A long time ago, in the village of Mirkau in Eyjafjörður, there lived a deacon. Nobody remembered his name. He had a girlfriend named Gudrun. Many said that she lived on the Baigisau farm, on the other side of the Hergau River, and was a servant of the local priest. The deacon had a dapple-gray horse, and he often rode around on it. He called the horse Faxie.
One day just before Christmas, the deacon was traveling to Baigisau to invite Gudrun to Christmas in Mirkau. He arrived in Baigisau, promised Gudrun to pick her up at a certain time and take her to the holiday in Mirkau. In the previous days, a lot of snow had fallen, and the ground was frozen. However, when the deacon came to his girlfriend, a thaw occurred - the river overflowed its banks, and the deacon lingered in Baigisau. On the way back, he had to ride longer along the river in order to cross it in another place. But in the middle of the river it happened that the ice under the deacon and his horse cracked, and he fell into the water.
The next morning, one of the peasants from a neighboring farm saw a horse without a rider and recognized it as Faksi. He was frightened, because the day before he had seen a deacon passing by and did not notice that he had returned - an unpleasant suspicion arose in his head. The peasant came closer and really saw Faxie, he was all wet and looked bad. Then he went down the river and found the deacon dead. The peasant immediately went to Mirkau to tell the sad news. The deacon smashed the back of his head on the surface of the ice. He was later brought to Mirkau and buried a week before Christmas.
Until Christmas, nothing was known about the incident in Baigisau, since the entire surrounding area was flooded. On Christmas Eve the weather calmed down, the river became shallow and Gudrun looked forward to the start of the holiday. On Christmas Eve, she was getting ready, putting on beautiful clothes, when suddenly there was a knock on the door. The woman who was in the room with Gudrun opened the door, but saw no one. It was neither light nor dark outside - fog descended from the sky and enveloped everything around. The moon appeared occasionally, then disappeared again into the clouds. When the woman came into the house and said that there was no one outside, Gudrun replied: “It’s just someone flirting with me, next time I’ll open it myself.”
She was already dressed, all that remained was to put on her coat, which she did. Then she went outside and saw Faxie, and next to him a man who looked like a deacon. They did not speak to each other - the deacon picked up Gudrun, put her on a horse, then sat down in front of her and they rode off. Thus, they drove for an hour without speaking at all. They reached the river, the horse jumped over a high ice build-up, and the wind blew the deacon’s hat off. Gudrun saw his bare skull. At that moment the moon came out from behind the clouds, and the deacon said:
The month flies
and death gallops.
Do you see the white spot
on the back of my head,
Harun, Harun?
But Gudrun, frightened, remained silent. Although some say that Gudrun, seeing the white skull, said: “I see what this spot is.”
No one talked about any other conversation between them. They rode to Mirkau and stopped opposite the gate leading to the church yard. The deacon said to Gudrun:
Wait here, Harun, Harun,
for now I'll let go Faxi, Faxi,
to the meadows, to the meadows.
He went to let his horse go, but Gudrun found herself in the church courtyard. There she saw an open grave and was very frightened, but she managed to grab the bell rope. At the same moment, something pressed on her from behind, and the grip was so strong that one sleeve of her coat tore off at the seam. The last thing she saw was the deacon, who threw himself into the grave, and the earth closed over his head.
Gudrun rang the church bells and people came running from Mirkau. She was so frightened that at first she did not want to leave and stop ringing the bells; she thought that it was ghosts, and not the inhabitants of the farm, who came for the deacon, because she did not yet know about his death. Then she came to her senses, people told her about the death of the deacon, and she told them about her ride on horseback with him.
That same night, when everyone had gone to bed and turned off the lights, the deacon came to her again and made so much noise that no one could sleep. For half a month, Gudrun could not remain alone, and the inhabitants of the farm took turns watching her sleep at night. Some claim that the priest sat by her bed all this time and read the Psalter.
The people agreed with the sorcerer, who rolled a stone from the river to the farm. When it got dark in the evening, the deacon came and tried to get into the house, but the sorcerer took him around the corner and with great effort drove him into the ground. Then he placed a stone in this place. The deacon rests in this place to this day. After this, the ghost of the deacon stopped coming to the farm, and Gudrun began to live a quiet life.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru