Tradition: Swedish Mythology
Alternative Names: The Headless Priest of Hanger
Category: Ghost
The Myth
The Headless Ghost Priest appears during a phantom Christmas Mass at the church of Hanger in Sweden. He stands at the altar wearing full priestly vestments, but his head is entirely missing. The congregation gathered around him consists of headless specters, the spirits of the dead who return to worship during the night.
One Christmas night, a woman from the homestead of Vaderas rode to Hanger for Mass. After crossing a bridge where two witch trolls were washing, she reached the brightly illuminated church and entered, believing the Christmas service had begun. She sat in her usual place without immediately noticing anything unusual. Around her, the headless dead filled the pews, while the headless priest performed the service at the altar.
A mysterious voice warned the woman that she would have been killed had the speaker not been her godfather at her baptism. It urged her to flee before it was too late. Realizing that she had entered a gathering of the dead, the terrified woman rushed out of the church. In the churchyard, the specters seized her white woollen mantle, but she threw it off and escaped. By morning, fragments of her mantle had been found on every grave, revealing that the dead had torn it apart.
The Headless Ghost Priest belongs to the terrifying phantom service of the dead, a supernatural gathering that the living must never disturb. Those who encounter the ghostly congregation risk terrible consequences for trespassing upon the world of the dead.
Sources
Stroebe, Clara, ed. The Swedish Fairy Book. Translated by Frederick H. Martens, illustrated by George W. Hood. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1921. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37193