Gudbjart Floke And The Bishop Of Holar

The priest Gudbjart Floke in Laufaas was the wisest man of his time; but since he was very good-natured, he did not harm anyone with his art Nevertheless, the bishop on Holar took offense at the rumor as magician, which the priest had drawn upon himself, and he therefore The decision to remove him of his office. with some priests and young people in the wake; After walking a short distance, they lost their direction and did not know where to go, and only discovered where they were when they turned to house, on Holar, behind the yard fence.

Nonetheless, the bishop took off the second time, and he was with his men already north of the Hjaltetalsheide, when they reached in broad daylight by a snowstorm with strong storm and frost Suddenly they were all overcome by an urge to relieve themselves to perform; but when they wanted to rise again, they were unable to do so; they were close to freezing to death and saw finally no other way to escape than the promise to to return home. The people rejoiced at the travels of the bishop, but Sira Gudbjart never did that; he did not believe he said that he wanted to go to the bishop; he would not have needed to take such a large entourage with him.

Some time later, the bishop was travelling with another man in Oefjord, and on this occasion he made a detour to the house of Sira Gudbjart; this time everything went well, and it happened that nobody was outside. The bishop immediately entered the house and saw the Priest sitting at the table, his head resting on his hand, with a book in front of him on the table. The bishop took the book, but as he no matter how hard he turned it over, he found only blank pages. Bishop asked the priest what he wanted to use the book for, and the Others replied that it was used for recording sermons.

»So! Sermons!« answered the bishop angrily, »you, who worship!«

But as soon as he had expressed the last word when he was a grave from which a bluish flame burst. He himself stood at the very edge, while a grey hand grasped his coat lap and wanted to pull him down into the flames. The bishop let out a Cry out and said: "Help me, for God's sake, Father!" Sira Gudbjart held out her hand and said: "Let him go, Satan!" and everything was as it had been. Then the priest said: »It is not strange that the evil one is so close to those who carry his name on their lips instead of God's blessing on the house to beg; I am accustomed to doing that, and yet you accuse you have let me go of the right faith."

The bishop now became gentler in his speech. They spoke for a long time together and separated into friendship, and from this At this point the bishop said that he could only wish that all were God-fearing like his dear Gudbjart.

But later no one ever noticed that the priest had used of his art.