The White Rider — Theodor Storm

"The White Rider" starts off as a ghost story in which a stranger travelling along the coast of the North Sea is caught in dangerously rough weather.Emerging from the heavy rain he sees a ghostly rider coming towards him along the dyke, before overtaking him and eventually plunging into a whirlpool and disappearing. Taking shelter at an inn, the stranger mentions the apparition, and the local schoolmaster begins to tell a story. The story recounts how a young man is made a scapegoat by his contemporaries and of the dramatic and tragic consequences which ensue as the story reaches a climax which exposes the savagery beneath the veneer of civilised society.