At a place where there now stands a church, there lived among other people a young man and a maid. The young man made a habit of scaring the maid, but she had become so used to this that she gradually was no longer able to be scared, believing that whatever she saw was done by him to frighten her.
It happened one day that the laundry was being washed, among which were a number of white nightcaps that people often wore in those days. That evening, the maid was asked to retrieve the laundry from the churchyard where it was drying. She went there and began to gather the laundry.
When she was almost finished, she saw what appeared to be a white spirit sitting on one of the graves. Thinking that the young man was again trying to frighten her and believing he sat there with a nightcap on, she went to the place where it sat and tore the cap from its head and said, “It will not work to frighten me this time!”
She then returned with the laundry, only to find the young man in the house. The laundry was then counted and it was found that there was one nightcap too many, one of which had an earthy, unclean odor. This greatly frightened the maid.
The next morning the spirit sat on the grave, and the people had no idea what to do. No one was brave enough to bring the nightcap back to him. They sought counsel from others in the neighboring villages, and found an old man in the area who seemed to know what to do.
He thought that it was only possible for the young maid to return the nightcap to the spirit and in the presence of many, to put the cap back on the spirit’s head while saying nothing. He said that if this was not done, that there could be bad results for everyone.
The people urged the maid to place the nightcap back on the spirit’s head. This, she agreed to do and with her heart in her throat she placed the cap on the ghost’s head. She could not resist, and said, “Now are you satisfied?!”
The spirit turned toward her, struck her and said, “Yes, and are you also happy?” and then immediately fell back into his grave. The maid collapsed from the blow and the people watching ran immediately to her and lifted her up. But she was dead.
The people chastised the young man for having scared the maid so often for they believed it was because of this that the completely unhappy matter happened. From that time on, he no longer scared people.
And with that, this story ends.