'Have you much money?' said the baker.
'I have a half-hundred pounds,' said Lawrence.
'I'll bet another half-hundred with you that there will be fear on you
if you go to the place that I'll bid you,' says the baker.
'I'll take your bet,' said Lawrence, 'if only the place is not too far
away from me.'
'It's not a mile from the place where you're standing,' said the
baker; 'wait here till the night comes, and then go to the graveyard,
and as a sign that you were in it, bring me the goblet that is upon
the altar of the old church (_cill_) that is in the graveyard.'
When the baker made the bet he was certain that he would win, for
there was a ghost in the churchyard, and nobody went into it for forty
years before that whom he did not kill.
When the darkness of the night came, Lawrence put on his sword and
went to the burying-ground. He came to the door of the churchyard and
struck it with his sword. The door opened, and there came out a great
black ram, and two horns on him as long as flails. Lawrence gave him a
blow, and he went out of sight, leaving him up to the two ankles in
blood. Lawrence went into the old church, got the goblet, came back to
the baker's house, gave him the goblet, and got the bet. Then the
baker asked him did he see anything in the churchyard.
'I saw a big black ram with long horns on him,' said Lawrence, 'and I
gave him a blow which drew as much blood out of him as would swim a
boat; sure he must be dead by this time.'
In the morning, the day on the morrow, the baker and a lot of people
went to the graveyard and they saw the blood of the black ram at the
door. They went to the priest and told him that the black ram was
banished out of the churchyard. The priest did not believe them,
because the churchyard was shut up forty years before that on account
of the ghost that was in it, and neither priest nor friar could banish
him. The priest came with them to the door of the churchyard, and when
he saw the blood he took courage and sent for Lawrence, and heard the
story from his own mouth. Then he sent for his blessing-materials, and
desired the people to come in till he read mass for them. The priest
went in, and Lawrence and the people after him, and he read mass
without the big black ram coming as he used to do. The priest was
greatly rejoiced, and gave Lawrence another fifty pounds.
On the morning of the next day Lawrence went on his way. He travelled
the whole day without seeing a house. About the hour of midnight he
came to a great lonely valley, and he saw a large gathering of people
looking at two men hurling. Lawrence stood looking at them, as there
was a bright light from the moon. It was the good people that were in
it, and it was not long until one of them struck a blow on the ball
and sent it into Lawrence's breast. He put his hand in after the ball
to draw it out, and what was there in it but the head of a man. When
Lawrence got a hold of it, it began screeching, and at last it asked
Lawrence--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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