d robbery, a crime for which he had been hanged. Shortly
afterwards his friend was about to be married; and his way a few days
before, in the transaction of his business, led him past the gallows
where the body still swung. As he drew near he murmured a Paternoster
for the dead man, and said: "At your wedding I enjoyed myself; and you
promised me to come to mine, and now you cannot come!" A voice from the
gallows distinctly replied: "Yes, I will come." To the wedding feast
accordingly the dead man came, with the rope round his neck, and was
placed between the pastor and the sacristan. He ate and drank in
silence, and departed. As he left, he beckoned the bridegroom to follow
him; and when they got outside the village the hanged man said: "Thanks
to your Paternoster, I am saved." They walked a little further, and the
bridegroom noticed that the country was unknown to him. They were in a
large and beautiful garden. "Will you not return?" asked the dead man;
"they will miss you." "Oh! let me stay; it is so lovely here," replied
his friend. "Know that we are in Paradise; you cannot go with me any
further. Farewell!" So saying the dead man vanished. Then the bridegroom
turned back; but he did not reach the village for three days. There all
was changed. He asked after his bride: no one knew her. He sought the
pastor and found a stranger. When he told his tale the pastor searched
the church-books and discovered that a man of his name had been married
one hundred and fifty years before. The bridegroom asked for food; but
when he had eaten it he sank into a heap of ashes at the pastor's feet.
The Transylvanian legend of "The Gravedigger in Heaven" also turns upon
an invitation thoughtlessly given to a dead man and accepted. The
entertainment is followed by a counter-invitation; and the gravedigger
is forced to pay a return visit. He is taken to Heaven, where, among
other things, he sees at intervals three leaves fall slowly one after
another from off a large tree in the garden. The tree is the Tree of
Life, from which a leaf falls at the end of every century. He was three
hundred years in Heaven and thought it scarce an hour. The Icelandic
version concerns a wicked priest. His unjust ways are reproved by a
stranger who takes him to the place of joy and the place of torment, and
shows him other wonderful things such as the youth in the Breton tale is
permitted to behold. When he is brought back, and the stranger leaves
him, he find