Wilherm, beside himself with terror, felt his hair stand up on end, and, forgetting in his confusion the precaution hitherto observed, he began to wring the contrary way. In the same instant the winding-sheet grasped his hands as in a vice, and he fell, brayed by the iron arms of the spectre laundress.
A young girl of Henvik, named Fantik-ar-Fur, passing at daybreak near the douez, saw Wilherm stretched upon the blue stones. Thinking that he had lain down there to sleep whilst tipsy, the child drew near to wake him with a sprig of broom; but finding he remained motionless, she took fright and ran to the village to tell the news.
A number of the inhabitants came with the curé, the sexton, and the notary, who was mayor of the place. The body was taken up, placed on a wagon, and drawn home by oxen; but the blessed candles that were lighted continually went out, a token of the fearful fate that had overtaken Wilherm Postik.
So his body was deposited outside the church-yard walls, in the resting-place of dogs and reprobates.
The belief in spectre laundresses is universal in Brittany.
[1] Miz-du, Breton name of November.
[2] A name given to All Saints.
[3] L’Ankou, literally, “the agony;” a name generally given to the spectre of death.