The Ghost of the Grandfather

The lord heeded not the admonition of his daughter. His heart was hardened as stone, and his soul filled with heedlessness and sin. Day after day he lived without fear or shame, despite the constant pleas of his pious daughter.

On an October evening, when the first frost began to crystallize upon the fields of West-Flanders, the lord walked alone across the great cemetery of Oostende. Darkness enfolded him like a cloak, and only moonlight afforded him sight for a few paces.

Suddenly he halted. Beneath his heel something slipped—a bone, grey and bent by centuries. Not one skull lay at his feet, but several, lifeless and with hollow eyes staring upon him.

Enraged by this dreadful discovery, the lord straightened himself. “Begging monks of old!” he cried with thunderous voice. “Do any of you yet live beneath these graves? Come forth, ye ancient bones! Ye are invited to a feast in my hall—and there drink and meat shall not fail!”

Those who heard this—for some wayfarers passed near—felt their blood freeze. No man summons the dead, no man challenges his forefathers. Yet the lord laughed his terrible laugh and continued his walk.

The night brought no reprieve. The feast had been announced, and the guests would come.

That evening the lord set his table with coloured silks and golden spoons. Lamps burned along the walls, and the greatest platter was filled with the richest fare. He invited his companions—men of like mind—and the banquet began.

Midst the revelry an icy chill spread through the hall. The doors swung open without hands, and a figure entered the chamber. It was a skeleton, pale and loathsome, clothed in the rotted linen of an age-old grave. Over the bleached bones hung a mantle of mist.

“Ye have invited me,” spoke the phantom in a voice like the tolling of death bells. “I am your ancestor, he whom ye denied honour. I come, for ye have called me forth!”

In mortal terror the guests sprang from their seats. But their legs were frozen with fear—none could flee. The skeleton advanced upon the lord. Without word or warning it seized him and hurled him against the stone walls.

With horrible sound the wall cracked open, and a gaping black void appeared—no window, no door, but the very gate of Hell itself. Screaming, the lord was dragged by his ancestor into that abyss, his body vanished into the night.

Then the phantom faded, and freedom returned to the limbs of the guests. But none would ever forget the feast of that night. The lord was seen no more, and only his daughter mourned with piety in her heart.

Thus the legend teaches us: whosoever commits to sin and heeds no warning shall meet his punishment in darkness.