Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/354

 334 Miscellanea.

Then the husband thought, " How can I dispose of them ? " Suddenly an idea struck him. He pulled the bishop out, and ran with him to a tavern kept by one Yannis, and shouted : " Yanni, Yanni, I want a bottle of wine at once," and set the bishop up against the door and took to his heels. The keeper of the tavern came and opened the door to serve his customer ; and in fell the bishop, dead as a door-nail. " Dear me," said poor Yannis, " this is awkward ; I will put him away and try to hush it up." The husband went back and fetched the deacon, and set him, too, against the tavern door and called for wine ; and when Yannis opened the door, in fell the deacon, stark and stiff. He stowed him away with the bishop ; likewise the priest, when he, too, fell in dead. "Lord, what shall I do?" said Yannis. "I must get rid of them somehow." And he bethought him of a silly fellow who was fond of a drink, and went and woke him up and said : " Come and drink a bottle of wine ; I've got a dead priest here, and I want you to throw him into the sea for me." The fool was only too glad. He drank his bottle, and took the priest and pitched him into the sea and came back. "You can't have thrown him far enough out," said Yannis ; " here he is back again," and showed him the dead deacon. " Have another bottle, and throw him further." The fool drank his wine, and said : "You bet I'll throw him where he can't come back." He marched off with the deacon on his back, and took a boat and threw him into deep water, and then returned to the tavern. " He must be put deeper still," said Yannis, pointing to the bishop ; " for here he is back again. Never mind, have another bottle and take him well out to sea." The fool drank his bottle, and set off with the bishop on his back. This time he rowed quite far out and dropped the bishop overboard, and came back. As he was returning he met a priest who was carrying the host to a dying man, and, when he saw him, he said : " Oh, you've come back again, have you ? I'll settle you this time," and took up a stone and threw it at the priest's head and killed him.

[" Next day," said the old nun who told me this story, " he saw another bishop come riding into the town on a white donkey, and he pitched a stone at him and killed him too." But this is an obvious amplification.]