In my last post I mentioned Victorian writer, Jerome K. Jerome’s collection of ghost stories “Told After Supper” published in 1891. In the passage I included, Jerome suggested there was something ghostly in the air during Christmas, something about the muggy atmosphere that seems to bring forth the ghosts. How ghosts themselves walk the earth on Christmas Eve. And that for ghost stories to be told on any evening other than the 24th of December would be impossible in English society.

There is another author associated with Christmas ghost stories.

Many claim Charles Dickens invented Christmas. And there’s a reason why.

In England, even before Dickens’s time, Christmas had long been associated with the supernatural. During the Victorian era, however, this “Christmas and the supernatural” connection developed into the ghost story. Much of this was Dickens’s influence; he published ghost stories in the magazines he edited.

Essentially then, Dickens created the image of everyone gathering around a warm fire after dinner on Christmas Eve, anticipating a good ghost story, cozying up while a cold wind wailed outside.

A Christmas Carol is the famous ghost tale almost everyone knows. Truly, it is a brilliant ghost story.

However, in this post I’m sharing Dickens’s “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton.” And it is narrated (click on the play button above, or click “read in browser” which will take you to a page with the play button). I’ve included photos snapped while out and about on winter walks here at my mountain cabin. The words to the story are listed below if you wish to read along.

“The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton” was published as part of Dickens’s series The Pickwick Papers and written seven years before A Christmas Carol. If you’re familiar with the latter, you’ll have a lot of fun finding the parallels between the two. (For more Dickens Christmas stories, click here.)

Let’s begin:

In an old abbey town, down in this part of the country, a long, long while ago-so long, there officiated as sexton and grave-digger in the churchyard, one Gabriel Grub.

Gabriel Grub was an ill-conditioned, cross-grained surly fellow, a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself, and an old wicker bottle which fitted into his large deep waistcoat-pocket, and who eyed each merry face, as it passed him by, with such a deep scowl of malice and ill-humour.

A little before twilight, one Christmas Eve, Gabriel shouldered his spade, lighted his lantern, and betook himself towards the old churchyard; for he had a grave to finish by next morning.

As he went his way, up the ancient street, he saw the cheerful light of the blazing fires gleam through the old casements, and heard the loud laugh and cheerful shouts of those who were assembled around them; he marked the bustling preparations for the next day’s cheer, and smelt the numerous savoury odours consequent thereupon, as they steamed up from the kitchen windows in clouds. All this was gall and wormwood to the heart of Gabriel Grub.

Gabriel smiled grimly, and clutched the handle of his spade with a firmer grasp, as he thought of measles, scarlet fever, thrush, whooping-cough, and a good many other sources of consolation besides.

In this happy frame of mind, Gabriel strode along, returning a short, sullen growl to the good-humored greetings of such of his neighbours as now and then passed him, until he turned into the dark lane which led to the churchyard.

Now, Gabriel had been looking forward to reaching the dark lane, because it was, generally speaking, a nice, gloomy, mournful place, into which the townspeople did not much care to go except in broad daylight.

He entered the graveyard, locking the gate behind him. He took off his coat, set down his lantern, and getting into the unfinished grave, worked at it for an hour or so with right good-will. But the earth was hardened with frost, and it was no very easy matter to break it up, and shovel it out; and although there was a moon, it was a very young one, and shed little light upon the grave, which was in the shadow of the church.

(As he worked he sang) Brave lodgings for one; brave lodgings for one. A few feet of cold earth, when life is done; A stone at the head, a stone at the feet. A rich, juicy meal for the worms to eat. Rank grass overhead, and damp clay around. Brace lodgings for one, these, in holy ground!

“Ho! ho!” laughed Gabriel Grub, as he sat himself down on a flat tombstone which was a favourite resting-place of his, and drew forth his wicker bottle. “A coffin at Christmas? A Christmas box! Ho! ho! ho!”

“Ho! ho! ho!” repeated a voice which sounded close behind him.

Gabriel paused, in some alarm, in the act of raising the wicker bottle to his lips, and looked round. The bottom of the oldest grave about him was not more still and quiet than the churchyard in the pale moonlight. The cold hoar-frost glistened on the tombstones, and sparkled like rows of gems, among the stone carvings of the old church. The snow lay hard and crisp on the ground; and spread over the thickly-strewn mounds of earth, so white and smooth a cover that it seemed as if corpses lay there, hidden only by their winding sheets.

“It was the echoes,” said Gabriel Grub, raising the bottle to his lips again.

“It was not,” said a deep voice.

Gabriel started up, and stood rooted to the spot with astonishment and terror; for his eyes rested on a form that made his blood run cold. Seated on an upright tombstone, close to him, was a strange, unearthly figure, who Gabriel felt at once, was no being of this world.

His long, fantastic legs which might have reached the ground, were cocked up, and crossed after a quaint, fantastic fashion; his sinewy arms were bare; and his hands rested on his knees. On his short, round body, he wore a close covering, ornamented with small slashes; a short cloak dangled at his back; the collar was cut into curious peaks, which served the goblin in lieu of ruff or neckerchief; and his shoes curled up at his toes into long points. On his head, he wore a broad-brimmed sugar-loaf hat, garnished with a single feather. The hat was covered with the white frost; and the goblin looked as if he had sat on the same tombstone very comfortably, for two or three hundred years.

He was sitting perfectly still; his tongue was put out, as if in derision; and he was grinning at Gabriel Grub with such a grin as only a goblin could call up.

Gabriel Grub was paralysed, and could make no reply.

“What do you do here on Christmas Eve?” said the goblin sternly.

“I came to dig a grave, Sir,” stammered Gabriel Grub.

“What man wanders among graves and churchyards on such a night as this?” cried the goblin.

“Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!” screamed a wild chorus of voices that seemed to fill the churchyard.

Gabriel looked fearfully round-nothing was to be seen.

“What have you got in that bottle?” said the goblin.

“Hollands, Sir,” replied the sexton, trembling more than ever.

“Who drinks Hollands alone, and in a churchyard, on such a night as this?” said the goblin.

“Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!” exclaimed the wild voices again.

“But I think I’ll go back and finish my work, Sir, if you please.”

“Work!” said the goblin, “what work?”

“The grave, Sir; making the grave,” stammered the sexton.

“Oh, the grave, eh?” said the goblin; “who makes graves at a time when all other men are merry, and takes a pleasure in it?”

Again the mysterious voices replied, “Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!”

“I am afraid my friends want you, Gabriel,” said the goblin, thrusting his tongue father into his cheek than ever (and a most astonishing tongue it was).

“Under favour, Sir,” replied the horror-stricken sexton, “I don’t think they can, Sir; they don’t know me, Sir; I don’t think the gentlemen have ever seen me, Sir.”

“Oh, yes, they have,” replied the goblin; “we know the man with the sulky face and grim scowl, that came down the street tonight, throwing his evil looks at the children, and grasping his burying-spade the tighter.”

Here, the goblin gave a loud, shrill laugh, which the echoes returned twentyfold; and throwing his legs up in the air, stood upon his head, or rather upon the very point of his sugar-loaf hat, on the narrow edge of the tombstone, whence he threw a Somerset with extraordinary agility, right to the sexton’s feet.

“I…I…am afraid I must leave you, Sir,” said the sexton, making an effort to move.

“Leave us!” said the goblin, “Gabriel Grub going to leave us. Ho! ho! ho!”

As the goblin laughed, the sexton observed, for one instant, a brilliant illumination within the windows of the church, as if the whole building were lighted up; it disappeared, the organ pealed forth a lively air, and whole troops of goblins, the very counterpart of the first one, poured into the churchyard, and began playing at leap-frog with the tombstones, never stopping for an instant to take a breath, but “overing” the highest among them, one after the other, with the most marvelous dexterity.

At last the game reached to a most exciting pitch; the organ played quicker and quicker, and the goblins leaped faster and faster, coiling themselves up, rolling head over heels upon the ground, and bounding over the tombstones like footballs. The sexton’s brain whirled round with the rapidity of the motion he beheld, and his legs reeled beneath him, as the spirits flew before his eyes; when the goblin king, suddenly darting towards him, laid his hand upon his collar, and sank with him through the earth.

When Gabriel Grub had had time to fetch his breath, which the rapidity of his descent had for the moment taken away, he found himself in what appeared to be a large cavern, surrounded on all sides by crowds of goblins, ugly and grim; in the centre of the room, on an elevated seat, was stationed his friend of the churchyard.

A thick cloud which obscured the remote end of the cavern rolled gradually away, and disclosed, apparently at a great distance, a small and scantily furnished, but neat and clean apartment. A crowd of little children were gathered round a bright fire, clinging to their mother’s gown, and gamboling around her chair…a frugal meal was ready spread upon the table.

A knock was heard at the door; the mother opened it, and the children crowded round her, as their father entered. He was wet and weary, and shook the snow from his garments. Then, as he sat down to his meal before the fire, the children climbed about his knees, and the mother sat by his side, and all seemed happiness and comfort.  

But a change came upon the view, almost imperceptibly.

The scene was altered to a small bedroom, where the fairest and youngest child lay dying; the roses had fled from his cheek, and the light from his eye; and even as the sexton looked upon him with an interest he had never felt or known before. (The child died.) His young brothers and sisters crowded round his little bed, and seized his tiny hand, so cold and heavy.

Again the light cloud passed across the picture, and again the subject changed. The father and mother were old and helpless now, but content and cheerfulness sat on every face, and beamed in every eye, as they crowded round the fireside, and told and listened to old stories of earlier and bygone days. Slowly and peacefully, the father sank into the grave, and, soon after, the sharer of all his cares and troubles followed him to a place of rest.

“What do you think of that?” said the goblin, turning his large face towards Gabriel Grub.

Gabriel murmured something about its being very pretty, and looked somewhat ashamed, as the goblin bent his fiery eyes upon him.

“You miserable man!” said the goblin, in a tone of excessive contempt. He lifted up one of his very pliable legs, and, flourishing it above his head a little, and administered a good sound kick to Gabriel Grub; immediately after which, all the goblins in waiting crowded round the wretched sexton, and kicked him without mercy.

Many a time the cloud went and came, and many a lesson it taught to Gabriel Grub.

The day had broken when Gabriel Grub awoke, and found himself lying at full length on the flat gravestone in the churchyard, with the wicker bottle lying empty by his side, and his coat, spade and lantern, all well whitened by the last night’s frost, scattered on the ground. The stone on which he had first seen the goblin seated, stood bolt upright before him, and the grave at which he had worked, the night before, was not far off.

At first, he began to doubt the reality of his adventures, but the acute pain in his shoulder when he attempted to rise, assured him that the kicking of the goblins was certainly not ideal. He was staggered again, by observing no traces of footsteps in the snow on which the goblins had played at leap-frog with the gravestones.

So, Gabriel Grub got on his feet as well as he could, for the pain in his back; and, brushing the frost off his coat, put it on, and turned his face towards the town.

The lantern, the spade, and the wicker bottle were found, that day, in the churchyard. There were a great many speculations about the sexton’s fate, at first, but it was speedily determined that he had been carried away by the goblins.

Unfortunately, these stories were somewhat disturbed by the reappearance of Gabriel Grub himself, some ten years afterwards, a ragged, contented, rheumatic old man. He told his story. (But they were not easily convinced) and murmured something about Gabriel Grub having drunk all the Hollands, and then fallen asleep on the flat tombstone.

And be the matter how it may, this story has at least one moral. And that is: That if a man turns sulky and drinks by himself at Christmas time, he may make up his mind to be not a bit the better for it. The End.

So what do you think? I found Gabriel a tad more despicable than Scrooge, and his transformation at the end not as inspiring, and the supernatural characters more sinister than the ghosts of the past, present, and future. How about you? I’d love to hear what you thought of this tale in comparison to A Christmas Carol.