On the outskirts of the fishing town lived a poor man with one daughter, named Yolande, who was so beautiful and gracious that the richest farmer in all that countryside had asked her hand in marriage, but being very avaricious, he would not take her, fair as she was, without a dowry. Yolande herself had no wish to marry the old man, for all his fat cattle and his comfortable farmstead, for she loved his goatherd, a youth as poor as herself.
Now it so happened that on midsummer eve Yolande’s father went fishing, and as he passed the witch’s rock, that towered above him like a great black house, he thought he heard the sound of muttering, but he rowed on quickly, and paid no heed. He caught no fish that day, and cursed his bad fortune as he hauled in his empty nets.
“If only Yolande might marry a rich man,” he said to himself, “I should have no more need to work for my living,” and he made his way home with a heavy heart. The night was hot and still, and the lights of the town winked at him from the shore like gleaming, sleepless eyes. He had to pass below the rock outside the harbour, and as his boat entered its shadow, he again heard mutterings up above him, only this time he caught the words: “Amen. Malo a nos libera sed, tentationem in inducas nos ne.” At this the fisherman grew very much afraid, for he knew that this could be no other than the black witch, who was saying the Pater Noster backwards, as all black witches do.
“Stop a while, friend,” cried a hoarse voice from the rock, “I know your trouble, I know all about your daughter and the rich farmer who has asked her in marriage. What should you say to the old Abbey treasure as a dower for your girl?”
The black witch sprang from the rock, dived, and came up again, and before the fisherman could so much as cross himself or utter a cry, she was sitting opposite to him in the boat, her hands and the lap of her dress full of the Church’s treasure.
“Ha! ha!” she laughed, “you are wondering, friend, how it is that I can handle these holy things? Have you forgotten that it is midsummer eve, when evil spirits are abroad, and the devil has it all his own way? See, would not these be a fitting dower for a princess?” And she held up to him golden cross and golden crozier, rosaries of amber and pearl and coral, censers studded thick with gems; one precious thing after another she flashed before his eyes, fondling them with her wicked webbed hands, as though the shining vessels had never held the oil and wine of the altar.
“What answer do you give me?” cried the witch, tossing them back into the sea, “shall your daughter wed or no? Speak man, and do not stare at me with eyes like a dead fish! I tell you the treasure shall work her no harm; I have not strung unanswered prayers on the rosaries, I cannot curse what was once blessed, I have but made you an offer fair and square, and the bargain is between you and me.”
“Give me time, give me time,” cried the fisherman, sorely tempted, yet afraid to yield; “give me time, and let me pass.”
The witch leapt laughing from the boat, and sat looking at him from the summit of her crag. “You shall have nine months,” she called out to him.
“Ten, give me ten,” pleaded the fisherman, for he knew that he had no right to the treasure, and that his soul was at stake in this bargain.