The Ghost Dog of Wijer

In Wijer, soldiers passing through rested for several days. The villagers asked one of the soldiers whether he would stand guard at the churchyard by night. A black dog had often been seen running past and then vanishing behind the church.

No one in the village dared go near the churchyard after sunset. The black dog appeared every night and always disappeared at the same spot, as if standing watch over the dead.

Against all warnings the soldier cried: “Let the beast come, I shall stab it dead!” He was a man who feared nothing and no one, or so he claimed. That evening, when the dog came running from the direction of the castle, the parish priest opened his window.

The priest called out to the soldier: “Leave the beast alone; it does no one any harm!” But the soldier would not listen and ran cursing towards the dog.

The next day the soldier was found. He had not been bitten, but he was as black as soot. His whole body was covered in a dark colour that would not wash off no matter how hard they tried. The soldier could barely tell what had happened to him.

Afterwards a monk banished the dog for ninety-nine years into a gap in the hedge through which it had always crept. The people of Wijer kept well away from that hedge from then on, for they knew that evil was locked within it.