Barbara staggered up the lane, dripping all the way. She stumbled to a halt by a stone wall. Something looked vaguely familiar. She leaned there, gazing around in confusion.
Evening sky.
Village houses.
The loft of the village church across the sward. That sound pulsing in her ears, it was bells. Church bells tolling evensong.
Memory slowly returned.
First the whirlwind had whisked her out of her house, moneybox in hand, spinning madly. Then it had cast her into the River Ogmore to chase the treasure she'd flung away.
Barbara reached up to brush bedraggled hair out of her face. Her sodden tresses were raspy with sand. The world whirled with renewed terror: plunging to the river, getting bowled along by the current and dragged along the bottom, nearly drowning. She bent over and retched.
When the ringing in her ears eased off, Barbara slowly straightened. The church bells had fallen silent, too.
That's how the bell-ringers found her, sagging against the wall. One on each side they supported her on the walk up the lane to her house.
Edward, her husband, took Barbara upstairs while she babbled on about ghosts and broken vows and wasted treasure. "Well now, peace will return, I expect," he soothed as he changed her into dry clothes and put her to bed.
All night long, something knocked at her bedroom window.
"There's nothing out there but a crow," Edward said when he came the third time. He waved arms to scare it off. "Shoo!"
Next morning while Barbara sat in the parlor, a knock came at the door. She cringed into her shawl and would not answer it. "Old Mollans is out there!" she cried. "Don't open it!"
"My mother? What do you mean?"
"I broke a vow to her, dooming her to wander unless I set her spirit free. But then I did it all wrong, and she'll haunt me forever!"
Knocking came again, this time at the parlor window. Edward opened it to look – and a crow flew in, cawing and swooping at Barbara.
Edward grabbed a broom and chased it out.
The crow came in by the chimney and attacked again.
Once more Edward came to her rescue, and later got a grate from the blacksmith to cover the flue. "You may have to live in the closet, love."
A few days later a neighbor came to visit while Edward was out. "It's stuffy in here, dear. Let me fling open the shutters and get some fresh air."
"No!" Barbara cried, too late.
The crow flew in, straight for the miserable woman, flapping wings at her head, beating her unmercifully.
The neighbor screamed and flailed at the bird with her purse.
Hearing the commotion, another neighbor burst into the house, eyes widening at the sight. He grabbed a poker. "I'll kill it!"
"No! Don't, don't!" Barbara cried. "If you kill the crow you'll kill my mother-in-law, and I shall go to perdition! *"
Old Mollans "ghost-walked" Barbara the rest of her unhappy life.
* dialogue taken straight from the folktale; foltale from Glamorgan Vale, Wales
