Austria -- Fiction; Devil -- Fiction; Middle Ages -- Fiction
And we had the run of the castle park, and very few had that. It was
because we were pets of the oldest serving-man in the castle--Felix
Brandt; and often we went there, nights, to hear him talk about old
times and strange things, and to smoke with him (he taught us that)
and to drink coffee; for he had served in the wars, and was at the
siege of Vienna; and there, when the Turks were defeated and driven
away, among the captured things were bags of coffee, and the Turkish
prisoners explained the character of it and how to make a pleasant
drink out of it, and now he always kept coffee by him, to drink himself
and also to astonish the ignorant with. When it stormed he kept us
all night; and while it thundered and lightened outside he told us
about ghosts and horrors of every kind, and of battles and murders and
mutilations, and such things, and made it pleasant and cozy inside; and
he told these things from his own experience largely. He had seen many
ghosts in his time, and witches and enchanters, and once he was lost in
a fierce storm at midnight in the mountains, and by the glare of the
lightning had seen the Wild Huntsman rage on the blast with his specter
dogs chasing after him through the driving cloud-rack. Also he had seen
an incubus once, and several times he had seen the great bat that sucks
the blood from the necks of people while they are asleep, fanning them
softly with its wings and so keeping them drowsy till they die.
He encouraged us not to fear supernatural things, such as ghosts, and
said they did no harm, but only wandered about because they were lonely
and distressed and wanted kindly notice and compassion; and in time we
learned not to be afraid, and even went down with him in the night to
the haunted chamber in the dungeons of the castle. The ghost appeared
only once, and it went by very dim to the sight and floated noiseless
through the air, and then disappeared; and we scarcely trembled, he had
taught us so well. He said it came up sometimes in the night and woke
him by passing its clammy hand over his face, but it did him no hurt;
it only wanted sympathy and notice. But the strangest thing was that he
had seen angels--actual angels out of heaven--and had talked with them.
They had no wings, and wore clothes, and talked and looked and acted
just like any natural person, and you would never know them for angels
except for the wonderful things they did which a mortal could not do,
and the way they suddenly disappeared while you were talking with them,
which was also a thing which no mortal could do. And he said they were
pleasant and cheerful, not gloomy and melancholy, like ghosts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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