Pestilence and Famine
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Guerber, H. A. (Hélène Adeline)
Hel herself was supposed occasionally to leave her dismal abode to range the earth upon her three-legged white horse, and in times of pestilence or famine, if a part of the inhabitants of a district escaped, she was said to use a rake, and when whole villages and provinces were depopulated, as in the case of the historical epidemic of the Black Death, it was said that she had ridden with a broom.
The Northern races further fancied that the spirits of the dead were sometimes allowed to revisit the earth and appear to their relatives, whose sorrow or joy affected them even after death, as is related in the Danish ballad of Aager and Else, where a dead lover bids his sweetheart smile, so that his coffin may be filled with roses instead of the clotted blood drops produced by her tears.
“‘Listen now, my good Sir Aager!
Dearest bridegroom, all I crave
Is to know how it goes with thee
In that lonely place, the grave.’
“‘Every time that thou rejoicest,
And art happy in thy mind,
Are my lonely grave’s recesses
All with leaves of roses lined.’
“‘Every time that, love, thou grievest,
And dost shed the briny flood,
Are my lonely grave’s recesses
Filled with black and loathsome blood.’”
Ballad of Aager and Else (Longfellow’s tr.).