It was a raw October night in southern Sweden, and Lars, the village cart maker was hurrying home from the next parish, his boots squelching in the mud. The only light came from his tallow candle, which sputtered against the wind that whistled through the pine trees.
Then he heard it; a soft, thin cry, like a baby’s, coming from the ditch beside the road.
Lars hesitated. He’d heard the old tales - mylingar, the unbaptized dead, who lured travellers to their doom. But the cry was so pitiful he couldn’t leave it. He knelt down by the ditch and saw a small figure huddled in the wet grass: a child, no older than three years old, with pale skin and rags that clung to its bones. Its eyes were dark and wide, but they didn’t seem to see him, not really.
‘’Come,’’ Lars said gently, holding out his hands. ‘’I’ll take you to the shelter.’’
The child climbed onto his back, and at first it was as light as a feather. ‘’To the graveyard,’’ it whispered, its voice like frost on leaves. ‘’Please. The holy ground.’’
Lars nodded, turning toward the village cemetery a mile away. But with every step, the weight on his back grew heavier. By the time he’d walked half a mile, he was breathing hard - his shoulders ached, and the child felt as heavy as his cart full of lumber. He glanced over his shoulder and gasped, the small figure had stretched, its limbs lengthening, his face becoming gaunt and twisted.
‘’Why do you grow so heavy?’’ Lars panted.
‘’Because the guilt grows.’’ the child said, and now its voice was deeper, laced with sorrow. ‘’My mother left me here, when I was born out of wedlock. She wrapped me in rags and left me to die in the cold. I have no name, no baptism, no place to rest.’’
Lars stumbled on, his legs shaking. The pine trees seemed to close in around him, and the candle flickered out. But he kept going, he could hear the church bells in the distance, marking the graveyard’s edge. When he finally reached the iron gate, the weight was so great he thought he’d collapse. He pushed the gate open, and the moment his foot stepped onto the holy soil, the weight vanished.
He turned around. There, in the moonlight, stood the child, small again, its face soft and peaceful. A name appeared in Lars’s mind, unbidden: Erik.
‘’Erik,’’ he said aloud.
The child smiled, and then it faded like morning mist. The next day, Lars found the village’s oldest woman and told her the story. She wept - she’d known a young woman named Elin who’d disappeared decades ago, after a secret pregnancy. Together, they had a small stone carved with the name Erik and placed it in the graveyard, and Lars had the local priest say a baptismal prayer over the spot.
No one ever heard crying from the ditch again.
Lars would always remember Erik. He would always think if there was any more mylingar also known as myling out there, that wanted to be laid to rest, whether they were haunting woods, homes or anywhere they died. Lars carried on letting the villagers know about Erik and let them know if they ever came across a myling, to help them be laid to rest, and they didn’t want to hurt anyone, as they were only children murdered by their mothers.
