The story describes how a vengeful ghost uses a variety of everyday objects to take revenge on a wrongdoer. Most of the first three paragraphs of the story are made up of a retelling of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale"Squire Korbes" ("Herr Korbes" in the original German), in which someone who was "either a very wicked or very unfortunate man" is made to suffer by a group of animals and inanimate objects.