The Deacon of Myrká

Once there was a young woman living on a farm in Eyjafjörður. Her name was Guðrún, and she was betrothed to a deacon who served at Myrká. He was kind to her, cheerful in speech, and used to riding over the rivers and moors when he had leave from his duties.

They had agreed to meet at Christmas. The deacon had promised to fetch her and ride with her to Myrká, where joy and light would greet them in the depths of winter.

But that year the winter was hard. The rivers were swollen with slush, the roads lay buried in snow, and darkness came early over the land. One day the deacon set out across the river, but his horse slipped on the ice. He was found later, cold and lifeless, and buried in the churchyard at Myrká.

Guðrún did not learn of this at once. Roads were heavy, and news traveled slowly between farms.

On Christmas Eve she sat in the hall, dressed and ready, her cloak over her knees. Outside it was dark, and snow beat the window in small white fists. She listened for hoofbeats.

At last she heard them. Slow at first. Then nearer. Then they stopped outside the farm.

There was a knock at the door.

Guðrún smiled and rose. "He has come," she said.

When she opened it, the deacon stood outside in the darkness. He was in his cloak, his hat pulled low over his brow. His horse stood beside him, dark and weary, but Guðrún found it strange that no steam rose from it despite the cold.

"Are you ready?" the deacon asked.

His voice was low and heavy, as if it came from far away.

"Yes," said Guðrún, though something in her stiffened.

She bade the household farewell and mounted behind him. The deacon took the rein, and the horse set off out into the night.

At first they spoke little. Snow lay over everything. No star could be seen. The horse went fast, but Guðrún felt no ordinary horse-warmth beneath her. Everything was cold: the saddle, the cloak, the man before her.

When they came to the river, the water lay black beneath the ice. The horse leapt across, and in the leap the deacon's hat lifted slightly.

Guðrún saw his face in a moonbeam breaking from behind a cloud.

It was not the face of a living man.

The skin was pale blue, the eyes deep and empty, and mold sat in his hair at the temples.

Guðrún's heart beat so hard she thought he must hear it.

Then he spoke:

"The moon glides, death rides. Do you not see the white spot on my nape, Garún, Garún?"

She understood then that the one riding with her was not her betrothed, but something that had come from the grave with his memory upon its lips.

Guðrún did not go limp. She thought.

She held fast to her cloak and waited. The horse bore them onward toward Myrká. As they neared the churchyard, she saw an open grave by the wall. There was darkness deeper than the night itself.

The deacon dismounted and turned to her. "Come," he said.

He reached out his hand.

Guðrún walked slowly toward him, but in that same instant she seized the bell-rope at the church door and rang it with all her strength.

The bells answered into the night.

The deacon startled. He grasped her cloak, but she tore free, and the cloak ripped in his hands. He fell backward into the open grave, the black scrap of cloak still in his grip.

The church bells rang on.

People at Myrká woke and ran out with lights. They found Guðrún trembling by the church door. By the grave they saw tracks in the snow, and in the grave lay the torn scrap of her cloak.

Only then did she learn that the deacon had died before ever coming to fetch her.

After that night Guðrún was never quite the same. Yet she lived long, and people said she had become both strong and quiet, as people sometimes become when they have looked into something that was never meant to open.

At Myrká men afterward kept the churchyard gate carefully shut. And on winter evenings, when snow covered the roads and hoofbeats were heard out of the darkness with no horse in sight, people did not look out at once.

They waited.

And if there came a late knock, they asked first: "Who is there?"

For not everyone who comes back, comes back alive.