In ancient times there lived in Snaefedl a pastor named Ioun, who was nicknamed the Steadfast. He was the son of Thorleif. Pastor John was a wise man, and in those days this was a great blessing for many. He was married twice, his first wife’s name was Sesselya, she bore the pastor three children, one of them lived with his father, and his name was also Jon. The pastor had no children from his second wife.
It so happened that Jon, the pastor's son, fell in love with their maid. The pastor's shepherd also fell in love with her. As often happens in such cases, Jon and the shepherd were at enmity with each other. One day at the beginning of winter, a shepherd went to the mountains to drive his sheep home, but at that time black ice began, and he returned home without a flock. The pastor decided that the shepherd was simply chickening out and began sending his son Jonah to fetch the sheep. Jon didn't want to go to the mountains.
“It’s obvious you really can’t get through there,” he told his father.
But the pastor did not want to listen to anything, and Jon had to obey. He did not return from this campaign; he died somewhere in the mountains, and it is not even known whether his body was found or not. It is unlikely that his ashes rested in peace in the cemetery, because this dead man began to visit both the maid and the shepherd. The ghost soon became famous for its viciousness; most often it lived on the slopes of Snaefedl and pestered travelers by throwing stones at them. In the parsonage, it broke glass, killed sheep, and sometimes sat with women spinning wool in the common room, and in the evening they always set food for it, like the rest of the household.
One day, the pastor's worker heard someone skinning dried fish. He looked closer and saw a ghost.
“Take the knife, buddy,” the worker said.
“Dead people have no use for knives,” answered the ghost.
It never touched the one who shared food with him or threw stones at him.
One winter in those parts it happened that the supply of tobacco in all the houses came to an end at once. Pastor John came up with a way to help this problem. He learned that tobacco had been brought to the North, to Akureyri, and sent a ghost after it, and he generously provided him with food for the journey. They say that in the North one man saw a ghost sitting on a stone and wanting to eat; tobacco lay on the ground at his feet. He says:
- Good man, whoever you are, give me some tobacco!
The ghost looked at him with anger, grabbed an armful of tobacco and disappeared, but tobacco crumbs remained on the stone where it was sitting.
After this incident, Pastor Jon decided to send the ghost to the East to Skorrastadir, to Pastor Einar. They say that Pastor Einar was a school friend of Pastor Joun and only with him did Pastor Joun share his worries and confide his troubles to him. The ghost appeared in Skorrastadir and appeared before Pastor Einar while he was already lying in bed.
- Do you want to spend the night here? – the pastor asked when he saw the guest.
“Yes,” answered the ghost. The guest seemed suspicious to the pastor. Suddenly he rushed at the pastor, but he managed to grab a board from the bed and hit the guest so hard that he injured his hand. At this point the ghost had to reveal himself to the pastor and give him the letter.
The pastor told him to get out, but the guest asked to be given some errand. Then the pastor pretended to approve of such a desire, and ordered him to return home, meet Pastor John at the cemetery gates at the end of the service and give him a letter from him. The ghost didn’t want to return home, but he had to obey. It met Pastor Youn at the gates of the cemetery and handed him a letter, and in that letter were written spells against ghosts. Pastor Jon immediately began to conjure the ghost so that it would leave both people and cattle alone and disappear into the underworld. The spell was so powerful that the ghost immediately disappeared underground and, they say, from that time on he never harmed anyone.
They also say that one old woman, I think it was Gudni from Arnarfjord, was jealous of the wisdom of Pastor Einar and decided to compete with him. The sorcerer Leif advised the old woman not to joke with the pastor, but she neglected the good advice. And so, they say, one evening in Skorrastadir there was a knock on the door. Pastor Einar told his daughter to see who came. She went to the door, but there was no one there. Then they knocked a second time and a third time, the pastor’s daughter came out to answer each knock, but never saw anyone. The fourth time she walked out the door and found a man around the corner of the house, he said that he needed to see the pastor. She invited him into the house, but the pastor warned her not to go ahead of the guest, so she let him in first. The room was light, Pastor Einar was sitting at the table and writing.
-What business did you come for? – he asked the guest.
-Strangle the pastor from Skorrastadir! – the guest barely said, because he began to lose strength at one glance at Pastor Einar.
The pastor put the guest to bed in the attic and drove out the evil spirit from him. And the next day, the old woman Gudni died in Arnarfjord, because the pastor sent to her the same spirit that she had sent to him the day before.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru