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Updated: May 18, 2025
Nevertheless he consented, for he was very meek, and when Michaelmas Day came the Kyrkegrim pulled a preacher's gown over his homespun coat, and laid his round hat on the desk by the iron-clamped Bible, and began his sermon. "I shall give no text," said he, "but when I have said what seems good to me, it is for those who hear to see if the Scriptures bear me out."
And as he preached, the women sitting in their seats wept for the dead whose graves they had been tending, and down the aged cheeks of the Kyrkegrim there stole tears of pity for poor men, whose love and labors are cut short so soon. But the farmer slept as before. "Do you not expect to die?" asked the Kyrkegrim.
But the farmer's eyes were still closed and the Kyrkegrim became agitated, and turned hastily over the leaves of the iron-clamped Bible before him. "We will speak of the plagues," said he. "The plague of blood, the plague of frogs, the plague of lice, the plague of flies " At this moment the farmer snored. For a brief instant, anger and dismay kept the Kyrkegrim silent.
When the last snow avalanche has slipped from the high-pitched roof, and the gentian is bluer than the sky, and Baldur's Eyebrow blossoms in the hot Spring sun, pious folk are wont to come to church some time before service, and to bring their spades, and rakes, and watering-pots with them, to tend the graves of the dead. The Kyrkegrim sits on the Lych Gate and overlooks them.
They are of the same race as the Good People, who haunt farm houses, and do the maids' work for a pot of cream. They are the size of a year-old child, but their faces are the faces of aged men. Their common dress is of gray home-spun, with red peaked caps; but on Michaelmas Day they wear round hats. The Church Niss is called Kyrkegrim.
"And shall she be Kyrkegrim when thou art turned preacher, and the preacher sits on the judgment seat? Not so, little Miss! Dust thou the pulpit, and leave the parson to preach, and let the Maker of souls reckon with them." "If the preacher cannot keep the people awake, it is time that another took his place," said the Kyrkegrim.
So the preacher preached on Sin fair of flower, and bitter of fruit! and as he preached his own cheeks grew pale for other men's perils, and the Kyrkegrim trembled as he sat listening in the porch, though he had no soul to lose. "Was that stirring enough?" he asked, twitching the sleeve of the farmer's wife as she flounced out after service.
Again and again did he pinch him, nudge him, or let in a cold draught of wind upon his neck. The fat farmer shook himself, pulled up his neck-kerchief, and dozed off again. "Doubtless the fault is in my sermons," said the priest, when the Kyrkegrim complained to him. For he was humble-minded. But the Kyrkegrim knew that this was not the case, for there was no better preacher in all the district.
"Splendid!" said she, "and must have hit some folk pretty hard too." "It kept your husband awake this time, I should think," said the Kyrkegrim. "Heighty teighty!" cried the farmer's wife. "I'd have you to know my good man is as decent a body as any in the parish, if he does take a nap on Sundays! He is no sinner if he is no saint, thank Heaven, and the parson knows better than to preach at him."
He did not wake when the preacher spoke of judgment to come, the reckoning that cannot be shunned, the trump of the Archangel, and the Day of Doom. "On Michaelmas Day I shall preach myself," said the Kyrkegrim, "and if I cannot rouse him, I shall give up my charge here." This troubled the poor priest, for so good a Kyrkegrim was not likely to be found again.
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