A certain boy and girl, whose names this tale
telleth not, once lived near a church. The boy being mischievously inclined,
was in the habit of trying to frighten the girl in a variety of ways, till
she became at last so accustomed to his tricks, that she ceased to care for
anything whatever, putting down everything strange that she saw and heard
to the boy's mischief.
One washing-day, the girl was sent by her mother
to fetch home the linen, which had been spread to dry in the churchyard. When
she had nearly filled her basket, she happened to look up, and saw sitting
on a tomb near her a figure dressed in white from head to foot, but was not
the least alarmed, believing it to be the boy playing her, as usual, a trick.
So she ran up to it, and pulling its cap off said, "You shall not frighten
me, this time."
Then when she had finished collecting the linen
she went home. But, to her astonishment -- for he could not have reached home
before her without her seeing him -- the boy was the first person who greeted
her on her arrival at the cottage.
Among the linen, too, when it was sorted, was
found a mouldy white cap, which appeared to be nobody's property, and which
was half full of earth.
The next morning the ghost (for it was a ghost
that the girl had seen) was found sitting with no cap upon its head, upon
the same tombstone as the evening before. And as nobody had the courage to
address it, or knew in the least how to get rid of it, they sent into the
neighbouring village for advice.
An old man declared that the only way to avoid
some general calamity, was for the little girl to replace on the ghost's head
the cap she had seized from it, in the presence of many people, all of whom
were to be perfectly silent. So a crowd collected in the churchyard, and the
little girl, going forward, half afraid, with the cap, placed it upon the
ghost's head, saying, "Are you satisfied now?"
But the ghost, raising its hand, gave her a fearful
blow, and said, "Yes, but are you now satisfied?"
The little girl fell down dead, and at the same
instant the ghost sank into the grave upon which it had been sitting, and
was no more seen.
Source: Jón Arnason, Icelandic Legends, translated by George E. J. Powell and Eiríkur Magnússon (London: Richard Bentley, 1864), pp. 157-158.