Sigurd and the Ghost

On a farm lived a farmer and his son Sigurd. People thought that some of the things Sigurd told were was somewhat odd, for he talked of ghosts he saw, but he soon got so good at farmwork that his father could hardly do without him.

One day another Sigurd came to the farm and asked if he could stay there for the winter. The farmer let him, but all the stranger was able to do, was to play the harp. The two Sigurds became good friends, so that the farmer's son wanted nothing more than to be in the company of the stranger.

The winter passed, and in the spring the guest left. After he had left the house, the farmer's son was so bored and restless that he could not stay at home any more. In the autumn he left home to look for the other Sigurd. He went to every farm, from place after place, from county to county, and asked everywhere for his namesake Sigurd.

At last he came to a vicar's residence. There too he asked for his namesake. They told him that a man called Sigurd had arrived recently, but that he had just died, and nobody knew anything about him. Sigurd asked where he was lying, and was told that he had just been placed in the coffin in a separate the cookhouse on the farm.

Sigurd asked to go there, and after getting permission for it, sat on the coffin all night. Late that night the dead Sigurd rose from the coffin and left the cookhouse for a long while. Meanwhile Sigurd, the farmer's son, kept sitting on the coffin.

Towards morning the ghost came back to the cookhouse and wanted to get into the coffin. The farmer's son said no, not before the other had told him what he had been doing.

"I played with my money," said the ghost, "and now I will return to my coffin."

"Not before you tell me where the money is," said Sigurd.

"You won't know that," said the ghost.

"Then you will not get back into the coffin," returned Sigurd.

At this the ghost told him that it was under the corner in the bath.

"How much is it?" asked Sigurd.

"About 36 litres of good money," returned the ghost.

"Were you up to anything else?" asked Sigurd. "I won't let you into the coffin until you have told me."

"Oh well, I killed the pastor's wife," said the ghost.

The wife had recently given birth to a child. "But why?" asked Sigurd

"I wanted to be her friend when she was still alive," said the ghost, "but she did not want to."

"How did you kill her?" asked Sigurd.

"I put all of the life that was in her, into her little finger," answered the ghost.

"Can she be brought back to life?" asked Sigurd.

"Yes," answered the ghost, "if the cord I have tied around her little finger is gently untied, so that that she will not bleed. But now I want to go into the coffin," said the ghost.

"Not before you promise never to get out of the coffin again," answered Sigurd.

"I want to get into the coffin," said the ghost.

"First promise," returned Sigurd.

The end of it was that the ghost promised. He now lay down in the coffin and it closed itself again

. The next morning, Sigurd went out into the farmyard. There he met the other people on the farm. They were mourning. He asked what was wrong, and they told him that the vicar's wife had died that night. Sigurd asked for permission to see her, and the vicar showed him where she was. Sigurd loosened the string on her little finger and stroked her whole body until she gradually revived. Then Sigurd told the vicar about his meeting with the ghost, and showed the vicar the buried money too.

After this, the vicar held Sigurd in high esteem and took him into his service. Sigurd led a good life since.