home-sickness which are so little respected by the
survivors, was on his way to his former residence,
when he was suddenly assailed by a pack of
wolves, and forced to take shelter on the top of
a hayloft. The disappointed wolves stood howling
below, and the ghost, becoming insolent from
a sense of security, showed them his leg, and
scoffingly asked them if that resembled a wolf's foot?
Unluckily, he had reckoned without his host, in
the most literal sense of the expression, for the
peasant to whom the premises belonged thrust a
pitchfork through the roof, ran him through the
leg, and cast him among the wolves, who at
once ate him up. On the following morning a
few drops of blood were seen upon the spot.
This story belongs to Worms, but the utility of
wolves in devouring ghosts is so generally
acknowledged among the Eibo-folk, that they
have a proverb: If it was not for the wolves,
the world would be full of goblins.

These ghosts of the Eibo-folk do not in general
appeal very strongly to our moral sympathies;
but there seems to have been one in the island
of Worms of whom the temperance party might
be proud. An ill-conditioned fellow, who was
terribly fond of brandy, had a son so badly
crippled that he could only walk on all-fours.
Less fortunate than Tiny Tim, in the Christmas
Carol, he gained by his deformity nothing
but curses from his brutal parent, and was
glad enough to die when he had attained
his ninth year. Death, however, did not bring
the poor little fellow as much rest as he had
anticipated, for one Thursday evening he
appeared to his brothers and sisters, perfectly
cured of his deformity, and well planted on his
feet, but with a very dismal countenance. When
he had called several times, always seating
himself on the threshold, and always departing without
a word, the children made their father
acquainted with the facts. That disreputable
gentleman asked the little ghost what he wanted,
and was informed that the heaviness of his curses
prevented the poor child from sleeping in his
grave. "That was my sin," said the repentant
father; "depart in peace." The child vanished
never to reappear, and the father thenceforward
abstained from brandy. Might not this story
furnish an illustration to the British Workman?

The inhabitants of the provinces adjoining
the Gulf of Riga look back with horror to a
great plague which visited them in the year
1710, and committed ravages from which it is
said the population of Esthonia has not yet
recovered. When we hear that of sixty-three
preachers in this single province forty-eight
perished, we may estimate the sufferings of the
people in general. As might be supposed, the
plague was attended with the usual revolting
circumstances; the dead were buried without
coffins or any mark of respect, the only care of
survivors being to remove them as speedily as
possible. As a singular instance of the despair
that is common to these visitations, it is recorded
that many of the people, abandoning all hope, put
on their best clothes, and quietly sat in their
houses awaiting the approach of the destroying
angel. Others fled into the woods, where they
lived in huts, and it is said that relics of their
sojourn are still to be found.

According to some of the traditions of the
Eibo-folk, the immediate cause of the plague
was a little grey man, who might be seen and
heard at a distance, but whom no one could
approach. If he intended to spare a house, he
passed it by with the words, "Here I have
nothing to do;" but otherwise he entered the
dwelling and struck the residents with his staff,
whereupon they immediately expired. The
people of Runo he seems to have treated with
a sort of cruel courtesy, as he rode about the
island in a calash, with a three-cornered hat
upon his head. It appears that the boatman
who brought him to the island was the first to
perish. The boatmen of Dago seem to have
understood this form of visitation, for when they
were returning from a foreign ship, which was
moored near their island, and to which they had
taken provisions, and a little boy three feet high,
with a three-cornered hat on his head, leaped
into their boat, they threw him overboard. However,
he resumed his place, and thus the pestilence
was brought to Kertell. The island Kyno
was invaded in a more artful manner. There a
man found an image on the coast that looked as
if it had been broken off a ship. He took it
home, and laid it against the wall. When the
night came it began to whimper and groan, as
if it was in pain, and he could neither quiet it
nor remove it, but soon fell sick and died. It
was afterwards taken out and thrown into the
sea by persons stronger or cleverer than the
original finder; but the mischief was already
done, and nearly the whole village perished.

The supposition that an odd kind of goblin is
the proximate cause of the plague, does not
preclude the belief that he is the agent of a
Higher Power. On one occasion the personified
Pestilence visited a house at Kertell, where all
were asleep except an elderly virgin. The
pestilence touched them upon the bosom in turns
with its staff, thus making a blue mark, which
soon spread over the entire body. When all
was dead except the old maid, she called on the
pestilence to destroy her also, but was told that
her name was not on the list, and she survived
the visitation accordingly. A similar story is
told of a visitation at Kerslatt, in Worms.
Here, while the other inhabitants of a house
were sleeping, a little grey man, carrying a
staff, a candle, and a book, walked in, and was
closely watched by an old gentleman, who sat
awake by the stove. He touched the sleepers
three times, but when he came to a cradle, in
which there was a child, he looked at it, took
out his book, turned over the leaves, and left
the infant unscathed. The child lived, and so,
also, did the old man, to tell the tale.

The Finns are born conjurors, which certainly
does not seem to be the case with the Eibo-folk;
and hence it is but natural that in the legends of
the latter, magical victories over the plague are
ascribed to their more astute neighbours. A
Finnish servant-girl at Kertell contrived to lock