"Give her shoulder as good a wrench as ye gave mine, and she will soon confess, I warrant."

But behold, when the executioner, by desire of the upright Jobst, had bound her fast with wet cords, in order soon to make an end of her, and lit the pile up round about, the flames were still blown away from the stake by the wind, and would not touch the hag, so that many saw in it a miracle of Satan, and wondered, till an old peasant stepped forth from the crowd, and cried, "Ha, ha, I will soon settle her." Then seizing her crutch, which she had dropped at the foot of the pile, he stepped up the ladder, and pitched off her black cap with his stick, whereupon a black raven flew out, with loud croakings, and disappeared towards the north, and instantly after the flames blazed up around her, covering her all over like a yellow mantle, with such rapidity that the people only heard her shriek once.



CHAPTER XXIII.

How Diliana Bork and George Putkammer are at length betrothed—Item, how Sidonia is degraded from her conventual dignities and carried to the witches' tower of Saatzig in chains.

When Jobst returned home to Saatzig from the execution, he seemed much disturbed in his mind, which was unusual to him, and sat by the stove plunged in deep thought. At length he calls his little daughter Diliana from the spinning wheel where she sat.

"Ah, the Prince had set his life in great peril, but more than the Prince himself did she, his little daughter, plague him by showing herself so cold to the brave young knight. She ought to leave off this prudery, else he feared by the next time the sun was in the propitious position, that his Highness would send for her again to question the devil—there was nothing such a fanatic would not do; but if she would only press her arm now, and bid the young knight come. Where could she meet with a braver husband?"

At this the young maiden blushed up to her very eyes, and asked earnestly—

"Father, think you the good knight stays away because I have not summoned him?"

Ille.—"Of course, my child. Thou forbadst him to approach thee until summoned; and now where could be a greater proof of his love than in having obeyed thee?"

Hc.—"Ah me, I have wondered so, father, why he never sought me. I never meant that; you surely misunderstood me. But, father, if you wish—shall I summon him by the magnetic sign?"

Ille nods his head, laughing.

Whereupon Diliana, blushing yet more, pressed her arm, and feeling a pressure in return almost immediately, pushed up her sleeve, set the magic box thereon, and with her golden breastpin directed the magnetic needle to the letters—

C—O—M—E—-D—E—A—R—E—S—T.

Whilst my Jobst looked over her shoulder, so that his long grey beard fell upon her neck, and when he read the letters he embraced and kissed her, telling her that a better kisser would soon come and save him the trouble—meaning the knight; and truly scarce half-an-hour had passed, when the cloud of dust could be seen through the trees, which was raised as he rode along, and, panting and agitated, he sprang into the room, exclaiming to my Jobst—"Where is Diliana?" But she sits mute in the corner, red as a rose, and looks down upon the ground.

So my Jobst laughed, and pointed to the blushing rose in the corner, whereupon the young knight, George, in a moment is by her side, and had her hand in his, and asks—

"If his loved Rachel will not end his weary years of serving now, and be his for evermore?"

"Yes," she murmured through her soft tears. "I will be yours now for evermore;" and she extended her two arms towards him.

Marry, how soon my young knight took the trouble off the old father; so that Jobst danced for joy at the sight, and clapped his hands, and swore that such a wedding should be held at Saatzig, that people would talk about it for fifty years.

But, alas! the wedding must wait for a year and a day! for, in two days the young knight is laid upon a sick bed, and brought so low that at one time his life was despaired of. However, he comforted himself by pressing his wounded arm three times a day, and thus corresponding with his betrothed by means of the magnet. So they told their grief and their love to each other daily in these few words. And many think that his sickness was a devil's work of Sidonia, or of old Wolde's planning; but he himself rather judged it arose from the wild ride to his young bride on the morning she bade him come. This matter, therefore, I leave undecided.

Yet no one can surely fathom all the cunning wiles of Satan; for though many said Sidonia's power is now broken by Wolde's death, and indeed the poor sheriff was the only one who still played the hare, and kept the roaring ox safe up in the stall—still, so strange a thing happened at this time to the knight, Ewald von Mellenthin, that the criminal court thought proper to take cognisance of the matter, and so we find it noted down in the records of the trial. For, mark! This same knight, being summoned to give evidence, deposed to Sidonia having in his presence flung a hatchet at his dear bride, Ambrosia von Guntersberg, who had been now a long while his well-beloved spouse, which hatchet had wounded her in the foot. Then turning to the hag, he exclaimed wrathfully—

"Ha! thou devil's witch, hast thou found thy recompense at last?"

Whereupon Sidonia made a face at him after her fashion, and menaced him with the vengeance of her friends.

But what friend had she but Satan, who avenged her on this wise. For, as some days after, the knight Ewald was driving with his cousin Detloff, between Schlotenitz and Schellin, such an awful roaring, and raging, and storming was heard in the air over their heads, that the two foremost horses took fright, broke their traces, threw the coachman, who was nearly killed, and dashed off across the field through thick and thin, and never stopped till they reached Stargard, trembling, panting, and exhausted, about evening time.

The knight laid all this evidence before the criminal commission, and my hare grew so frightened thereupon, that next day, while listening to the depositions of more witnesses, seeing a shadow hop along his paper, he started up in horror, screaming, "There are the toad-shadows again! O God, keep me! There are the toad-shadows again!" But the special commissioner, who had also observed the shadow, and got up to look out at the window, now called out, laughing heartily, "Marry, good Sparling, the shadow belongs to one of your worship's brothers—a poor little sparrow, who is hopping there on the house-top. Go out and see, if you don't believe me." Whereupon the whole court burst out into a loud fit of laughter, to the great annoyance of my hare.

Whilst Ludecke is drawing up his articulus inquisitionalis, Sidonia's advocate, Dr. Elias Pauli, was not idle. And first he stirred up the whole race of the Borks in her favour, letting it come to the Duke's ears through his grand chamberlain, Matzke Bork, that if Sidonia were treated with gentleness, and thereby brought to make confession, assuredly there was great hope that for this grace and indulgence she would untie the magic knots of the girdle wherewith she had bewitched the whole princely race, and laid the spell of barrenness upon them. But if extreme measures were resorted to, never would she do this for his Highness.

So the Duke was half moved to consent, and bade his superintendent, Mag. Reutzius, come to him, and he should instantly repair to Marienfliess, visit the sorceress in her apartment, where she was bis dato, guarded a close prisoner. Let him read out the seventy-four articles of the indictment to her himself, admonish her to confess, and in his (the Duke's) name, offer her pardon if she would untie the knots of the girdle. Did she refuse, however, let her be brought the following Sunday to the convent-chapel, there, in the presence of the whole congregation, before the altar he was again to admonish her. If she still persisted in her lies and wickedness, then let him summon the executioner to strip her of her cloister habit before the eyes of all the people. When he had further pronounced her degradation from all her conventual dignities, she was to be put in fetters and carried to the witches' tower at Saatzig.

My worthy father-in-law offered many objections against this public degradation, but his Highness was resolved, and would listen to no reasons, his wrath was so great against the hag.

Now it may be easily conjectured what crowds of people gathered in the chapel when the blessed Sabbath bell rang, and the news ran from mouth to mouth, that the witch was to be denounced and degraded that day before the altar. Never had so many folk been seen within the walls. And when the church was so full that not a soul more could squeeze in at the doors, the people broke in the windows, and setting ladders against them, clambered through, and swung themselves right and left on the balustrades, and above and below, and on all sides, there was not a spot without a human face. Yea, four younkers crowded under the baldaquin of the pulpit, and another carl got on the altar behind the crucifix, and would have knocked it down, but my worthy father-in-law, seeing it shake, caught hold of the carl by the tail of his coat, and dragged him forth. Item, the whole criminal commission is present; item, all the nuns in their gallery, with the exception of the sub-prioress, Dorothea Stettin, who, along with two other women, had devoted themselves to a fearful act of vengeance (which I would hardly have believed of them), but it will be related presently.

As to Sidonia, she had been brought in already, and placed on the penitential stool before the altar, after which the organ struck up that terrible hymn,

"Eternity, thou thunder word!"

Yet, as it happened that the congregation had not got this hymn in their Psalm-books, seeing that it was quite a new one (which circumstance had been overlooked in the general agitation), they were obliged to sing that other, beginning,

"Now the awful hour has come."

Then the reverend priest, M. Reutzius, advanced to the altar, having first chanted the litany, and there, to obey the Duke's behests as nearly as possible, opened his sermon with some verses from the afore-mentioned hymn, which I shall set down here for the sake of the curious reader:—

"Eternity, thou thunder word! Piercing the soul like sharpest sword, Beginning without ending! Eternity! Time without Time, I know not in my grief and crime Whereto my soul is tending. The fainting heart recoils in fear To see thy shadow drawing near.

In all the world there is no grief To which Time brings not some relief, Though sorrow wildest rages; But thou, Eternity, can bring No balm to lessen hell's fierce sting, Through never-ending ages. For even Christ Himself hath said, 'There's no repentance for the dead.'

So long as God in Heaven reigns, So long shall last the sinner's pains, In hell's fierce tortures lying. Eternal fires will plague the soul, Thirst, hunger, horror, fear, and dole, The soul itself undying. For hell's dark shades will never flee, Till God Himself hath ceased to be!"

After which he read out the words of his text to the criminal, telling her how his Serene Highness had selected the same himself out of paternal clemency and in all uprightness. Then he explained it, admonishing her yet once more to save her poor soul and not plunge it into eternal perdition. After this, he kneeled down along with the whole congregation, and prayed to the Holy Spirit for her conversion, so that every one in the church wept and trembled and sobbed. Then he rose up again and spake: "I ask you, for the last time, Sidonia von Bork, do you confess yourself guilty or not?"

And while every one held their breath suspended, the terrible sorceress rose up and spake out with bold defiance—

"I am innocent. Curse upon the bloodthirsty Prince, who has brought me to this shame; my blood be upon him and upon his race!"

"No!" cried the priest from the altar; "he hath saved his soul; thy blood be upon thyself, and thy perdition upon thine own head!"

Then he lifted his right hand as a signal to the executioner, whereupon Master Worger stepped forward in his red mantle with six assistants. And first he draws forth a pair of scissors from beneath his cloak, and cuts off her nun's veil (for by command of the criminal judge, she had only a simple veil on to-day), and he and his assistants trampled it beneath their feet. Then he cuts a slit in her black robe, just beneath the chin, and tore it down from head to foot, as a draper tears linen, and at this sight, and the harsh sound in the silence of the church, many amongst the nuns fainted. When all this had been done, and Sidonia now stood there in her white under-garment, Master Worger, by command of the court, put fetters on her, and riveted them tightly. So that at the terrible sound of the hammering and clanking, and the thundering reverberation through the vaulted church, so great a horror and fear fell upon every one present, that all the nuns who had not fainted rushed out of the gallery; item, a crowd of people from the nave, and even the priest holding his hands before his eyes, hastened after them.

She was soon lifted up by the executioner and his assistants, and thrown into the cart over which the red flag waved; then driven off without delay to Saatzig, a great crowd of people trotting along with her. And even in Saatzig the whole town ran together when the cart with the criminal was seen emerging from the wood, and the executioner blew his trumpet to give notice to the warder on the tower of their approach, as had been agreed upon.

Amongst the crowd, however, my Jobst is not to be seen; yet when the cart stops, the beautiful form of Diliana is seen pressing forward. She is dressed in a deep mourning mantle, and bears a golden beaker of wine in her hand—weeps, and says mildly—

"Here, dear cousin, drink! You shall have everything as good as I can make it for you, and eat what I and my father eat. Ah! cousin, cousin, wherefore did you not make full confession?"

Herewith she reached out the beaker to the cart, but the evil witch screamed out—

"Confess! What should I confess, you fool? Away with your stuff; I will not be fed by your charity!"

Whereupon she dashed aside the beaker so fiercely that it fell to the ground, and the wine splashed all over the young maiden's robe. Then, clenching her withered hand, she shook it at the window—

"Ha! the thick ploughman. Where hath the devil hid him? the thief that stole my rents from Zachow! This is my reward for having cured him! But wait, I will make him repent it yet," &c.

And she would have gone on much longer with her curses, but the executioner gave her another blow with his fist, which made her hold her tongue. Then he and his fellows lifted her from the cart, and as she was unable to walk from shame, and despair, and wrath, they carried her up the winding stairs to the witches' tower; and she glowered into the little chamber which she had occupied fifty years before, at the time she murdered poor Clara von Dewitz, for they had to pass by it to reach the witches' tower, which lay two flights of stairs higher up.

And when Master Worger laid her down in the damp dark hole, and shook out some straw for her to lie on, the knave grinned and said—"What would she do now for company? The devil would scarcely come; still a companion would be pleasant."

The witch, however, made no answer, only looked down upon the ground, muttering to herself. Whereupon the knave laughed again and cried, "Eh, wait, I have got a companion for you!"

And opening a sack he had brought with him, took out a blackened human head, and then two long, black, half-burned bones; placed the bones crosswise on the ground, and set the head atop of them, then said, "So, now you have right merry company. That is Wolde's head, as you may perceive; and now ye may conjure the devil together as ye were wont." Then, grinning maliciously, he went out, locking the prison door upon the unfortunate wretch and the death's-head.

Meanwhile, my Jobst and his fair daughter are plunged in great perplexity and despair at the Duke's cruel order to have Sidonia sent to their castle of Saatzig. Therefore, the indignant knight sat down and wrote an earnest remonstrance to his Highness the Duke, and prayed his Grace, therefore, to remove this millstone from his neck, or he would resign the post of Governor of Saatzig, and withdraw to his own good castle of Pansin. This letter he despatched by a running courier to Old Stettin, and it produced a good effect upon the Duke; for, in three days, an order arrived for Sidonia's removal to Oderburg; and the crowds gathered round the cart, from all parts, to see her as she passed along—as thick as if it had been the time of the annual fair.

God be thanked, I have now got her as far as the Odenburg! For as concerning her long imprisonment there, her frequent examinations, and, finally, the question by torture, what need for me to relate them here, seeing that your Highness and your illustrious brothers were present during all behind the green screen? I, too, Doctor Theodore Plonnies, assisted at the trial as high-sheriff, Anton Petersdorf was protonotarius to the criminal court, and Johann Caude, the notarius, conducted the protocollum. Besides, when I look back and think of her shrieks, and how the dry withered limbs writhed and cracked upon the wheel, till the black blood poured forth from her nails and teeth, my head swims and the sight leaves my eyes—therefore, away with it! This only will I notice, that her advocate, Doctor Elias Pauli, preserved her in truth for a year and a day from the rack and a bitter death, by his keen and cunning devices, thinking that she would make away with herself some way or other, by mercury or else, to escape the stake. But no such thing: she was as afraid of death as a cat of hot broth; so at last he had to suffer justice to take its course. Whereupon this Satan's hag, on the 28th July 1620, at four o'clock in the afternoon, pursuant to a decree of the electoral-court of judges of Magdeburg in Saxony, was brought into the great hall at Oderburg. and there stretched upon the rack, as I have above mentioned, to force her to a confession upon seventeen artlculos inquisitionales, many of which I have noticed here and there through the preceding chapters.



CHAPTER XXIV.

Of the execution of Sidonia and the wedding of Diliana.

After the torture, the poor malicious old wretch became so weak that she thought herself like to die, and therefore bade my worthy godfather, Doctor Cramer, to be brought to her that she might make full confession at last. And her repentance, in truth, seemed earnest and real now; for after the communion she bade them bring her coffin—then sat up, and looking at it for a long while in silence, at last said—

"I shall soon rest there in peace; meantime, carry it out again till I am dead."

But such a hunger for the blessed sacrament was caused by her death fears, and not by holy repentance; for as she did not die, but rather after some days grew strong again (probably because the Lord God chose to spare her yet longer, for a more fearful and terrible warning to all sinners), she returned, "like a sow, to her wallowing in the mire." And more particularly did she spit forth her poisonous curses upon the whole princely race, when the court-painter, Matthias Eller, arrived at the prison with an order from his Highness, to paint her portrait, now in her hideous old age, behind that which he had seen at Wolgast, representing her in the prime of youthful beauty. Long did she weep and groan when she looked upon the portrait of what she had been sixty years before; then clenched her fists, and cursed to all eternity the princely race which had first brought her to public dishonour—she so young and innocent—and not content with that, now thirsted to see her noble blood flow from the gallows.

"Ah, that was indeed the portrait of her youth! for her princely bridegroom had got it painted secretly, because of his haughty arrogant mother, by a painter in Wolgast; but she had revenged herself on the proud old woman at last. The golden chain was her own, but the gold hair-band and the sable collar had been a present from her young bridegroom, And now, what was left of all her pomp and magnificence! See what these accursed princes had brought her to with their envy, arrogance, and savage vengeance—she that was the richest lady in the land was now the poorest beggar, and had not wherewithal even to purchase a death-shift."

Meanwhile the report spread throughout all Pomerania land that Sidonia was dead, and had been privately buried. The cause was this,—when the executioner and his fellows carried out her coffin after she had seen it, they told the eager and curious rabble, who gathered round and had been roaring out for her death, that she was dead already and lay within, and so they would lose the fun of seeing her burned; and this they said in jest, to disappoint the filthy and savage mob. So the news spread through the land and reached Saatzig, where it was confirmed by an honourable knight from Old Stettin, who answered them on oath that he had seen her coffin carried out with his own eyes. So my Jobst and his fair daughter are glad, and thank God that one of their noble race had been spared the disgrace of falling by the hands of the hangman; the young Diliana, in especial, rejoices, and when her lover arrived from Pansin in the afternoon (for he was grown well and strong again), she threw herself on his bosom, rapturously exclaiming—

"Dearest George, our poor cousin is dead; now may the wedding be—now may the banns be published!"

However, the news soon came how the mistake had happened, and that Sidonia was still alive. But as the banns had been already published and the wedding fixed for the 18th of July, Diliana at length consented to abide by the arrangement, particularly as they heard also that the execution would be delayed for some time, in consequence of the Elector of Saxony having sent in his protest against it to the Ducal Court of Stettin. Indeed, so many powerful princes protested against this public disgrace, by reason of Sidonia's high rank, that many thought she would be allowed to go away perfectly free.

Summa.—Already, by the evening of the 17th, the noble guests had gathered at Saatzig, and of the Borks, almost the whole illustrious race is present; among whom were particularly noticeable the Honourable Aulic Councillors, and Councillors of Administration, Just, Andreas, and Henning. Item, all the Putkammers, among whom came the old burgomaster Wolff, with his sons, Benedictus, Asso, Gerson, Matthias, Wolfgang, &c. So that by midnight the castle rang with merriment and revelry; and old Jobst Bork was so beside himself with joy, that he flung the empty flasks, as he drained them, up at the monks' heads which were carved round the capitals of the pillars in the great knights' hall, crying out, "That is for thee, monk!"

But the festive night hath a sad morning, without talking of all the drinkers who snored till mid-day. However, all were ready at last to go to the bridal, only waiting for Matzke Bork, the princely chamberlain, who had promised, if possible, to be present at the marriage, along with his Serene Highness himself, Duke Francis. So they watched from the windows, and they watched from the towers, but never a one of them is to be seen; and the guests impatiently pace up and down the great hall, which is all wreathed and decorated with flowers and banners. But the young bridegroom is the most impatient of all. He paced up and down the hall, arm-in-arm, with his betrothed, when at last a carriage was heard approaching, and every eye was turned to the window, but Matzke Bork sits in it alone. He enters disturbed and mournful, and when the knight of Saatzig asks him where he has left his Highness the Duke, he answers—

"The Duke will drink blood in place of wine to-day! Listen, good cousins, to what the Duke hath resolved concerning our kinswoman Sidonia. Her sentence hath been pronounced, and this very day will be carried into effect: first, her nose and ears are to be torn up with red-hot irons, at three different quarters of the town, by the public hangman, and afterwards she is to be burned alive at a slow fire."

When he ended, all the Borks present screamed with horror, and gathered round him: "And was it not possible yet to change this sentence?"

But Matzke answered, "He had tried all entreaties, but in vain; even three times he had cast himself on his knees before his Highness, yet could obtain no mitigation; for his Grace was incensed against the witch, because of her arrogant defiance, and her stubborn refusal to remove the spell from the princely race, and sent orders to the executioner to build the pile by eight of the clock on the following morning, and burn her alive thereon."

When he ceased speaking, the uproar in the hall rose to the highest. Some of Sidonia's kin, amongst whom was Jobst, swore the devil's hag deserved it all; and how could her death bring dishonour upon them? But some thought evil of the insult offered to their race, and cursed his Highness, and would spring to their saddles and ride to Stettin on the instant.

Matzke, however, lifted his voice, and bade them have reason. "They must endure what could not be altered. Jobst was right: was the proud oak the worse because a rotten branch was lopped off? Were they to come before his Highness with such mien and gesture, why, he would straight order them all to be clapped into prison, and then, indeed, would disgrace rest on their illustrious name. No, no; for God's sake, let them rest here. His Grace was too full of wrath now to listen even to his preachers, the ministers of God. How, then, would he hear them? Let them rather rest in peace, and forget the fate of their evil cousin in the festivities of the bridal."

"Ay, good cousins and guests," quoth the bridegroom, "let us to the bridal, and the Word of God will calm us, and bring us upon other thoughts. But where is my beloved Diliana?"

They sought her in the hall—in vain! They ran all through the castle—in vain! Diliana is away, and no one knows whither she has gone.

But the maiden hath a brave spirit, and hath wrapped a black mantle belonging to her mourning robes over her bridal dress, and drawn the hood over her myrtle wreath; then taking the shift of her grandmother, Clara, in her hand, which she had kept ready by her for such a case, she descended to the stables, where there were only two grooms to be seen, all the others having joined the crowd round the church to catch a sight of the bridal procession, had the best palfrey saddled, took one groom with her, pressed some money into the hand of the other, and bade him not tell, for three hours, that she had gone to Old Stettin. Then rode away, striking, however, into a bypath, to deceive the guests, in case they should attempt to follow her. And her journey ended all safely; for in four hours she was in Old Stettin, without having been pursued. And reaching the ducal residence, she alighted, hastened up the stairs, bowed proudly to the princely official without uttering a word, and proceeded straight to the apartment of the Duke. There threw off her travelling hood and mantle, and knocked bravely at the door.

"Enter!" exclaimed the voice of his Highness. Upon which the beautiful maiden in her bridal robes, and the myrtle wreath on her hair, stepped in. At which sight his Grace, who was reclining on a couch, started up, took her hand smiling, and asked—"For the love of Heaven, what brought her hither upon her festal-day?"

So she began: "This was no festal-day, but a day of shame to her and her whole race, because of the horrible and incredible tidings brought to them by Matzke Bork, respecting their old kinswoman, Sidonia; therefore she had left bridegroom, bridal, and festival, and ridden away alone, to see if she could not turn away such a disgrace from her noble race, and such horrible torture from her poor old kinswoman. Had she not freely perilled her life for his Grace? If they had not succeeded, at least it was no fault of hers. Let him recall the terrible decree, and if her cousin deserved death, as she doubted not, command her to be beheaded, as had at first been agreed upon. This, at least, was a more honourable and less painful death. His Grace must grant her prayer, for she would not move from the spot until he did so."

But his Grace is inexorable, and recapitulates all the sins of the demon hag; "how she had defied him, and made a mock of the holy sacrament; and wherefore did he bear the sword from God, if it were not as a just Prince, to set her forth a terrible warning and example to all; for witchcraft was increasing day by day in the land, and witches were almost as plenty as flies."

His Grace then paced up and down a long while in silence. At last spake—

"Now, for thy sake, the first decree shall hold good, although never was one so unworthy of my favour as this hag."

Whereat the young virgin was so moved with gratitude, that she fell down on her knees before his Grace, and bedewed his hand with her tears.

Just then some one knocked, and the jailer entered—

"The witch had taken another fit of conversion, and prayed for a priest. Item, for a fresh shift, for she had not changed her linen for four weeks, and no one would give her a fresh shift."

When Diliana heard this she wondered much over the dark providence of God, and said—"Wait, I will give thee a shift for her;" stepped out into the gallery and took Clara's, No. 7, which she had brought with her, out of her travelling mantle, and, in truth, this was the very shift in which the murderess was carried to her death.

Summa.—The jailer hath scarcely got the said shift under his arm, when the clatter of footsteps is heard upon the stairs, and then another knock at the Duke's apartment, and this was my knight George Putkamraer, who rushed in, arrayed in his wedding finery, but all covered over with dust, since he had not given himself time to fling a cloak over his dress. He clasped his young bride to his heart, and half scolded her for leaving him privately before the bridal. But when he heard of her noble courage, and what she had accomplished, he was glad again, and kissed the hand of his Grace, and he must now grant them one favour more, and return with them to the wedding. "The distance was only five miles, and he had the finest Malmsey that ever was drunk to present to his Highness."

At this hearing his Grace exclaimed—

"Eh, George, where have you got the Malmsey? Ha! younker, hast thou a cup of Malmsey? I will go with thee right heartily to Saatzig!"

And his Grace wanted to order carriages instantly to carry them all off, that so they might arrive that same evening at the castle, but Diliana objected—

"No, she would stand by her word, and never hold bridal in Saatzig until her poor cousin lay at rest in her grave. This night she would remain in the town, and not leave it until she had seen the last of her poor cousin."

A long strife now ensued, but Diliana remained firm to her resolve. So his Highness said, at last, that he would play the messenger himself, and journey off to the wedding the moment he had given orders to his chancellor respecting the change of Sidonia's sentence. He was better pleased not to be in the place when she was executed. Diliana could stay the night in the castle with his dear spouse, the Duchess, and the knight might look after a place for himself. He would desire all the wedding-guests to be ready to-morrow at midday for the bridal, and if Diliana and the knight disliked riding, let them order a carriage from the marshal of his stables, with fresh Frisian horses, and in a couple of hours they would be at Saatzig.

However, Diliana would not remain the night in the castle, but went to her cousin, the lady of Matzke Bork, because her house stood not far from the place of execution, although the place itself was not visible, and my younker went down sorrowfully to the inn to pass the night there, but betimes in the morning was up and off to his dear little bride. He finds her in the second story, but no longer in her bridal magnificence; a black mourning garment covered her entire person; and when the knight started in dismay at her appearance, she said—

"That no other robes beseemed a Bork when one of their race was going to her death; and she heard that the procession to the scaffold was to come that way from the Otterburg, and would pass in half-an-hour, therefore she was prepared to behold it. It was well that the scaffold itself was hidden from their sight; but would her dear George just go over and bid some one hoist a flag when the head of her cousin fell."

So the knight did her will, but when he returned said—

"Diliana, if thou givest me so many nuts to crack when we are married, methinks it will be an evil thing."

To which she answered mildly—

"No, dear George, after marriage it is the wife who cracks all the hard nuts, but to-day, dearest, it is thy office. I know not why, but I have a feeling over me to-day as if the soul of my poor grandmother would be at rest after this execution, and that Sidonia herself will be, in some sense, pardoned through the means of that death-shift, No. 7; yet wherefore I think this I know not."

Just then a dull, hoarse, murmuring sound was heard in the distance, like the heaving of the waves when thunder is in the air, and the Lady Matzke's maid rushed in exclaiming—"She's coming! she's coming!" Then Diliana trembled and turned pale, but still advanced to the balcony with her cousin and the young knight.

At length the terrible sorceress herself appears in sight, accompanied by the school, chanting the death-psalm. She wore a white robe seamed with black, and Diliana recognises, with a shudder, that this is indeed Clara's shift, for she had herself thus stitched the seams in order to know it; but besides, the No. 7 was plainly discernible on the neck. She walked barefoot, and round her head was bound a black fillet flowered with gold, from beneath which her long white hair fluttered in the wind.

Diliana contemplates all this awhile shudderingly, then covers her face with both hands, and sobs and weeps, so that the tears pour down through the delicate little fingers, and my younker hath enough to do to comfort her. But when the procession disappears she dries her eyes, re-enters the chamber, and folding her hands across her bosom, walks up and down, praying earnestly, until the red Danish flag shoots up. Then she sighed deeply, and drying her beautiful eyes again said softly—

"May God have mercy upon her soul, now her tortures are over!"

Scarcely are the words uttered ere a dense cloud of smoke ascends above the fisher's house, rising higher and higher, like a lofty black tower in the air, so that they all conjectured—"Now she is burning on the pile," and shuddered, yet are content withal that at last her fearful life has ended.

Then they all knelt down and repeated the Lord's Prayer; then rising, addressed themselves in earnest for their homeward journey.

And here, with the death of Sidonia, I might justly close my book, merely stating in addition, that her ashes were laid in the burial ground for the poor, and that some time after the gentle Diliana caused a tombstone to be erected over them, out of Christian charity and forgiveness. But as some say his Highness the Duke got his death at the wedding of Diliana, I shall briefly narrate the facts here, to please the curious reader.

For the said Duke was so much taken with the Malmsey wine, that he sat up drinking the whole night, and next morning his legs were swelled to that degree that his boots had to be cut oft with knives. So that when the bridal pair arrived, his Grace had to receive them in slippers, yet rejoiced much at hearing that all was over; and then, scarcely giving Diliana time to recover herself, despatched the whole company off to the church. Not, however, without giving serious admonitions, both to the priest and the knight, George, not to let the ring drop. For if Dr. Luther, the thoughtless lubberhead, had not let the ring fall at the wedding of his grandfather in Forgau, it would have been better with him and his whole race, as his grandmother of blessed memory had always said, and now indeed he saw she had spoken wisely.

Now my Jobst in the confusion of voices, hearing only the word "monk," thought his Grace was speaking of the monks' heads on the capitals of the pillars in the hall. So seeing two empty flasks, shouted, "Ay, that is for thee, monk!" and pitched them crash! crash! with such force up at the monks, that the pieces flew about the ears of the musicians who were to play before the bridal pair going to church, and a loud peal of laughter rang through the hall—after which they all set off for the wedding at last. And in truth this was a blessed marriage.

But respecting the illustrious and princely race of Pomerania, they perished each and all without leaving behind one single inheritor of their name or possessions. Not, methinks, because of the spell which the demoniac sorceress laid on them, but because He loved this race so well, that He withdrew them from this evil world before the dreadful strifes, wars, and calamities came upon them, which our poor fatherland now endures. For before these storms broke over our heads, He called them one by one from this vale of tears, and truly, the first was his Highness Duke Francis, for in a few months after Sidonia's execution, after a brief illness, on the 27th December 1620, he fell asleep in God, aged 43 years, 8 months, and 3 days, without leaving children. The next was Bishop Udalricus, who likewise became suddenly ill at Pribbernow, near Stepnitz, with swollen body and limbs, and had to lie there until his death, on the 31st October 1622, when, to the great grief and consternation of the whole land, his young life closed at the early age of 34 years, and he too left no children, though he had a young and beautiful spouse. The next who died was Duke Philip Julius of Wolgast, the only son of Ernest Ludovicus and his spouse Hedwig. He was a wise and just ruler, but followed the others soon, on the 16th February 1625, aged only 40 years, 1 month, and 28 days—likewise, as all the rest, left no children.

But our Lord God hath not withdrawn so many and noble princes from the world without sending forth strange and wonderful signs to forewarn the land; for, without speaking of the great thunderclap which was heard all of a sudden in the middle of clear fine weather, the winter after Sidonia's death, and the numberless mock suns that appeared in different places, or of that strange rain, when a sulphureous matter, like starch in appearance, fell from the air (item, a snow-white pike was caught at Colzow in Wellin, seven quarters long, and half an ell broad, with red round eyes, and red fins), a stranger wonder than all was seen at Wolgast; for suddenly, during a review held there, one of the soldier's muskets went off without a finger being laid on it, and the ball went right through the princely Pomeranian standard with such precision, that the arms seemed to have been cut out all round with a sharp knife. At Stettin also, in the castle-chapel, one of the crowns suspended over the stalls fell down of itself; but still more awful was what happened respecting Bogislaus XIII., last father of all the Pomeranian princes. For all along, by the pillars of the aisle, there are figures in armour representing the deceased dukes. And during the sermon one Sunday, the sword fell clanging to the ground from the hand of the armed figure representing Bogislaus XIII., though no human hand ever touched it. At this sight every one was troubled in spirit, but woe, alas! we now see what all these supernatural signs and wonders denoted! Yet still we have one noble prince remaining with the ancient blood of Pomerania in his veins. May the Lord God spare him long to us, and bless him, like Abraham, with a son in his old age. Such an Isaac would be a blessed sight to me; for when the last branch falls, I know that my poor heart will break also!

DR. THEODORUS PLNNIES.



CONCLUSION.

Mournful destiny of the last princely Pomeranian remains—My visit to the ducal Pomeranian vault in Wolgast, on the 6th May 1840.

Bogislaf XIV., who as a truth-loving, amicable, and pious glossator, has annotated so many places in our text, found this "last and happy hour," which he had so long desired, on the 10th March 1637. When he had attained the age of fifty-seven years, his death occurred at a period of unexampled misery, the like of which before or since was never seen in our whole German fatherland. Yet the destiny of the Zantalides which followed the princely Pomeranian house, seemed in no way propitiated even by their death. No; it raged, and rages still, against the last poor remains of their mouldering clay. Bogislaff, during the horrors of the thirty years' war, remained for seventeen years unburied, because none of the princes who fought for the possession of Pomerania' would consent to bear the expense of the burial, and the land was too poor to take the cost upon itself. Yet his corpse suffered no further indignities like those of his princely kinsfolk of Wolgast. For after ninety-four years we find him still lying calmly in his coffin, looking upward to his God through the little window which he so often sighed after. We shall first take a look at him before we descend into the Wolgast vault to contemplate the disgusting sacrilege which has been perpetrated and permitted there. Every reader of sensibility will feel interested in the following details, which are taken from Oelrich's valuable work, "Memorials of the Pomeranian Dukes," p. 87:—

"On the 19th of April 1731, a royal commission opened the vault in the castle-church of Stettin, wherein many of the noble princes of Pomerania lay buried, and the coffin of Duke Bogislaff was broken open by especial command. The body was found quite perfect. Even the face was tolerably preserved, though the eyes had fallen in; for the skin had dried over the features, and the beard was long and somewhat red; the coffin was lined throughout with violet velvet (some say black), bordered with stones which had the appearance of turquoise. The corpse was dressed in a surplice, similar in form to that worn by priests at the present day, but fringed with silver, and likewise ornamented with turquoise. Upon the left hand there was a diamond ring and another. The diamond was quite pale, and the right hand was lying close to the side, as if going to seize the dagger. Farther, they found a long and massive gold chain suspended round the neck, and upon the breast a silver plate, like the bottom of a silver beaker, upon which the Pomeranian arms were engraved.

"Beneath the coffin of this last Duke of Pomerania lay the ducal flag, but the pole was broken in two, either from design or in consequence of decay; and above the coffin were remains of crape and mouldered fragments of velvet. Lave anima pia!

"But the princely remains of Wolgast had indeed a mournful destiny. True; they were not left unburied for a number of years, but they were plundered and outraged, in such a disgraceful and revolting manner, by church-robbers, that it is impossible even to read the account of it in the Swedish protocol of 21st June 1688, from which Heller gives extracts in his 'Chronicle of the Town of Wolgast,' p. 346, without as much pain as emotion. [Footnote: Only one of these robbers was seized-he was whipped and banished; the second hanged himself, and the other escaped. One was a Jew; the other two were the sexton and gravedigger of the church.]

"Yet the Swedish Government seemed content to rest with the simple investigation, and took no trouble about, or showed the least respect for, the ashes of those to whom they were indebted for land and people. For the coffins lay there just as the robbers left them—broken open with axes and hatchets, or wrenched asunder with crowbars, and still lie in this state. However the vault was closed up, and no one was permitted to enter it unless in the presence of one of the reigning family; for this reason very few ever beheld these mournful remains. I myself would probably never have had an opportunity of so doing, only that the Prussian Government resolved on building some additions to the Wolgast church; and, at the same time, desired the foundation to be evened, for it had sunk in various places, and afterwards to wall up the princely vault for ever. In order to work at the foundation, it was necessary to remove the great stone which covered the entrance to the vault, and many along with myself availed themselves of this last opportunity to visit the interior. Therefore, on the day named above, I descended with deep emotion the steps that led to it. I found the vault was divided into two compartments, having vaulted roofs of about seven or eight feet high. In the first partition no coffin whatever was to be seen, but I could distinguish already the glitter of the tin coffins in the second compartment, which was reached by a further descent of a few steps, and lit up by the torches and lanterns of numerous visitors who had preceded me. The coffins were nine in number, and mostly covered with tin; each lay on a tressel of mason-work, and bore the marks, more or less, of the violence that had been employed to wrench them open.

"The strong Philip I. began the mournful range. A gentleman handed me his skull, in which scarcely a tooth was wanting. Then I searched in the adjoining coffin for that of his spouse Maria, 'my gracious Lady of Wolgast,' of Doctor Theodore's History. I found it, took it in the other hand, and cannot describe the strange feeling which came over me.

"When I had indulged some time in strange and deep emotions, I laid down the honourable relics again in their coffins, and stepped to that of Ernest Ludovic, the unfortunate lover of the still more unfortunate Sidonia. According to the protocol of 1688, which I held in my hand, there was to be seen there a violet velvet mantle, and a cap without anything inside. There they were—nothing more to find—all fallen in dust, the weak head as the weak heart! Close to him lay his unfortunate wife, Sophia Hedwig of Brunswick, both the most beautiful persons of their time.

"But my interest was excited most by the contemplation of Philip Julius, the last Duke of Pommern-Wolgast, who has only received a passing notice in this book, but who was one of the most gifted, and probably the most lamented Prince of his thousand-year-old race. His coffin was of far costlier workmanship than the others, and decorated with a row of gilded angels' heads; near it stood the black wooden tressel, upon which it had originally been placed, and which looked as fresh as if it had been only just placed there, instead of having lain in the vault for two hundred and fifteen years. A strange sensation crept over me! We were both silent, till at last the gentleman began to search with his hand in the grey mouldering dust, and along with some rags of velvet, he brought up a damp, discoloured scrap of paper, which he carelessly tore; but I instantly seized it, and joined the pieces together again, for the signification of such little notes in the coffins of old times was not unknown to me.

"And, in fact, I found what I sought; there was not only marked on it the date of the Duke's burial, the 6th of May, which had a mystic significance to me, since it was on the very 6th of May that I was now standing to contemplate these mute yet eloquent graves, but also there was noted down the text from which the funeral sermon had been preached (2 Tim. iv. 7), as well as the list of the psalms sung on the occasion, among which the closing psalm—'When sorrow assails thee,' is still to be found in most hymn-books. But my poor old Pomeranian heart could bear no more: I placed the paper again in the coffin; and, while the tears poured from my eyes as I ascended the steps, those beautiful old verses came into my head, and I could not help reciting them aloud:—

'So must human pomp and stat In the grave lie desolate. He who wore the kingly crown, With the base worm lieth down: Ermined robe, and purple pall, Leaveth he at death's weird call.

Fleeting, cheating human life, Souls are perilled in thy strife; Yet the pomps in which we trust, All must perish!—dust to dust. God alone will ever be; Who serves Him reigns eternally!'"



MARY SCHWEIDLER



THE AMBER WITCH



THE MOST INTERESTING TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT EVER KNOWN

PRINTED FROM AN IMPERFECT MANUSCRIPT BY HER FATHER ABRAHAM SCHWEIDLER, THE PASTOR OP COSEROW IN THE ISLAND OF USEDOM

EDITED BY

WILLIAM MEINHOLD DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY

LADY DUFF GORDON



PREFACE

In laying before the public this deeply affecting and romantic trial, which I have not without reason called on the title-page the most interesting of all trials for witchcraft ever known, I will first give some account of the history of the manuscript.

At Coserow, in the island of Usedom, my former cure, the same which was held by our worthy author some two hundred years ago, there existed under a seat in the choir of the church a sort of niche, nearly on a level with the floor. I had, indeed, often seen a heap of various writings in this recess; but owing to my short sight, and the darkness of the place, I had taken them for antiquated hymn-books, which were lying about in great numbers. But one day, while I was teaching in the church, I looked for a paper mark in the Catechism of one of the boys, which I could not immediately find; and my old sexton, who was past eighty (and who, although called Appelmann, was thoroughly unlike his namesake in our story, being a very worthy, although a most ignorant man), stooped down to the said niche, and took from it a folio volume which I had never before observed, out of which he, without the slightest hesitation, tore a strip of paper suited to my purpose, and reached it to me. I immediately seized upon the book, and, after a few minutes' perusal, I know not which was greater, my astonishment or my vexation at this costly prize. The manuscript, which was bound in vellum, was not only defective both at the beginning and at the end, but several leaves had even been torn out here and there in the middle. I scolded the old man as I had never done during the whole course of my life; but he excused himself, saying that one of my predecessors had given him the manuscript for waste paper, as it had lain about there ever since the memory of man, and he had often been in want of paper to twist round the altar-candles, &c. The aged and half-blind pastor had mistaken the folio for old parochial accounts which could be of no more use to any one.

[Footnote: The original manuscript does indeed contain several accounts which at first sight may have led to this mistake; besides, the handwriting is extremely difficult to read, and in several places the paper is discoloured and decayed.]

No sooner had I reached home than I fell to work upon my new acquisition, and after reading a bit here and there with considerable trouble, my interest was powerfully excited by the contents.

I soon felt the necessity of making myself better acquainted with the nature and conduct of these witch trials, with the proceedings, nay, even with the history of the whole period in which these events occur. But the more I read of these extraordinary stories, the more was I confounded; and neither the trivial Beeker (Die bezauberte Welt, "The Enchanted World"), nor the more careful Horst (Zauberbibliothek, "The Library of Magic"), to which, as well as to several other works on the same subject, I had flown for information, could resolve my doubts, but rather served to increase them.

Not alone is the demoniacal character, which pervades nearly all these fearful stories, so deeply marked, as to fill the attentive reader with feelings of alternate horror and dismay, but the eternal and unchangeable laws of human feeling and action are often arrested in a manner so violent and unforeseen, that the understanding is entirely baffled. For instance, one of the original trials which a friend of mine, a lawyer, discovered in our province, contains the account of a mother, who, after she had suffered the torture, and received the holy Sacrament, and was on the point of going to the stake, so utterly lost all maternal feeling, that her conscience obliged her to accuse as a witch her only dearly loved daughter, a girl of fifteen, against whom no one had ever entertained a suspicion, in order, as she said, to save her poor soul. The court, justly amazed at an event which probably has never since been paralleled, caused the state of the mother's mind to be examined both by clergymen and physicians, whose original testimonies are still appended to the records, and are all highly favourable to her soundness of mind. The unfortunate daughter, whose name was Elizabeth Hegel, was actually executed on the strength of her mother's accusation. [Footnote: It is my intention to publish this trial also, as it possesses very great psychological interest.]

The explanation commonly received at the present day, that these phenomena were produced by means of animal magnetism, is utterly insufficient. How, for instance, could this account for the deeply demoniacal nature of old Lizzie Kolken as exhibited in the following pages? It is utterly incomprehensible, and perfectly explains why the old pastor, notwithstanding the horrible deceits practised on him in the person of his daughter, retained as firm a faith in the truth of witchcraft as in that of the Gospel.

During the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages little was known of witchcraft. The crime of magic, when it did occur, was leniently punished. For instance, the council of Ancyra (314) ordained the whole punishment of witches to consist in expulsion from the Christian community. The Visigoths punished them with stripes, and Charlemagne, by advice of his bishops, confined them in prison until such time as they should sincerely repent. [Footnote: Horst, Zauberbibliothek, vi. p. 231.] It was not until very soon before the Reformation, that Innocent VIII. lamented that the complaints of universal Christendom against the evil practices of these women had become so general and so loud, that the most vigorous measures must be taken against them; and towards the end of the year 1489, he caused the notorious Hammer for Witches (Malleus Malleficarurn) to be published, according to which proceedings were set on foot with the most fanatical zeal, not only in Catholic, but, strange to say, even in Protestant Christendom, which in other respects abhorred everything belonging to Catholicism. Indeed, the Protestants far outdid the Catholics in cruelty, until, among the latter, the nobleminded Jesuit, J. Spee, and among the former, but not until seventy years later, the excellent Thomasius, by degrees put a stop to these horrors.

After careful examination into the nature and characteristics of witchcraft, I soon perceived that among all these strange and often romantic stories, not one surpassed my "amber witch" in lively interest; and I determined to throw her adventures into the form of a romance. Fortunately, however, I was soon convinced that her story was already in itself the most interesting of all romances; and that I should do far better to leave it in its original antiquated form, omitting whatever would be uninteresting to modern readers, or so universally known as to need no repetition. I have therefore attempted, not indeed to supply what is missing at the beginning and end, but to restore those leaves which have been torn out of the middle, imitating, as accurately as I was able, the language and manner of the old biographer, in order that the difference between the original narrative, and my own interpolations, might not be too evident.

This I have done with much trouble, and after many ineffectual attempts; but I refrain from pointing out the particular passages which I have supplied, so as not to disturb the historical interest of the greater part of my readers. For modern criticism, which has now attained to a degree of acuteness never before equalled, such a confession would be entirely superfluous, as critics will easily distinguish the passages where Pastor Schweidler speaks from those written by Pastor Meinhold.

I am, nevertheless, bound to give the public some account of what I have omitted, namely—

1st. Such long prayers as were not very remarkable for Christian unction.

2d. Well-known stories out of the Thirty Years' War.

3d. Signs and wonders in the heavens, which were seen here and there, and which are recorded by other Pomeranian writers of these fearful times; for instance, by Micrlius. [Footnote: Vom Alten Pommerlande (Of Old Pomerania), book v.] But when these events formed part of the tale itself, as, for instance, the cross on the Streckelberg, I, of course, allowed them to stand.

4th. The specification of the whole income of the church at Coserow, before and during the terrible times of the Thirty Years' War.

5th. The enumeration of the dwellings left standing, after the devastations made by the enemy in every village throughout the parish.

6th. The names of the districts to which this or that member of the congregation had emigrated.

7th. A ground plan and description of the old manse.

I have likewise here and there ventured to make a few changes in the language, as my author is not always consistent in the use of his words or in his orthography. The latter I have, however, with very few exceptions, retained.

And thus I lay before the gracious reader a work, glowing with the fire of heaven, as well as with that of hell.

MEINHOLD.



THE AMBER WITCH



INTRODUCTION.

The origin of our biographer cannot be traced with any degree of certainty, owing to the loss of the first part of his manuscript. It is, however, pretty clear that he was not a Pomeranian, as he says he was in Silesia in his youth, and mentions relations scattered far and wide, not only at Hamburg and Cologne, but even at Antwerp; above all, his South-German language betrays a foreign origin, and he makes use of words, which are, I believe, peculiar to Swabia. He must, however, have been living for a long time in Pomerania at the time he wrote, as he even more frequently uses Low-German expressions, such as occur in contemporary native Pomeranian writers.

Since he sprang from an ancient noble family, as he says on several occasions, it is possible that some particulars relating to the Schweidlers might be discovered in the family records of the seventeenth century, which would give a clue to his native country; but I have sought for that name in all the sources of information accessible to me in vain, and am led to suspect that our author, like many of his contemporaries, laid aside his nobility and changed his name when he took holy orders.

I will not, however, venture on any further conjectures; the manuscript, of which six chapters are missing, begins with the words "Imperialists plundered," and evidently the previous pages must have contained an account of the breaking out of the Thirty Years' War in the island of Usedom. It goes on as follows:—

"Coffers, chests, and closets were all plundered and broken to pieces, and my surplice also was torn, so that I remained in great distress and tribulation. But my poor little daughter they did not find, seeing that I had hidden her in the stable, which was dark, without which I doubt not they would have made my heart heavy indeed. The lewd dogs would even have been rude to my old maid Ilse, a woman hard upon fifty, if an old cornet had not forbidden them. Wherefore I gave thanks to my Maker when the wild guests were gone, that I had first saved my child from their clutches, although not one dust of flour, nor one grain of corn, nor one morsel of meat even of a finger's length was left, and I knew not how I should any longer support my own life, and my poor child's. Item, I thanked God that I had likewise secured the vasa sacra, which I had forthwith buried in the church in front of the altar, in presence of the two churchwardens, Hienrich Seden and Claus Bulken, of Uekeritze, commending them to the care of God. And now because, as I have already said, I was suffering the pangs of hunger, I wrote to his lordship the Sheriff Wittich v. Appelmann, at Pudgla [Footnote: A castle in Usedom, formerly a celebrated convent.], that for the love of God and His holy Gospel he should send me that which his Highness' Grace Philippus Julius had allowed me as prstanda from the convent at Pudgla, to wit, thirty bushels of barley and twenty-five marks of silver, which howbeit his lordship had always withheld from me hitherto (for he was a very hard inhuman man, inasmuch as he despised the holy Gospel and the preaching of the Word, and openly, without shame, reviled the servants of God, saying that they were useless feeders, and that Luther had but half cleansed the pig-stye of the Church—God mend it!). But he answered me nothing, and I should have perished for want if Hinrich Seden had not begged for me in the parish. May God reward the honest fellow for it in eternity! Moreover, he was then growing old, and was sorely plagued by his wicked wife Lizzie Kolken. Methought when I married them that it would not turn out over well, seeing that she was in common report of having long lived in unchastity with Wittich Appelmann, who had ever been an arch-rogue, and especially an arrant whoremaster, and such the Lord never blesses. This same Seden now brought me five loaves, two sausages, and a goose, which old goodwife Paal, at Loddin, had given him; also a flitch of bacon from the farmer Jack Tewert. But he said I must shield him from his wife, who would have had half for herself, and when he denied her she cursed him, and wished him gout in his head, whereupon he straightway felt a pain in his right cheek, and it was quite hard and heavy already. At such shocking news I was affrighted, as became a good pastor, and asked whether peradventure he believed that she stood in evil communication with Satan, and could bewitch folks? But he said nothing, and shrugged his shoulders. So I sent for old Lizzie to come to me, who was a tall, meagre woman of about sixty, with squinting eyes, so that she could not look any one in the face; likewise with quite red hair, and indeed her goodman had the same. But though I diligently admonished her out of God's Word, she made no answer, until at last I said, 'Wilt thou unbewitch thy goodman (for I saw from the window how that he was raving in the street like a madman), or wilt thou that I should inform the magistrate of thy deeds?' Then, indeed, she gave in, and promised that he should soon be better (and so he was); moreover she begged that I would give her some bread and some bacon, inasmuch as it was three days since she had had a bit of anything to put between her lips, saving always her tongue. So my daughter gave her half a loaf, and a piece of bacon about two hands-breadths large; but she did not think it enough, and muttered between her teeth; whereupon my daughter said, 'If thou art not content, thou old witch, go thy ways and help thy goodman; see how he has laid his head on Zabel's fence, and stamps with his feet for pain.' Whereupon she went away, but still kept muttering between her teeth, 'Yea, forsooth, I will help him and thee too.'"



CHAPTER VII.

How the Imperialists robbed me of all that was left, and likewise broke into the church and stole the Vasa Sacra; also what more befell us.

After a few days, when we had eaten almost all our food, my last cow fell down dead (the wolves had already devoured the others, as mentioned above), not without a strong suspicion that Lizzie had a hand in it, seeing that the poor beast had eaten heartily the day before; but I leave that to a higher judge, seeing that I would not willingly calumniate any one; and it may have been the will of God, whose wrath I have well deserved. Summa, I was once more in great need, and my daughter Mary pierced my heart with her sighs, when the cry was raised that another troop of Imperialists was come to Uekeritze, and was marauding there more cruelly than ever, and, moreover, had burnt half the village. Wherefore I no longer thought myself safe in my cottage; and after I had commended everything to the Lord in a fervent prayer, I went up with my daughter and old Ilse into the Streckelberg, [Footnote: A considerable mountain close to the sea near Coserow.] where I already had looked out for ourselves a hole like a cavern, well grown over with brambles, against the time when the troubles should drive us thither. We therefore took with us all we had left to us for the support of our bodies, and fled into the woods, sighing and weeping, whither we soon were followed by the old men, and the women and children; these raised a great cry of hunger when they saw my daughter sitting on a log and eating a bit of bread and meat, and the little things came with their tiny hands stretched out and cried, "Have some too, have some too." Therefore being justly moved by such great distress, I hindered not my daughter from sharing all the bread and meat that remained among the hungry children. But first I made them pray—"The eyes of all wait upon Thee;" [Footnote: Ps. cxlv. 15, 16.] upon which words I then spake comfortably to the people, telling them that the Lord, who had now fed their little children, would find means to fill their own bellies, and that they must not be weary of trusting in Him.

This comfort did not, however, last long; for after we had rested within and around the cavern for about two hours, the bells in the village began to ring so dolefully, that it went nigh to break all our hearts, the more as loud firing was heard between whiles; item, the cries of men and the barking of dogs resounded, so that we could easily guess that the enemy was in the village. I had enough to do to keep the women quiet, that they might not by their senseless lamentations betray our hiding-place to the cruel enemy; and more still when it began to smell smoky, and presently the bright flames gleamed through the trees. I therefore sent old Paasch up to the top of the hill, that he might look around and see how matters stood, but told him to take good care that they did not see him from the village, seeing that the twilight had but just begun.

This he promised, and soon returned with the news that about twenty horsemen had galloped out of the village towards the Damerow, but that half the village was in flames. _Item, he told us that by a wonderful dispensation of God a great number of birds had appeared in the juniper-bushes and elsewhere, and that if we could catch them they would be excellent food for us. I therefore climbed up the hill myself, and having found everything as he had said, and also perceived that the fire had, by the help of God's mercy, abated in the village; _item_, that my cottage was left standing, far beyond my merits and deserts; I came down again and comforted the people, saying, "The Lord hath given us a sign, and He will feed us, as He fed the people of Israel in the wilderness; for He has sent us a fine flight of fieldfares across the barren sea, so that they whirr out of every bush as ye come near it. Who will now run down into the village, and cut off the mane and tail of my dead cow which lies out behind on the common?" (for there was no horsehair in all the village, seeing that the enemy had long since carried off or stabbed all the horses). But no one would go, for fear was stronger even than hunger, till my old Ilse spoke, and said, "I will go, for I fear nothing, when I walk in the ways of God; only give me a good stick." When old Paasch had lent her his staff, she began to sing, "God the Father be with us," and soon out of sight among the bushes. Meanwhile I exhorted the people to set to work directly, and to cut little wands for syringes, and to gather berries while the moon still shone; there were a great quantity of mountain-ash and elder-bushes all about the mountain. I myself and my daughter Mary stayed to guard the little children, because it was not safe there from wolves. We therefore made a blazing fire, sat ourselves around it, and heard the little folks say the Ten Commandments, when there was a rustling and crackling behind us, and my daughter jumped up and ran into the cavern, crying, "_Proh dolor hostis!_" [Our author afterwards explains the learned education of the maiden.] But it was only some of the able-bodied men who had stayed behind in the village, and who now came to bring us word how things stood there. I therefore called to her directly, "_Emergas amici_," whereupon she came skipping joyously out, and sat down again by the fire, and forthwith my warden Hinrich Seden related all that had happened, and how his life had only been saved by means of his wife Lizzie Kolken; but that Jurgen Flatow, Chim Burse, Claus Peer, and Chim Seideritz were killed, and the last named of them left lying on the church steps. The wicked incendiaries had burned down twelve sheds, and it was not their fault that the whole village was not destroyed, but only in consequence of the wind not being in the quarter that suited their purpose. Meanwhile they tolled the bells in mockery and scorn, to see whether any one would come and quench the fire; and that when he and the three other young fellows came forward they fired off their muskets at them, but, by God's help, none of them were hit. Hereupon his three comrades jumped over the paling and escaped; but him they caught, and had already taken aim at him with their firelocks, when his wife Lizzie Kolken came out of the church with another troop and beckoned to them to leave him in peace. But they stabbed Lene Hebers as she lay in childbed, speared the child, and flung it over Claus Peer's hedge among the nettles, where it was yet lying when they came away. There was not a living soul left in the village, and still less a morsel of bread, so that unless the Lord took pity on their need they must all die miserably of hunger.

(Now who is to believe that such people can call themselves Christians?)

I next inquired, when he had done speaking (but with many sighs, as any one may guess), after my cottage; but of that they knew naught save that it was still standing. I thanked the Lord therefore with a quiet sigh; and having asked old Seden what his wife had been doing in the church, I thought I should have died for grief when I heard that the villains came out of it with both the chalices and patens in their hands. I therefore spoke very sharply to old Lizzie, who now came slinking through the bushes; but she answered insolently, that the strange soldiers had forced her to open the church, as her goodman had crept behind the hedge, and nobody else was there; that they had gone straight up to the altar, and seeing that one of the stones was not well fitted (which, truly, was an arch lie), had begun to dig with their swords till they found the chalices and patens; or somebody else might have betrayed the spot to them, so I need not always to lay the blame on her, and rate her so hardly.

Meanwhile the old men and the women came with a good store of berries; item, my old maid, with the cow's tail and mane, who brought word that the whole house was turned upside down, the windows all broken, and the books and writings trampled in the dirt in the midst of the street, and the doors torn off their hinges. This, however, was a less sorrow to me than the chalices; and I only bade the people make springes and snares, in order next morning to begin our fowling, with the help of Almighty God. I therefore scraped the rods myself until near midnight; and when we had made ready a good quantity, I told old Seden to repeat the evening blessing, which we all heard on our knees; after which I wound up with a prayer, and then admonished the people to creep in under the bushes to keep them from the cold (seeing that it was now about the end of September, and the wind blew very fresh from the sea), the men apart, and the women also apart by themselves. I myself went up with my daughter and my maid into the cavern, where I had not slept long before I heard old Seden moaning bitterly, because, as he said, he was seized with the colic. I therefore got up and gave him my place, and sat down again by the fire to cut springes, till I fell asleep for half-an-hour; and then morning broke, and by that time he had got better, and I woke the people to morning prayer. This time old Paasch had to say it, but could not get through with it properly, so that I had to help him. Whether he had forgot it, or whether he was frightened, I cannot say. Summa.—After we had all prayed most devoutly, we presently set to work, wedging the springes into the trees, and hanging berries all around them; while my daughter took care of the children, and looked for blackberries for their breakfast. Now we wedged the snares right across the wood along the road to Uekeritze; and mark what a wondrous act of mercy befell from gracious God! As I stepped into the road with the hatchet in my hand (it was Seden his hatchet, which he had fetched out of the village early in the morning), I caught sight of a loaf as long as my arm which a raven was pecking, and which doubtless one of the Imperial troopers had dropped out of his knapsack the day before, for there were fresh hoof-marks in the sand by it. So I secretly buttoned the breast of my coat over it, so that none should perceive anything, although the aforesaid Paasch was close behind me; item, all the rest followed at no great distance. Now, having set the springes so very early, towards noon we found such a great number of birds taken in them, that Katy Berow, who went beside me while I took them out, scarce could hold them all in her apron; and at the other end old Pagels pulled nearly as many out of his doublet and coat-pockets. My daughter then sat down with the rest of the womankind to pluck the birds; and as there was no salt (indeed it was long since most of us had tasted any), she desired two men to go down to the sea, and to fetch a little salt water in an iron pot borrowed from Staffer Zuter; and so they did. In this water we first dipped the birds, and then roasted them at a large fire, while our mouths watered only at the sweet savour of them, seeing it was so long since we had tasted any food.

And now when all was ready, and the people seated on the earth, I said, "Behold how the Lord still feeds His people Israel in the wilderness with fresh quails: if now He did yet more, and sent us a piece of manna bread from heaven, what think ye? Would ye then ever weary of believing in Him, and not rather willingly endure all want, tribulation, hunger and thirst, which He may hereafter lay upon you according to His gracious will?" Whereupon they all answered and said, "Yea, surely!" Ego: "Will you then promise me this in truth?" And they said again, "Yea, that will we!" Then with tears I drew forth the loaf from my breast, held it on high, and cried, "Behold then, thou poor believing little flock, how sweet a manna loaf your faithful Redeemer hath sent ye through me!" Whereupon they all wept, sobbed and groaned; and the little children again came running up and held out their hands, crying, "See, bread, bread!" But as I myself could not pray for heaviness of soul, I bade Paasch his little girl say the Gratias the while my Mary cut up the loaf and gave to each his share. And now we all joyfully began to eat our meat from God in the wilderness.

Meanwhile I had to tell in what manner I had found the blessed manna bread, wherein I neglected not again to exhort them to lay to heart this great sign and wonder, how that God in His mercy had done to them as of old to the prophet Elijah, to whom a raven brought bread in his great need in the wilderness; as likewise this bread had been given to me by means of a raven, which showed it to me, when otherwise I might have passed it by in my heaviness without ever seeing it.

When we were satisfied with food, I said the thanksgiving from Luke xii. 24, where the Lord saith, "Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?" But our sins stank before the Lord. For old Lizzie, as I afterwards heard, would not eat her birds because she thought them unsavoury, but threw them among the juniper bushes; whereupon the wrath of the Lord was kindled against us as of old against the people of Israel, and at night we found but seven birds in the snares, and next morning but two. Neither did any raven come again to give us bread. Wherefore I rebuked old Lizzie, and admonished the people to take upon themselves willingly the righteous chastisement of the Most High God, to pray without ceasing, to return to their desolate dwellings, and to see whether the all-merciful God would peradventure give them more on the sea. That I also would call upon Him with prayer night and day, remaining for a time in the cavern with my daughter and the maid to watch the springes, and see whether His wrath might be turned from us. That they should, meanwhile put my manse to rights to the best of their power, seeing that the cold was become very irksome to me. This they promised me, and departed with many sighs. What a little flock! I counted but twenty-five souls where there used to be above eighty; all the rest had been slain by hunger, pestilence, or the sword. [Footnote: This took place in the year 1628, and the horrors of the Thirty Years' War were spread most fearfully over this island; pity that the description of the old vicar, which he doubtless gave in the preceding pages, has been lost.] I then abode awhile alone and sorrowing in the cave, praying to God, and sent my daughter with the maid into the village to see how things stood at the manse; item, to gather together the books and papers, and also to bring me word whether Hinze the carpenter, whom I had straightway sent back to the village, had knocked together some coffins for the poor corpses, so that I might bury them next day. I then went to look at the springes, but found only one single little bird, whereby I saw that the wrath of God had not yet passed away. Howbeit, I found a fine blackberry bush, from which I gathered nearly a pint of berries, and put them, together with the bird, in Staffer Zuter his pot, which the honest fellow had left with us for a while, and set them on the fire for supper against my child and the maid should return. It was not long before they came through the coppice, and told me of the fearful devastation which Satan had made in the village and manse by the permission of all-righteous God. My child had gathered together a few books, which she brought with her, above all, a Virgilius and a Greek Bible. And after she had told me that the carpenter would not have done till next day, and we had satisfied the cravings of hunger, I made her read to me again, for the greater strengthening of my faith, the locus about the blessed raven from the Greek of Luke, at the twelfth chapter; also, the beautiful locus parallelus, Matt. vi. After which the maid said the evening blessing, and we all went into the cave to rest for the night. When I awoke next morning, just as the blessed sun rose out the sea and peeped over the mountain, I heard my poor hungry child, already standing outside the cave, reciting the beautiful verses about the joys of paradise which St. Augustine wrote and I had taught her. [Footnote: This is an error. The following verses are written by the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, Peter Damianus (d. 23d Feb. 1072), after Augustine's prose.] She sobbed for grief as she spoke the words:—

"Uno pane vivunt cives utriusque patri Avidi et semper pleni, quod habent desiderant Non sacietas fastidit, neque fames cruciat Inhiantes semper edunt, et edentes inhiant Flos perpetuus rosarum ver agit perpetuum, Candent lilia, rubescit crocus, sudat balsamum, Virent prata, vernant sata, rivi mellis influunt Pigmentorum spirat odor liquor et aromatum, Pendent poma floridorum non lapsura nemorum Non alternat luna vices, sol vel cursus syderum Agnus est fcelicis urbis lumen inocciduum."

[Footnote: The following version is from the pen of a friend.—Trans.

"In that far land the citizens all share one equal bread, And keep desire and hunger still, although to fulness fed: Unwearied by satiety, unracked by hunger's strife, The air they breathe is nourishment, and spiritual life! Around them, bright with endless Spring, perpetual roses bloom; Warm balsams gratefully exude luxurious perfume; Red crocuses, and lilies white, shine dazzling in the sun; Green meadows yield them harvests green, and streams with honey run; Unbroken droop the laden boughs, with heavy fruitage bent, Of incense and of odours strange the air is redolent; And neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, dispense their changeful light, But the Lamb's eternal glory makes the happy city bright!"

At these words my own heart was melted; and when she ceased from speaking, I asked, "What art thou doing, my child?" Whereupon she answered, "Father, I am eating." Thereat my tears now indeed began to flow, and I praised her for feeding her soul, as she had no meat for her body. I had not, however, spoken long, before she cried to me to come and look at the great wonder that had risen out of the sea, and already appeared over the cave. For behold a cloud, in shape just like a cross, came over us, and let great heavy drops, as big or bigger than large peas, fall on our heads, after which it sank behind the coppice. I presently arose, and ran up the mountain with my daughter to look after it. It floated on towards the Achterwater, [Footnote: A wash formed by the river Peene in the neighbourhood.] where it spread itself out into a long blue streak, whereon the sun shone so brightly that it seemed like a golden bridge, on which, as my child said, the blessed angels danced. I fell on my knees with her, and thanked the Lord that our cross had passed away from us; but, alas! our cross was yet to come, as will be told hereafter.



CHAPTER VIII.

How our need waxed sorer and sorer, and how I sent old Ilse with another letter to Pudgla, and how heavy a misfortune this brought upon me.

Next day, when I had buried the poor corpses amid the lamentations of the whole village (by the same token that they were all buried under where the lime-tree overhangs the wall [Footnote: This exists no longer.]), I heard with many sighs that neither the sea nor the Achterwater would yield anything. It was now ten days since the poor people had caught a single fish. I therefore went out into the field, musing how the wrath of the just God might be turned from us, seeing that the cruel winter was now at hand, and neither corn, apples, fish nor flesh, to be found in the village, nor even throughout all the parish. There was indeed plenty of game in the forests of Coserow and Uekeritze; but the old forest ranger, Zabel Nehring, had died last year of the plague, and there was no new one in his place. Nor was there a musket nor a grain of powder to be found in all the parish; the enemy had robbed and broken everything: we were therefore forced, day after day, to see how the stags and the roes, the hares and the wild boars, &c., ran past us, when we would so gladly have had them in our bellies, but had no means of getting at them: for they were too cunning to let themselves be caught in pit-falls. Nevertheless, Claus Peer succeeded in trapping a roe, and gave me a piece of it, for which may God reward him. Item, of domestic cattle there was not a head left; neither was there a dog nor a cat, which the people had not either eaten in their extreme hunger, or knocked on the head, or drowned long since. Albeit old farmer Paasch still owned two cows; item, an old man in Uekeritze was said to have one little pig—this was all. Thus, then, nearly all the people lived on blackberries and other wild fruits; the which also soon grew to be scarce, as may easily be guessed. Besides all this, a boy of fourteen was missing (old Labahn his son), and was never more heard of, so that I shrewdly think that the wolves devoured him.

And now let any Christian judge by his own heart in what sorrow and heaviness I took my staff in my hand, seeing that my child fell away like a shadow from pinching hunger; although I myself, being old, did not, by the help of God's mercy, find any great failing in my strength. While I thus went continually weeping before the Lord, on the way to Uekeritze, I fell in with an old beggar with his wallet, sitting on a stone, and eating a piece of God's rare gift, to wit, a bit of bread. Then truly did my poor mouth so fill with water, that I was forced to bow my head and let it run upon the earth before I could ask, "Who art thou? and whence comest thou, seeing that thou hast bread?" Whereupon he answered that he was a poor man of Bannemin, from whom the enemy had taken all; and as he had heard that the Lieper Winkel [Footnote: A remote part of the island of Usedom.] had long been in peace, he had travelled thither to beg. I straightway answered him, "Oh, poor beggar man, spare to me, a sorrowful servant of Christ, who is poorer even than thyself, one little slice of bread for his wretched child; for thou must know that I am the pastor of this village, and that my daughter is dying of hunger. I beseech thee, by the living God, not to let me depart without taking pity on me, as pity also hath been shown to thee!" But the beggar man would give me none, saying that he himself had a wife and four children, who were likewise staggering towards death's door under the bitter pangs of hunger; that the famine was sorer far in Bannemin than here, where we still had berries; whether I had not heard that but a few days ago a woman (he told me her name, but horror made me forget it) had there killed her own child, and devoured it from hunger? [Footnote: Micraslius also mentions this horrible event in his History of Pomerania.] That he could not therefore help me, and I might go to the Lieper Winkel myself.

I was horror-stricken at his tale, as is easy to guess, for we in our own trouble had not yet heard of it, there being little or no traffic between one village and another; and thinking on Jerusalem, [Footnote: Where, according to Josephus, the same thing occurred.] and sheer despairing because the Lord had visited us, as of old that ungodly city, although we had not betrayed or crucified Him, I almost forgot all my necessities, and took my staff in my hand to depart. But I had not gone more than a few yards when the beggar called me to stop, and when I turned myself round he came towards me with a good hunch of bread which he had taken out of his wallet, and said, "There! but pray for me also, so that I may reach my home; for if on the road they smell that I have bread, my own brother would strike me dead, I believe." This I promised with joy, and instantly turned back to take to my child the gift hidden in my pocket. And behold, when I came to the road which leads to Loddin, I could scarce trust my eyes (before I had overlooked it in my distress) when I saw my glebe, which could produce seven bushels, ploughed, sown, and in stalk; the blessed crop of rye had already shot lustily out of the earth a finger's length in height. I could not choose but think that the evil one had deceived me with a false show, yet, however hard I rubbed my eyes, rye it was, and rye it remained. And seeing that old Paasch his piece of land which joined mine was in like manner sown, and that the blades had shot up to the same height, I soon guessed that the good fellow had done this deed, seeing that all the other land lay waste. Wherefore, I readily forgave him for not knowing the morning prayer; and thanking the Lord for so much love from my flock, and earnestly beseeching Him to grant me strength and faith to bear with them, steadfastly and patiently, all the troubles and adversities which it might please Him henceforward to lay upon us, according to His divine pleasure, I ran rather than walked back into the village to old Paasch his farm, where I found him just about to kill his cow, which he was slaughtering from grim hunger. "God bless thee," said I, "worthy friend, for sowing my field, how shall I reward thee?" But the old man answered, "Let that be, and do you pray for us;" and when I gladly promised this, and asked him how he had kept his corn safe from the savage enemy, he told me that he had hidden it secretly in the caves of the Streckelberg, but that now all his store was used up. Meanwhile he cut a fine large piece of meat from the top of the loin, and said, "There is something for you, and when that is gone you can come again for more." As I was then about to go with many thanks, his little Mary, a child nearly seven years old, the same who had said the Gratlas on the Streckelberg, seized me by the hand, and wanted to go to school to my daughter; for since my Custos, as above mentioned, departed this life in the plague, she had to teach the few little ones there were in the village; this, however, had long been abandoned. I could not, therefore, deny her, although I feared that my child would share her bread with her, seeing that she dearly loved the little maid, who was her godchild; and so indeed it happened; for when the child saw me take out the bread, she shrieked for joy, and began to scramble up on the bench. Thus she also got a piece of the slice, our maid got another, and my child put the third piece into her own mouth, as I wished for none, but said that I felt no signs of hunger, and would wait until the meat was boiled, the which I now threw upon the bench. It was a goodly sight to see the joy which my poor child felt, when I then also told her about the rye. She fell upon my neck, wept, sobbed, then took the little one up in her arms, danced about the room with her, and recited, as she was wont, all manner of Latin versus, which she knew by heart. Then she would prepare a right good supper for us, as a little salt was still left in the bottom of a barrel of meat which the Imperialists had broken up. I let her take her own way, and having scraped some soot from the chimney and mixed it with water, I tore a blank leaf out of Virgillus, and wrote to the Pastor Liepensts, his reverence Abraham Tiburtius, praying that for God His sake he would take our necessities to heart, and would exhort his parishioners to save us from dying of grim hunger, and charitably to spare to us some meat and drink, according as the all-merciful God had still left some to them, seeing that a beggar had told me that they had long been in peace from the terrible enemy. I knew not, however, wherewithal to seal the letter, until I found in the church a little wax still sticking to a wooden altar-candlestick, which the Imperialists had not thought it worth their while to steal, for they had only taken the brass ones. I sent three fellows in a boat with Hinrich Seden, the churchwarden, with this letter to Liepe.