The Builder's Bargain with the Devil and the Sneezing Soul

When Saint John was thrown from the bridge, the vaulting is said to have fallen of itself that same night, and no one could remedy it: whatever was built by day collapsed again by night. At last an ambitious builder made a pact with the devil and promised him, as his reward, the soul of whoever should first cross the bridge. He had a cockerel ready to send across ahead of everyone; but the devil moved the builder's wife, fearing for her husband, to be the first to step onto the finished bridge. So she died, and with her the unbaptised infant she carried, whose soul afterwards drifted invisibly over the bridge and sneezed. In the end a countryman released that little soul when he heard the sneeze and said piously: “God bless you!”