In the house of Rabbi Elazar a strange filly was born. Every attendant who came near it was killed. Rabbi Elazar, unable to tame or destroy the beast, presented it to the king. At the royal stables the filly allowed only Jewish attendants to come close. In time it was used as a warhorse, and it helped the king win a decisive battle — but afterward it became unmanageable, and the king returned it to Rabbi Elazar.
One day the horse spoke with a human voice. It told Rabbi Elazar its story. It had been possessed by the soul of a wicked priest named Abiathar. Abiathar had led a life of corruption, and had died when a fiery serpent emerged from inside his own body and killed him. After death his soul was punished in Gehinnom with every kind of torment. Eventually he was reborn as a hare, lived a short life, died, and was punished again.
While in Gehinnom the soul of Abiathar witnessed the righteous ascending in joy to Gan Eden, and hoped they might intercede for him. His soul was sent up once more into the world and placed in the body of a young man. Rabbi Nathan of Jerusalem exorcised him from the young man, and the soul entered the body of the filly. When Nathan exorcised it a second time, the spirit emerged from the dead horse as a flame, destroying everything it touched. The horse was then buried with honor — a recognition that a suffering soul had used it as a vessel.
Later, when war broke out in the kingdom again, the king came to Rabbi Elazar for help. The Rabbi taught him to recite the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) and certain other verses of Scripture. In the battle a figure appeared on a magnificent horse — a white-bearded rider who turned the fighting in the king's favor. It was the prophet Elijah.
Gaster's Exempla of the Rabbis (1924, No. 349, from Codex Gaster 66) preserves this dense parable of gilgul — the transmigration of souls. A wicked priest's soul wanders through hare and horse, punished again and again, hoping for rescue. The story ends not with his rescue but with a king learning to pray the Shema and winning a war through Elijah's hand. The lesson folded into the spectacle: the only road out of such transmigrations is Torah and prayer said in a clear voice.