The Spinning Begine of Zoutleeuw

Very early in the morning, when it was still dark — in that hour between sleep and wakefulness, between night and day — Farmer Jan saw something move upon the beginage. He was on his way to work, a basket of grain under his arm, when he first noticed it. A figure, transparent as morning mist, spinning at a wheel.

The phantom — for what else could it be — spun on, spun on, as though a hundred years had not passed. The wheel turned round, round, round, and there came a sound like of ship’s ropes sliding past one another. The wool grew fine, delicate, beautiful.

Jan stopped, frightened. His hand grasped for the revolver at his belt — as though bullets would do anything against a ghost. And then he heard the sound of a voice, old and sorrowful, singing as the phantom worked: ‘I am still a begine, and turn my wheel wondrously.’

Startled, Jan cried out: ‘Be gone, or I shall shoot!’ His voice was sharp and trembling. The begine did not keep silent. Instead, she rose up, her face shimmering in the dim light, and answered with a voice like broken bell-ringing:

‘Who shall hinder me from setting my wheel here. A hundred years I have stood and earned my bread with this wheel.’

Jan said: ‘I wish to know who you are, whence you come, and what you do here!’ The begine laughed, a sound like squealing iron doors.

‘In this ground I have buried my purse,’ said she. ‘I search for it still, night after night. A hundred years now. My money, my misery, my last hope — all hidden beneath this soil. None shall stop me from seeking it.’

Jan felt rage rising in his breast — rage at the nocturnal unease he felt. He took his stick and struck at the begine. The blow was solid, forceful, yet it felt as though he struck at mist.

The begine fell. Simply vanished. Left behind: a bundle of black garments, dark and decayed, and a heap of straw in the form of a human body. The wheel lay several metres away, unharmed, as though it had waited for centuries.

Jan stood bewildered. He dared draw closer. Upon the wheel were old words scratched, faded by time and weather. With trembling fingers he read them aloud:

‘Who shall hinder me / From setting my wheel here, / I am still an old begine / And turn my wheel wondrously. / A hundred years I have spun this courtyard / And earned my bread with this wheel / Oh Lord, where is my old cell now / It is demolished, as I feared / In this ground I have buried my purse / I search for it here still, until tomorrow.’

Later, in the wake of this strange event, the people of the beginage searched for more information. In the old archives of the cloister they found entries of begines from centuries past. There she was: “Sister Margherita, begine, died in the year 1643, for whom no funeral rites are recorded.”

Sister Margherita had been her name. She had lived a hundred years upon the beginage, devoting her entire life to spinning. Considerable wealth she had saved, it was said, buried beneath the soil of the courtyard. But when she died, all trace of this money vanished. No one knew the place where it lay hidden.

And perhaps, the people thought, it was the guilt that held her bound to this place. Guilt and greed. The guilt that she had not shared her money with the church, not with the poor. The guilt that she wished to keep it for herself, even long after her body had decayed to dust.

They never found the money. But at the place where the wheel lay and where the garments had been left, they later planted a cross. And the people say that Sister Margherita’s spirit has not been seen since that day. As though Jan’s blow with the stick had at last freed her from her eternal search.