The Headless Monk with a Purse

Every Friday at midnight a headless monk used to walk these steps, carrying his head in one hand and a purse in the other. Long ago, it is said, a monk from the Slavonic monastery sold a consecrated host to a Jew and handed it over on these very steps, so that the man might work magic with it. But the thing came out: the Jew was burned and the monk beheaded above those steps. Since then the monk has had no rest and haunts the place, waiting to be released — and released he will be only when a newly ordained priest gives him the holy host and takes the purse from him. Ruth himself remarks that such a legend probably arose because the steps were always dim, and therefore cheerless.