The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

Although I am in trouble at this time, Verily, I shall be doubly repaid; When the call comes to me from my Saviour, I shall receive mercy and new grace; I fear no more vexation, When I ascend to be with Thy saints; O Thou that sittest on the throne, Assist my speaking and accept my prayer. O God, make me mindful Night and day to be praying, Seeking pardon richly For what I have done, on my knees. Stir with the spirit of Truth True repentance in my bosom, That when Thou sendest death to seek me, Christ may take care of me. The bocan was not the only inhabitant of the spirit-world that Donald Ban encountered during his lifetime. A cousin of his mother was said to have been carried off by the fairies, and one night Donald saw him among them, dancing away with all his might. Donald was also out hunting in the year of the great snow, and at nightfall he saw a man mounted on the back of a deer ascending a great rock. He heard the man saying, "Home, Donald Ban," and fortunately he took the advice, for that night there fell eleven feet of snow in the very spot where he had intended to stay. We now take two modern Icelandic cases, for the purpose of leading up to the famous Icelandic legend of Grettir and Glam the Vampire, from the Grettis Saga. It is plain that such incidents as those in the two modern Icelandic cases (however the effects were produced) might easily be swollen into the prodigious tale of Glam in the course of two or three centuries, between Grettir's time and the complete formation of his Saga.