Children Stories - The Tale Of The Snow And The Steeple

A ghost in a haunted house is seldom observed with anything like scientific precision. The spectre in the following narrative could not be photographed, attempts being usually made in a light which required prolonged exposure. Efforts to touc... Read more of The Lady In Black at Scary Stories.ca

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The Tale Of The Snow And The Steeple

from Stories To Read Or Tell From Fairy Tales And Folklore

I set off from Rome on a journey to Russia, in the midst of winter, from a
just notion that frost and snow must of course mend the roads, which every
traveler had described as uncommonly bad through the northern parts of
Germany, Poland, Courland, and Livonia. I went on horseback as the most
convenient manner of traveling. I was but lightly clothed, and of this I
felt the inconvenience the more I advanced northeast. What must not a poor
old man have suffered in that severe weather and climate, whom I saw on a
bleak common in Poland lying on the road helpless, shivering, and hardly
having the wherewithal to cover his nakedness? I pitied the poor soul:
though I felt the severity of the air myself, I threw my mantle over him,
and immediately I heard a voice from the heavens blessing me for that
piece of charity, saying, "You will be rewarded, my son, for this in
time."

I went on: night and darkness overtook me. No village was to be seen. The
country was covered with snow, and I was unacquainted with the road.

Tired, I alighted, and fastened my horse to something, like a pointed stump
of a tree, which appeared above the snow; for the sake of safety, I placed
my pistols under my arm, and laid down on the snow, where I slept so
soundly that I did not open my eyes till full daylight. It is not easy to
conceive my astonishment to find myself in the midst of a village, lying in
a churchyard; nor was my horse to be seen, but I heard him soon after neigh
somewhere above me. On looking upwards, I beheld him hanging by his bridle
to the weather-cock of the steeple. Matters were now very plain to me; the
village had been covered with snow overnight: a sudden change of weather
had taken place: I had sunk down to the churchyard whilst asleep, gently,
and in the same proportion as the snow had melted away; and what in the
dark I had taken to be a stump of a little tree appearing above the snow,
to which I had tied my horse, proved to be the cross or weather-cock of the
steeple!

With long consideration, I took one of my pistols, shot the bridle in two,
brought down the horse, and proceeded on my journey. [Here the baron seems
to have forgotten his feelings: he should certainly have ordered his horse
a feed of corn after fasting so long.]

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Previous: The Wolf And The Seven Little Goats

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