myrká guarded her. Night after night, he came from the grave and tried to get to her.

At last they sent north for a man who was believed to know witchcraft.

When he arrived at Myrká, he did not begin beside Guðrún's bed. He went out into a field and dug up a large stone. The stone was carried into the farmhouse and placed in the middle of the guest room.

Then they waited for night.

The deacon rose from his grave as he had on the nights before and came into the house for Guðrún.

The man was there to meet him.

He seized the deacon before he could reach her and held him while he spoke the spells he knew. The dead man was forced down beneath the great stone in the middle of the room, and the spells were spoken over him until he could no longer rise from beneath it.

The stone remained where they had placed it.

The following night, Guðrún waited.

The deacon did not come.

He did not return on the nights that followed.