Sidonia The Sorceress V2
by
William Mienhold
Part 6 out of 8
learned man, and has also composed sundry Latin
_Chronosticha_ on these wretched times, in _metrum
heroicum_, which, I must say, pleased me greatly. [Footnote:
The old vicar has introduced them among the still existing
parochial accounts, and we will here give a specimen of them:--
For 1620.
VsqVe qVo Do MIne IrasCerls, sIs nobIs pater!
For 1628.
InqVe tVa DeXtra fer operaM tV ChrIste benIgne!]
When we had crossed the ferry we went in at Sehms his house, on
the castle green, who keeps an ale-house; he told us that the
pestilence had not yet altogether ceased in the town; whereat I
was much afraid, more especially as he described to us so many
other horrors and miseries of these fearful times, both here and
in other places, _e.g._, of the great famine in the island of
Rügen, where a number of people had grown as black as Moors from
hunger; a wondrous thing if it be true, and one might almost
gather therefrom how the first blackamoors came about. [Footnote:
Micrælius also, in his "Ancient Pomerania" (vol. Ixxi. 2),
mentions this circumstance, but only says:--"Those who came over
to Stralsund were quite black from the hunger they had suffered."
This accounts for the strange exaggeration of mine host, and the
still stranger conclusion of our author.] But be that as it may.
_Summa_. When Master Sehms had told us all the news he had
heard, and we had thus learnt to our great comfort that the Lord
had not visited us only in these times of heavy need, I called him
aside into a chamber and asked him whether I could not here find
means to get money for a piece of amber, which my daughter had
found by the sea. At first he said "No;" but then recollecting, he
began, "Stay, let me see, at Nicolas Graeke's, the inn at the
castle, there are two great Dutch merchants, Dieterich von Pehnen
and Jacob Kiekebusch, who are come to buy pitch and boards,
_item_, timber for ships and beams; perchance they may like
to cheapen your amber too; but you had better go up to the castle
yourself, for I do not know for certain whether they still are
there." This I did, although I had not yet eaten anything in the
man's house, seeing that I wanted to know first what sort of
bargain I might make, and to save the farthings belonging to the
church until then. So I went into the castle yard. Gracious God!
what a desert had even his princely Highness' house become within
a short time! The Danes had ruined the stables and hunting-lodge,
anno 1628; _item_, destroyed several rooms in the castle; and
in the _locamentum_ of his princely Highness Duke Philippus,
where, anno 22, he so graciously entertained me and my child, as
will be told further on, now dwelt the innkeeper Nicolas Graeke;
and all the fair tapestries, whereon was represented the
pilgrimage to Jerusalem of his princely Highness Bogislaus X.,
were torn down, and the walls left grey and bare. [Footnote:
Compare Heller's "Chronicle of the Town of Wolgast," p. 42, &c.
The riots were caused by the successor of Philippus Julius (d. 6th
Feb. 1625), who was also the last Duke of Pomerania, Bogislaus
XIV., choosing to reside in Stettin. At the present time the
castle is a mere ruin, and only several large vaulted cellars
remain, wherein some of the tradesmen of the present day keep
their shops.] At this sight my heart was sorely grieved; but I
presently inquired for the merchants, who sat at the table
drinking their parting cup, with their travelling equipments
already lying by them, seeing that they were just going to set out
on their way to Stettin; straightway one of them jumped up from
his liquor, a little fellow with a right noble paunch, and a black
plaster on his nose, and asked me what I would of them? I took him
aside into a window, and told him I had some fine amber, if he had
a mind to buy it of me, which he straightway agreed to do. And
when he had whispered somewhat into the ear of his fellow, he
began to look very pleasant, and reached me the pitcher before we
went to my inn. I drank to him right heartily, seeing that, as I
have already said, I was still fasting, so that I felt my very
heart warmed by it in an instant. (Gracious God! what can go
beyond a good draught of wine taken within measure!) After this we
went to my inn, and told the maid to carry the box on one side
into a small chamber. I had scarce opened it and taken away the
gown, when the man (whose name was Dieterich von Pehnen, as he had
told me by the way), held up both hands for joy, and said he had
never seen such wealth of amber, and how had I come by it? I
answered that my child had found it on the sea-shore; whereat he
wondered greatly that we had so much amber here, and offered me
300 florins for the whole box. I was quite beside myself for joy
at such an offer, but took care not to let him see it, and
bargained with him till I got 500 florins, and I was to go with
him to the castle, and take the money forthwith. Hereupon I
ordered mine host to make ready at once a mug of beer, and a good
dinner for my child, and went back to the castle with the man, and
the maid who carried the box, begging him, in order to avoid
common talk, to say nothing of my good fortune to mine host, nor
indeed to any one else in the town, and to count out the money to
me privately, seeing that I could not be sure that the thieves
might not lay in wait for me on the road home if they heard of it.
And this the man did; for he whispered something into the ear of
his fellow, who straightway opened his leathern surcoat,
_item_, his doublet and hose, and unbuckled from his paunch a
well-filled purse which he gave to him. _Summa_.--Before long
I had my riches in my pocket, and, moreover, the man begged me to
write to him at Amsterdam whenever I found any more amber, the
which I promised to do. But the worthy fellow, as I have since
heard, died of the plague at Stettin, together with his
companion--truly I wish it had happened otherwise. [Footnote:
Micrælius mentions these Dutch merchants, p. 171, but asserts that
the cause of their death was doubtful, and that the town
physician, Dr. Laurentius Eichstadius, in Stettin, had written a
special medical paper on the subject. However, he calls one of
them Kiekepost, instead of Kiekebusch.] Shortly after, I was very
near getting into great trouble; for, as I had an extreme longing
to fall on my knees, so that I could not wait until such time as I
should have got back to my inn, I went up three or four steps of
the castle stairs, and entered into a small chamber, where I
humbled myself before the Lord. But the host, Nicolas Graeke,
followed me, thinking I was a thief, and would have stopped me, so
that I knew not how to excuse myself but by saying that I had been
made drunken by the wine which the strange merchants had given to
me (for he had seen what a good pull I had made at it), seeing I
had not broken my fast that morning, and that I was looking for a
chamber wherein I might sleep a while, which lie he believed (if
in truth it were a lie, for I was really drunken, though not with
wine, but with love and gratitude to my Maker), and accordingly he
let me go.
But I must now tell my story of his princely Highness, as I
promised above. Anno 22, as I chanced to walk with my daughter,
who was then a child of about twelve years old, in the castle
garden at Wolgast, and was showing her the beautiful flowers that
grew there, it chanced that as we came round from behind some
bushes we espied my gracious lord the Duke Philippus Julius, with
his princely Highness the Duke Bogislaff, who lay here on a visit,
standing on a mount and conversing, wherefore we were about to
return. But as my gracious lords presently walked on towards the
drawbridge, we went to look at the mount where they had stood; of
a sudden my little girl shouted loudly for joy, seeing that she
found on the earth a costly signet-ring, which one of their
princely Highnesses doubtless had dropped. I therefore said,
"Come, and we will follow our gracious lords with all speed, and
thou shalt say to them in Latin: _Serenissimi principes, quis
vestrum hunc annulum deperdidit_? (for, as I have mentioned
above, I had instructed her in the Latin tongue ever since her
seventh year), and if one of them says _Ego_, give to him the
ring. _Item_, should he ask thee in Latin to whom thou
belongest, be not abashed, and say: _Ego sum filia pastoris
Coserowiensis_; for thou wilt thus find favour in the eyes of
their princely Highnesses, for they are both gracious gentlemen,
more especially the taller one, who is our gracious ruler
Philippus Julius himself." This she promised to do; but as she
trembled sorely as she went, I encouraged her yet more and
promised her a new gown if she did it, seeing that even as a
little child she would have given a great deal for fine clothes.
As soon, then, as we were come into the courtyard, I stood by the
statue of his princely Highness Ernest Ludewig, [Footnote: The
father of Philippus Julius, died at Wolgast 17th June 1592.] and
whispered her to run boldly after them, as their princely
Highnesses were only a few steps before us, and had already turned
toward the great entrance. This she did, but of a sudden she stood
still, and would have turned back, because she was frightened by
the spurs of their princely Highnesses, as she afterwards told me,
seeing that they rattled and jingled very loudly.
But my gracious lady the Duchess Agnes saw her from the open
window wherein she lay, and called to his princely Highness, "My
lord, there is a little maiden behind you, who, it seems, would
speak with you," whereupon his princely Highness straightway
turned him round, smiling pleasantly, so that my little maid
presently took courage, and, holding up the ring, spoke in Latin
as I had told her. Hereat both the princes wondered beyond
measure, and after my gracious Duke Philippus had felt his finger,
he answered, "_Dulcissima puella, ego perdidi_;" whereupon
she gave it to him. Then he patted her cheek, and again asked,
"_Sed quoenam es, et unde venis_?" whereupon she boldly gave
her answer, and at the same time pointed with her finger to where
I stood by the statue; whereupon his princely Highness motioned me
to draw near. My gracious lady saw all that passed from the
window, but all at once she left it. She, however, came back to it
again before I had time even humbly to draw near to my gracious
lord, and beckoned to my child, and held a cake out of the window
for her. On my telling her she ran up to the window, but her
princely Highness could not reach so low nor she so high above her
as to take it, wherefore my gracious lady commanded her to come up
into the castle, and as she looked anxiously round after me,
motioned me also, as did my gracious lord himself, who presently
took the timid little maid by the hand and went up with his
princely Highness the Duke Bogislaff. My gracious lady came to
meet us at the door, and caressed and embraced my little daughter,
so that she soon grew quite bold and ate the cake. When my
gracious lord had asked me my name, _item_, why I had in so
singular a manner taught my daughter the Latin tongue, I answered
that I had heard much from a cousin at Cologne of Maria Schurman,
[Footnote: Anna Maria Schurman, born at Cologne on the 5th Nov.
1607, died at Wiewardin the 5th May 1678, was, according to the
unanimous testimony of her contemporaries, a prodigy of learning,
and perhaps the most learned woman that ever lived. The Frenchman
Naudé says of her, "You find in her alone all that the hand can
fashion or the mind conceive. No one paints better, no one works
better in brass, wax, and wood. In needlework she excels all women
past or present. It is impossible to say in what branch of
knowledge she is most distinguished. Not content with the European
languages, she understands Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and writes
Latin so well that no one who has devoted his whole life to it can
do it better." The celebrated Netherlander Spanheim calls her a
teacher of the Graces and the Muses; the still more celebrated
Salmasius confesses that he knows not in which branch of learning
to say she excels: and the Pole Rotyer calls her "The sole example
of all wondrous works in one single learned person, and a perfect
_monstrum_ of her sex, yet without fault or blame." For, in
truth, with all her extraordinary knowledge she was marvellously
humble, although she herself confesses that the immoderate praises
of the learned even yet at times blinded her to her own defects.
In her later years she went over to the sect of the Labadists,
which appears to have some points in common with that of the
Muckers. She died unmarried, as an early love affair in her
fifteenth year with the Dutchman Caets had been broken off. It is
related of her, as a strange fancy, that she liked to eat spiders.
The celebrated Spanheim was the first to publish an edition of her
works under the title of _Annæ Mariæ a Schurman Opuscula_.
Leyden, 1648.] and as I had observed a very excellent
_ingenium_ in my child, and also had time enough in my lonely
cure, I did not hesitate to take her in hand, and teach her from
her youth up, seeing I had no boy alive. Hereat their princely
Highnesses marvelled greatly, and put some more questions to her
in Latin, which she answered without any prompting from me.
Whereupon my gracious lord Duke Philippus said in the vulgar
tongue, "When thou art grown up and art one day to be married,
tell it to me, and thou shalt then have another ring from me, and
whatsoever else pertains to a bride, for thou hast this day done
me good service, seeing that this ring is a precious jewel to me,
as I had it from my wife." Hereupon I whispered her to kiss his
princely Highness' hand for such a promise, and so she did.
(But alas, most gracious God, it is one thing to promise and quite
another to hold! Where is his princely Highness at this time?
Wherefore let me ever keep in mind that "Thou only art faithful,
and that which Thou hast promised Thou wilt surely hold." Ps.
xxxiii. 4. Amen. [Footnote: Luther's version.]) _Item_.--When
his princely Highness had also inquired concerning myself and my
cure, and heard that I was of ancient and noble family, and my
_salarium_ very small, he called from the window to his
chancellor, D. Rungius, who stood without, looking at the
sun-dial, and told him that I was to have an addition from the
convent at Pudgla, _item_, from the crownlands at Ernsthoff,
as I mentioned above; but, more's the pity, I never have received
the same, although the _instrumentum donationis_ was sent me
soon after by his princely Highness' chancellor.
Then cakes were brought for me also, _item_, a glass of
foreign wine in a glass painted with armorial bearings, whereupon
I humbly took my leave, together with my daughter.
However, to come back to my bargain, anybody may guess what joy my
child felt when I showed her the fair ducats and florins I had
gotten for the amber. To the maid, however, we said that we had
inherited such riches from my brother in Holland, and after we had
again given thanks to the Lord on our knees, and eaten our dinner,
we bought in a great store of bread, salt, meat, and stock-fish:
_item_, of clothes, seeing that I provided what was needful
for us three throughout the winter from the cloth-merchant.
Moreover, for my daughter I bought a hair-net and a scarlet silk
bodice, with a black apron and white petticoat, _item_, a
fine pair of earrings, as she begged hard for them; and as soon as
I had ordered the needful from the cordwainer we set out on our
way homewards, as it began to grow very dark; but we could not
carry nearly all we had bought. Wherefore we were forced to get a
peasant from Bannemin to help us, who likewise was come into the
town, and as I found out from him that the fellow who gave me the
piece of bread was a poor cotter called Pantermehl, who dwelt in
the village by the roadside, I shoved a couple of loaves in at his
house-door without his knowing it, and we went on our way by the
bright moonlight, so that by the help of God we got home about ten
o'clock at night. I likewise gave a loaf to the other fellow,
though truly he deserved it not, seeing that he would go with us
no further than to Zitze. But I let him go, for I, too, had not
deserved that the Lord should so greatly bless me.
CHAPTER XI.
_How I fed all the congregation--Item, how I journeyed to the
horse-fair at Gützkow, and what befell me there._
Next morning my daughter cut up the blessed bread, and sent to
every one in the village a good large piece. But as we saw that
our store would soon run low, we sent the maid with a truck, which
we bought of Adam Lempken, to Wolgast, to buy more bread, which
she did. _Item_, I gave notice throughout the parish that on
Sunday next I should administer the Blessed Sacrament, and in the
meantime I bought up all the large fish that the people of the
village had caught. And when the blessed Sunday was come I first
heard the confessions of the whole parish, and after that I
preached a sermon on Matt. xv. 32, "I have compassion on the
multitude ... for they have nothing to eat." I first applied the
same to spiritual food only, and there arose a great sighing from
both the men and the women, when, at the end, I pointed to the
altar whereon stood the blessed food for the soul, and repeated
the words, "I have compassion on the multitude ... for they have
nothing to eat." (_N.B._ The pewter cup I had borrowed at
Wolgast, and bought there a little earthenware plate for a paten
till such time as Master Bloom should have made ready the silver
cup and paten I had bespoke.) Thereupon as soon as I had
consecrated and administered the Blessed Sacrament, _item_,
led the closing hymn, and every one had silently prayed his "Our
Father" before going out of church, I came out of the confessional
again, and motioned the people to stay yet awhile, as the blessed
Saviour would feed not only their souls, but their bodies also,
seeing that He still had the same compassion on His people as of
old on the people at the Sea of Galilee, as they should presently
see. Then I went into the tower and fetched out two baskets which
the maid had bought at Wolgast, and which I had hidden there in
good time; set them down in front of the altar, and took off the
napkins with which they were covered, whereupon a very loud shout
arose, inasmuch as they saw one filled with broiled fish and the
other with bread, which we had put into them privately. Hereupon,
like our Saviour, I gave thanks and brake it, and gave it to the
churchwarden, Hinrich Seden, that he might distribute it among the
men, and to my daughter for the women. Whereupon I made
application of the text, "I have compassion on the multitude, for
they have nothing to eat," to the food of the body also; and
walking up and down in the church amid great outcries from all, I
exhorted them always to trust in God's mercy, to pray without
ceasing, to work diligently, and to consent to no sin. What was
left I made them gather up for their children and the old people
who were left at home.
After church, when I had scarce put off my surplice, Hinrich Seden
his squint-eyed wife came and impudently asked for more for her
husband's journey to Liepe; neither had she had anything for
herself, seeing she had not come to church. This angered me sore,
and I said to her, "Why wast thou not at church? Nevertheless, if
thou hadst come humbly to me thou shouldst have gotten somewhat
even now, but as thou comest impudently, I will give thee naught:
think on what thou didst to me and to my child." But she stood at
the door and glowered impudently about the room till my daughter
took her by the arm and led her out, saying, "Hear'st thou, thou
shall come back humbly before thou gett'st anything, but when thou
comest thus, thou also shall have thy share, for we will no longer
reckon with thee an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; let
the Lord do that if such be His will, but we will gladly forgive
thee!" Hereupon she at last went out at the door, muttering to
herself as she was wont; but she spat several times in the street,
as we saw from the window.
Soon after I made up my mind to take into my service a lad, near
upon twenty years of age, called Claus Neels, seeing that his
father, old Neels of Loddin, begged hard that I would do so,
besides which the lad pleased me well in manners and otherwise.
Then, as we had a good harvest this year, I resolved to buy me a
couple of horses forthwith, and to sow my field again; for
although it was now late in the year, I thought that the most
merciful God might bless the crop with increase if it seemed good
to Him.
Neither did I feel much care with respect to food for them,
inasmuch as there was a great plenty of hay in the neighbourhood,
seeing that all the cattle had been killed or driven away (as
related above). I therefore made up my mind to go in God's name
with my new ploughman to Gützkow, whither a great many Mecklenburg
horses were brought to the fair, seeing that times were not yet so
bad there as with us. [Footnote: The fief of Mecklenburg was given
by the Emperor to Wallenstein, who spared the country as much as
he could.] Meanwhile I went a few more times up the Streckelberg
with my daughter at night, and by moonlight, but found very
little; so that we began to think our luck had come to an end,
when, on the third night, we broke off some pieces of amber bigger
even than those the two Dutchmen had bought. These I resolved to
send to my wife's brother, Martin Behring, at Hamburg, seeing that
the schipper Wulff of Wolgast intends, as I am told, to sail
thither this very autumn, with pitch and wood for shipbuilding. I
accordingly packed it all up in a strong chest, which I carried
with me to Wolgast when I started with my man on my journey to
Gützkow. Of this journey I will only relate thus much, that there
were plenty of horses, and very few buyers in the market.
Wherefore I bought a pair of fine black horses for twenty florins
apiece; _item_, a cart for five florins; _item_,
twenty-five bushels of rye, which also came from Mecklenburg, at
one florin the bushel, whereas it is hardly to be had now at
Wolgast for love or money, and cost three florins or more the
bushel. I might therefore have made a good bargain in rye at
Gützkow if it had become my office, and had I not, moreover, been
afraid lest the robbers, who swarm in these evil times, should
take away my corn, and ill-use, and perchance murder me into the
bargain, as has happened to sundry people already. For, at this
time especially, such robberies were carried on after a strange
and frightful fashion on Strellin heath at Gützkow; but by God's
help it all came to light just as I journeyed thither with my
man-servant to the fair, and I will here tell how it happened.
Some months before a man had been broken on the wheel at Gützkow,
because, being tempted of Satan, he murdered a travelling workman.
The man, however, straightway began to walk after so fearful a
fashion, that in the evening and night-season he sprang down from
the wheel in his gallows dress whenever a cart passed by the
gallows, which stands hard by the road to Wolgast, and jumped up
behind the people, who in horror and dismay flogged on their
horses, and thereby made a great rattling on the log embankment
which leads beside the gallows into a little wood called the
Kraulin. And it was a strange thing that on the same night the
travellers were almost always robbed or murdered on Strellin
heath. Hereupon the magistrates had the man taken down from the
wheel, and buried under the gallows, in hopes of laying his ghost.
But it went on just as before, sitting at night snow-white on the
wheel, so that none durst any longer travel the road to Wolgast.
Until at last it happened that, at the time of the above-named
fair, young Rudiger von Nienkerken of Mellenthin, in Usedom, who
had been studying at Wittenberg and elsewhere, and was now on his
way home, came this road by night with his carriage. Just before,
at the inn, I myself had tried to persuade him to stop the night
at Gutzkow on account of the ghost, and to go on his journey with
me next morning, but he would not. Now as soon as this young lord
drove along the road, he also espied the apparition sitting on the
wheel, and scarcely had he passed the gallows when the ghost
jumped down and ran after him. The driver was horribly afraid, and
lashed on the horses as everybody else had done before, and they,
taking fright, galloped away over the log-road with a marvellous
clatter. Meanwhile, however, the young nobleman saw by the light
of the moon how that the apparition flattened a ball of horse-dung
whereon it trod, and straightway felt sure within himself that it
was no ghost. Whereupon he called to the driver to stop; and as
the man would not hearken to him, he sprung out of the carriage,
drew his rapier, and hastened to attack the ghost. When the ghost
saw this he would have turned and fled; but the young nobleman
gave him such a blow on the head with his fist that he fell upon
the ground with a loud wailing. _Summa:_ the young lord,
having called back his driver, dragged the ghost into the town
again, where he turned out to be a shoe-maker called Schwelm.
I also, on seeing such a great crowd, ran thither with many
others, to look at the fellow. He trembled like an aspen leaf; and
when he was roughly told to make a clean breast, whereby he might
peradventure save his own life, if it appeared that he had
murdered no one, he confessed that he had got his wife to make him
a gallows dress, which he had put on, and had sat on the wheel
before the dead man, when, from the darkness and the distance, no
one could see that the two were sitting there together; and this
he did more especially when he knew that a cart was going from the
town to Wolgast. When the cart came by, and he jumped down and ran
after it, all the people were so affrighted that they no longer
kept their eyes upon the gallows, but only on him, flogged the
horses, and galloped with much noise and clatter over the log
embankment. This was heard by his fellows in Strellin and
Dammbecke (two villages which are about three-fourths on the way),
who held themselves ready to unyoke the horses and to plunder the
travellers when they came up with them. That after the dead man
was buried he could play the ghost more easily still, &c. That
this was the whole truth, and that he himself had never in his
life robbed, still less murdered, any one; wherefore he begged to
be forgiven: that all the robberies and murders which had happened
had been done by his fellows alone. Ah, thou cunning knave! But I
heard afterwards that he and his fellows were broken on the wheel
together, as was but fair. And now to come back to my journey. The
young nobleman abode that night with me at the inn, and early next
morning we both set forth; and as we had grown into good
fellowship together, I got into his coach with him as he offered
me, so as to talk by the way, and my Claus drove behind us. I soon
found that he was a well-bred, honest, and learned gentleman,
seeing that he despised the wild student life, and was glad that
he had now done with their scandalous drinking-bouts: moreover, he
talked his Latin readily. I had therefore much pleasure with him
in the coach. However, at Wolgast the rope of the ferry-boat
broke, so that we were carried down the stream to Zeuzin,
[Footnote: Now Sauzin.] and at length we only got ashore with
great trouble. Meanwhile it grew late, and we did not get into
Coserow till nine, when I asked the young lord to abide the night
with me, which he agreed to do. We found my child sitting in the
chimney corner, making a petticoat for her little god-daughter out
of her own old clothes. She was greatly frighted, and changed
colour when she saw the young lord come in with me, and heard that
he was to lie there that night, seeing that as yet we had no more
beds than we had bought for our own need from old Zabel Nering the
forest-ranger his widow, at Uekeritze. Wherefore she took me
aside: What was to be done? My bed was in an ill plight, her
little godchild having lain on it that morning; and she could no
wise put the young nobleman into hers, although she would
willingly creep in by the maid herself. And when I asked her why
not? she blushed scarlet, and began to cry, and would not show
herself again the whole evening, so that the maid had to see to
everything, even to the putting white sheets on my child's bed for
the young lord, as she would not do it herself. I only tell this
to show how maidens are. For next morning she came into the room
with her red silk bodice, and the net on her hair, and the apron;
_summa,_ dressed in all the things I had bought her at
Wolgast, so that the young lord was amazed, and talked much with
her over the morning meal. Whereupon he took his leave, and
desired me to visit him at his castle.
CHAPTER XII.
_What further joy and sorrow befell us; item, how Wittich
Appelmann rode to Damerow to the wolf-hunt, and what he proposed
to my daughter._
The Lord blessed my parish wonderfully this winter, inasmuch as
not only a great quantity of fish were caught and sold in all the
villages, but in Coserow they even killed four seals; _item,_
the great storm of the 12th of December threw a goodly quantity of
amber on the shore, so that many found amber, although no very
large pieces, and they began to buy cows and sheep from Liepe and
other places, as I myself also bought two cows; _item,_ my
grain which I had sown, half on my own field and half on old
Paasch's, sprung up bravely and gladly, as the Lord had till
_datum_ bestowed on us an open winter; but so soon as it had
shot up a finger's length, we found it one morning again torn up
and ruined, and this time also by the devil's doings, since now,
as before, not the smallest trace of oxen or of horses was to be
seen in the field. May the righteous God, however, reward it, as
indeed He already has done. Amen.
Meanwhile, however, something uncommon happened. For one morning,
as I have heard, when Lord Wittich saw out of the window that the
daughter of his fisherman, a child of sixteen, whom he had
diligently pursued, went into the coppice to gather dry sticks, he
went thither too; wherefore, I will not say, but every one may
guess for himself. When he had gone some way along the convent
mound, and was come to the first bridge, where the mountain-ash
stands, he saw two wolves coming towards him; and as he had no
weapon with him, save a staff, he climbed up into a tree;
whereupon the wolves trotted round it, blinked at him with their
eyes, licked their lips, and at last jumped with their fore-paws
up against the tree, snapping at him; he then saw that one was a
he-wolf, a great fat brute with only one eye. Hereupon in his
fright he began to scream, and the long-suffering of God was again
shown to him, without, however, making him wiser; for the maiden,
who had crept behind a juniper-bush in the field, when she saw the
sheriff coming, ran back again to the castle and called together a
number of people, who came and drove away the wolves, and rescued
his lordship. He then ordered a great wolf-hunt to be held next
day in the convent wood, and he who brought the one-eyed monster,
dead or alive, was to have a barrel of beer for his pains. Still
they could not catch him, albeit they that day took four wolves in
their nets, and killed them. He therefore straightway ordered a
wolf-hunt to be held in my parish. But when the fellow came to
toll the bell for a wolf-hunt, he did not stop awhile, as is the
wont for wolf-hunts, but loudly rang the bell on, _sine
mord,_ so that all the folk thought a fire had broken out, and
ran screaming out of their houses. My child also came running out
(I myself had driven to visit a sick person at Zempin, seeing that
walking began to be wearisome to me, and that I could now afford
to be more at mine ease); but she had not stood long, and was
asking the reason of the ringing, when the sheriff himself, on his
grey charger, with three cart-loads of toils and nets following
him, galloped up and ordered the people straightway to go into the
forest and to drive the wolves with rattles. Hereupon he, with his
hunters and a few men whom he had picked out of the crowd, were to
ride on and spread the nets behind Damerow, seeing that the island
is wondrous narrow there, [Footnote: The space, which is
constantly diminishing, now scarcely measures a bow-shot across.]
and the wolf dreads the water. When he saw my daughter he turned
his horse round, chucked her under the chin, and graciously asked
her who she was, and whence she came? When he had heard it, he
said she was as fair as an angel, and that he had not known till
now that the parson here had so beauteous a girl. He then rode
off, looking round at her two or three times. At the first beating
they found the one-eyed wolf, who lay in the rushes near the
water. Hereat his lordship rejoiced greatly, and made the grooms
drag him out of the net with long iron hooks, and hold him there
for near an hour, while my lord slowly and cruelly tortured him to
death, laughing heartily the while, which is a _prognosticon_
of what he afterwards did with my poor child, for wolf or lamb is
all one to this villain. Just God! But I will not be beforehand
with my tale.
Next day came old Seden his squint-eyed wife, limping like a lame
dog, and put it to my daughter whether she would not go into the
service of the sheriff; praised him as a good and pious man; and
vowed that all the world said of him were foul lies, as she
herself could bear witness, seeing that she had lived in his
service for above ten years. _Item,_ she praised the good
cheer they had there, and the handsome beer-money that the great
lords who often lay there gave the servants which waited upon
them; that she herself had more than once received a rose-noble
from his princely Highness Duke Ernest Ludewig; moreover, many
pretty fellows came there, which might make her fortune, inasmuch
as she was a fair woman, and might take her choice of a husband;
whereas here in Coserow, where nobody ever came, she might wait
till she was old and ugly before she got a curch on her head, &c.
Hereat my daughter was beyond measure angered, and answered, "Ah!
thou old witch, and who has told thee that I wish to go into
service, to get a curch on my head? Go thy ways, and never enter
the house again, for I have naught to do with thee." Whereupon she
walked away again, muttering between her teeth.
Scarce had a few days passed, and I was standing in the chamber
with the glazier, who was putting in new windows, when I heard my
daughter scream in the kitchen. Whereupon I straightway ran in
thither, and was shocked and affrighted when I saw the sheriff
himself standing in the corner with his arm round my child her
neck; he, however, presently let her go, and said, "Aha, reverend
Abraham, what a coy little fool you have for a daughter! I wanted
to greet her with a kiss, as I always used to do, and she
struggled and cried out as if I had been some young fellow who had
stolen in upon her, whereas I might be her father twice over." As
I answered naught, he went on to say that he had done it to
encourage her, seeing that he desired to take her into his
service, as indeed I knew, with more excuses of the same kind
which I have forgot. Hereupon I pressed him to come into the room,
seeing that after all he was the ruler set over me by God, and
humbly asked what his lordship desired of me. Whereupon he
answered me graciously, that it was true he had just cause for
anger against me, seeing that I had preached at him before the
whole congregation, but that he was ready to forgive me and to
have the complaint he had sent in _contra_ me to his princely
Highness at Stettin, and which might easily cost me my place,
returned to him if I would but do his will. And when I asked what
his lordship's will might be, and excused myself as best I might
with regard to the sermon, he answered that he stood in great need
of a faithful housekeeper whom he could set over the other women
folk; and as he had learnt that my daughter was a faithful and
trustworthy person, he would that I should send her into his
service. "See there," said he to her, and pinched her cheek the
while. "I want to lead you to honour, though you are such a young
creature, and yet you cry out as if I were going to bring you to
dishonour. Fie upon you!" (My child still remembers all
this--_verbolenus_; I myself should have forgot it a hundred
times over in all the wretchedness I since underwent.) But she was
offended at his words, and, jumping up from her seat, she answered
shortly, "I thank your lordship for the honour, but will only keep
house for my papa, which is a better honour for me;" whereupon he
turned to me and asked what I said to that. I must own that I was
not a little affrighted, inasmuch as I thought of the future and
of the credit in which the sheriff stood with his princely
Highness. I therefore answered with all humility, that I could not
force my child, and that I loved to have her about me, seeing that
my dear huswife had departed this life during the heavy
pestilence, and I had no child but only her. That I hoped
therefore his lordship would not be displeased with me that I
could not send her into his lordship's service. This angered him
sore, and after disputing some time longer in vain he took leave,
not without threats that he would make me pay for it. _Item_,
my man, who was standing in the stable, heard him say as he went
round the corner, "I will have her yet, in spite of him!"
I was already quite disheartened by all this, when, on the Sunday
following, there came his huntsman Johannes Kurt, a tall, handsome
fellow, and smartly dressed. He brought a roebuck tied before him
on his horse, and said that his lordship had sent it to me for a
present, in hopes that I would think better of his offer, seeing
that he had been ever since seeking on all sides for a housekeeper
in vain. Moreover, that if I changed my mind about it his lordship
would speak for me to his princely Highness, so that the dotation
of Duke Philippus Julius should be paid to me out of the princely
_ærarium_ &c. But the young fellow got the same answer as his
master had done, and I desired him to take the roebuck away with
him again. But this he refused to do; and as I had by chance told
him at first that game was my favourite meat, he promised to
supply me with it abundantly, seeing that there was plenty of game
in the forest, and that he often went a-hunting on the
Streckelberg; moreover, that I (he meant my daughter) pleased him
uncommonly, the more because I would not do his master's will,
who, as he told me in confidence, would never leave any girl in
peace, and certainly would not let my damsel alone. Although I had
rejected his game, he brought it notwithstanding, and in the
course of three weeks he was sure to come four or five times, and
grew more and more sweet upon my daughter. He talked a vast deal
about his good place, and how he was in search of a good huswife,
whence we soon guessed what quarter the wind blew from.
_Ergo_, my daughter told him that if he was seeking for a
huswife she wondered that he lost his time in riding to Coserow to
no purpose, for that she knew of no huswife for him there, which
vexed him so sore that he never came again.
And now any one would think that the grapes were sour even for the
sheriff; nevertheless he came riding to us soon after, and without
more ado asked my daughter in marriage for his huntsman. Moreover,
he promised to build him a house of his own in the forest;
_item_, to give him pots and kettles, crockery, bedding, &c.,
seeing that he had stood godfather to the young fellow, who,
moreover, had ever borne himself well during seven years he had
been in his service. Hereupon my daughter answered that his
lordship had already heard that she would keep house for nobody
but her papa, and that she was still much too young to become a
huswife.
This, however, did not seem to anger him, but, after he had talked
a long time to no purpose, he took leave quite kindly, like a cat
which pretends to let a mouse go, and creeps behind the corners,
but she is not in earnest, and presently springs out upon it
again. For doubtless he saw that he had set to work stupidly;
wherefore he went away in order to begin his attack again after a
better fashion, and Satan went with him, as whilom with Judas
Iscariot,
CHAPTER XIII.
_What more happened during the winter--Item, how in the spring
witchcraft began in the village._
Nothing else of note happened during the winter, save that the
merciful God bestowed a great plenty of fish both from the
Achterwater and the sea, and the parish again had good food; so
that it might be said of us, as it is written, "For a small moment
have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee."
[Footnote: Isa. liv. 7.] Wherefore we were not weary of praising
the Lord; and the whole congregation did much for the church,
buying new pulpit and altar cloths, seeing that the enemy had
stolen the old ones. _Item_, they desired to make good to me
the money I had paid for the new cups, which, however, I would not
take.
There were still, however, about ten peasants in the parish who
had not been able to buy their seed-corn for the spring, inasmuch
as they had spent all their earnings on cattle and corn for bread.
I therefore made an agreement with them that I would lend them the
money for it, and that if they could not repay me this year, they
might the next, which offer they thankfully took; and we sent
seven waggons to Friedland, in Mecklenburg, to fetch seed-corn for
us all. For my beloved brother-in-law, Martin Behring, in Hamburg,
had already sent me by the schipper Wulf, who had sailed home by
Christmas, 700 florins for the amber: may the Lord prosper it with
him!
Old Thiemcke died this winter in Loddin, who used to be the
midwife in the parish, and had also brought my child into the
world. Of late, however, she had had but little to do, seeing that
in this year I only baptized two children, namely, Jung his son in
Uekeritze, and Lene Hebers her little daughter, the same whom the
Imperialists afterwards speared. _Item_, it was now full five
years since I had married the last couple. Hence any one may guess
that I might have starved to death, had not the righteous God so
mercifully considered and blessed me in other ways. Wherefore to
Him alone be all honour and glory. Amen.
Meanwhile, however, it so happened that, not long after the
sheriff had last been here, witchcraft began in the village. I sat
reading with my child the second book of _Virgilus_, of the
fearful destruction of the city of Troy, which was more terrible
even than that of our own village, when a cry arose that our old
neighbour Zabel his red cow, which he had bought only a few days
before, had stretched out all fours, and seemed about to die; and
this was the more strange as she had fed heartily but half-an-hour
before. My child was therefore begged to go and pluck three hairs
from its tail and bury them under the threshold of the stall; for
it was well known that if this was done by a pure maid the cow
would get better. My child then did as they would have her, seeing
that she is the only maid in the whole village (for the others are
still children); and the cow got better from that very hour,
whereat all the folks were amazed. But it was not long before the
same thing befell Witthahn her pig, whilst it was feeding
heartily. She too came running to beg my child for God's sake to
take compassion on her, and to do something for her pig, as ill
men had bewitched it. Hereupon she had pity on her also; and it
did as much good as it had done before. But the woman, who was
_gravida_, was straightway taken in labour from the fright;
and my child was scarce out of the pig-stye when the woman went
into her cottage, wailing and holding by the wall, and called
together all the women of the neighbourhood, seeing that the
proper midwife was dead, as mentioned above; and before long
something shot to the ground from under her; and when the women
stooped down to pick it up, the devil's imp, which had wings like
a bat, flew up off the ground, whizzed and buzzed about the room,
and then shot out of the window with a great noise, so that the
glass clattered down into the street. When they looked after it,
nothing was to be found. Any one may judge for himself what a
great noise this made in all the neighbourhood. And the whole
village believed that it was no one but old Seden his squint-eyed
wife that had brought forth such a devil's brat.
But the people soon knew not what to believe. For that woman her
cow got the same thing as all the other cows; wherefore she too
came lamenting, and begged my daughter to take pity on her as on
the rest, and to cure her poor cow for the love of God. That if
she had taken it ill of her that she had said anything about going
into service with the sheriff, she could only say she had done it
for the best, &c. _Summa_, she talked over my unhappy child
to go and cure her cow.
Meanwhile I was on my knees every Sunday before the Lord with the
whole congregation, praying that He would not allow the evil one
to take from us that which His mercy had once more bestowed upon
us after such extreme want; _item_, that he would bring to
light the _auctor_ of such devilish works, so that he might
receive the punishment he deserved.
But all was of no avail. For a very few days had passed when the
mischief befell Stoffer Zuter his spotted cow, and he, too, like
all the rest, came running to fetch my daughter; she accordingly
went with him, but could do no good, and the beast died under her
hands.
_Item_, Katy Berow had bought a little pig with the money my
daughter had paid her in the winter for spinning, and the poor
woman kept it like a child, and let it run about her room. This
little pig got the mischief, like all the rest, in the twinkling
of an eye; and when my daughter was called it grew no better, but
also died under her hands; whereupon the poor woman made a great
outcry and tore her hair for grief, so that my child was moved to
pity her, and promised her another pig next time my sow should
litter. Meantime another week passed over, during which I went on,
together with the whole congregation, to call upon the Lord for
His merciful help, but all in vain, when the same thing happened
to old wife Seden her little pig. Whereupon she again came running
for my daughter with loud outcries, and although my child told her
that she must have seen herself that nothing she could do for the
cattle cured them any longer, she ceased not to beg and pray her,
and to lament, till she went forth to do what she could for her
with the help of God. But it was all to no purpose, inasmuch as
the little pig died before she left the stye.
What think you this devil's whore then did? After she had run
screaming through the village she said that any one might see that
my daughter was no longer a maid, else why could she now do no
good to the cattle, whereas she had formerly cured them? She
supposed my child had lost her maiden honour on the Streckelberg,
whither she went so often this spring, and that God only knew who
had taken it! But she said no more then, and we did not hear the
whole until afterwards. And it is indeed true that my child had
often walked on the Streckelberg this spring both with me and also
alone, in order to seek for flowers and to look upon the blessed
sea, while she recited aloud, as she was wont, such verses out of
_Virgilius_ as pleased her best (for whatever she read a few
times that she remembered).
Neither did I forbid her to take these walks, for there were no
wolves now left on the Streckelberg, and even if there had been
they always fly before a human creature in the summer season.
Howbeit, I forbade her to dig for amber. For as it now lay deep,
and we knew not what to do with the earth we threw up, I resolved
to tempt the Lord no further, but to wait till my store of money
grew very scant before we would dig any more.
But my child did not do as I had bidden her, although she had
promised she would, and of this her disobedience came all our
misery. (O blessed Lord, how grave a matter is Thy holy fourth
commandment! [Footnote: In Luther's version.]) For as his
reverence Johannes Lampius, of Crummin, who visited me this
spring, had told me that the Cantor of Wolgast wanted to sell the
_Opp. St. Augustini_, and I had said before her that I
desired above all things to buy that book, but had not money
enough left; she got up in the night without my knowledge to dig
for amber, meaning to sell it as best she might at Wolgast, in
order secretly to present me with the _Opp. St. Augustini_ on
my birthday, which falls on the 28th _mensis Augusti_. She
had always covered over the earth she cast up with twigs of fir,
whereof there were plenty in the forest, so that no one should
perceive anything of it.
Meanwhile, however, it befell that the young _nobilis_
Rüdiger of Nienkerken came riding one day to gather news of the
terrible witchcraft that went on in the village. When I told him
all about it he shook his head doubtingly, and said he believed
that all witchcraft was nothing but lies and deceit; whereat I was
struck with great horror, inasmuch as I had hitherto held the
young lord to be a wiser man, and now could not but see that he
was an atheist. He guessed what my thoughts were, and with a smile
he answered me by asking whether I had ever read Johannes Wierus,
[Footnote: A Netherland physician, who, long before Spee or
Thomasius, attacked the wicked follies of the belief in witchcraft
prevalent in his time in the paper entitled _Confulatio
opinionum de magorum Dæmonomia_, Frankfort, 1590, and was
therefore denounced by Bodinus and others as one of the worst
magicians. It is curious that this liberal man had in another
book, _De præstigiis Dæmonum_, taught the method of raising
devils, and described the whole of hell, with the names and
surnames of its 572 princes.] who would hear nothing of
witchcraft, and who argued that all witches were melancholy
persons who only imagined to themselves that they had a
_pactum_ with the devil; and that to him they seemed more
worthy of pity than of punishment? Hereupon I answered that I had
not indeed read any such book (for say, who can read all that
fools write?), but that the appearances here and in all other
places proved that it was a monstrous error to deny the reality of
witchcraft, inasmuch as people might then likewise deny that there
were such things as murder, adultery, and theft.
But he called my _argumentum_ a _dilemma_, and after he
had discoursed a great deal of the devil, all of which I have
forgotten, seeing it savoured strangely of heresy, he said he
would relate to me a piece of witchcraft which he himself had seen
at Wittenberg.
It seems that one morning, as an Imperial captain mounted his good
charger at the Elstergate in order to review his company, the
horse presently began to rage furiously, reared, tossed his head,
snorted, kicked, and roared not as horses use to neigh, but with a
sound as though the voice came from a human throat, so that all
the folks were amazed, and thought the horse bewitched. It
presently threw the captain and crushed his head with its hoof, so
that he lay writhing on the ground, and straightway set off at
full speed. Hereupon a trooper fired his carabine at the bewitched
horse, which fell in the midst of the road, and presently died.
That he, Riidiger, had then drawn near, together with many others,
seeing that the colonel had forthwith given orders to the surgeon
of the regiment to cut open the horse and see in what state it was
inwardly. However, that everything was quite right, and both the
surgeon and army physician testified that the horse was thoroughly
sound; whereupon all the people cried out more than ever about
witchcraft. Mean-while he himself (I mean the young
_nobilis_) saw a thin smoke coming out from the horse's
nostrils, and on stooping down to look what it might be, he drew
out a match as long as my finger, which still smouldered, and
which some wicked fellow had privately thrust into its nose with a
pin. Hereupon all thoughts of witchcraft were at an end, and
search was made for the culprit, who was presently found to be no
other than the captain's own groom. For one day that his master
had dusted his jacket for him he swore an oath that he would have
his revenge, which indeed the provost-marshal himself had heard as
he chanced to be standing in the stable. _Item_, another
soldier bore witness that he had seen the fellow cut a piece off
the fuse not long before he led out his master's horse. And thus,
thought the young lord, would it be with all witchcraft if it were
sifted to the bottom; like as I myself had seen at Giitzkow, where
the devil's apparition turned out to be a cordwainer, and that one
day I should own that it was the same sort of thing here in our
village. By reason of this speech I liked not the young nobleman
from that hour forward, believing him to be an atheist. Though,
indeed, afterwards, I have had cause to see that he was in the
right, more's the pity, for had it not been for him what would
have become of my daughter?
But I will say nothing beforehand. _Summa_: I walked about
the room in great displeasure at his words, while the young lord
began to argue with my daughter upon witchcraft, now in Latin, and
now in the vulgar tongue, as the words came into his mouth, and
wanted to hear her mind about it. But she answered that she was a
foolish thing, and could have no opinion on the matter; but that,
nevertheless, she believed that what happened in the village could
not be by natural means. Hereupon the maid called me out of the
room (I forget what she wanted of me); but when I came back again
my daughter was as red as scarlet, and the nobleman stood close
before her. I therefore asked her, as soon as he had ridden off,
whether anything had happened, which she at first denied, but
afterwards owned that he had said to her while I was gone, that he
knew but one person who could bewitch; and when she asked him who
that person was, he caught hold of her hand and said, "It is
yourself, sweet maid; for you have thrown a spell upon my heart,
as I feel right well!" But that he said nothing further, but only
gazed on her face with eager eyes, and this it was that made her
so red.
But this is the way with maidens; they ever have their secrets if
one's back is turned but for a minute; and the proverb--
"To drive a goose and watch a maid
Needs the devil himself to aid,"
is but too true, as will be shown hereafter, more's the pity!
CHAPTER XIV.
_How old Seden disappeared all on a sudden--Item, how the great
Gustavus Adolphus came to Pomeranla, and took the fort at
Peenemünde._
We were now left for some time in peace from witchcraft; unless,
indeed, I reckon the caterpillars, which miserably destroyed my
orchard, and which truly were a strange thing. For the trees
blossomed so fair and sweetly, that one day as we were walking
under them, and praising the almighty power of the most merciful
God, my child said, "If the Lord goes on to bless us so
abundantly, it will be Christmas Eve with us every night of next
winter!" But things soon fell out far otherwise. For all in a
moment the trees were covered with such swarms of caterpillars
(great and small, and of every shape and colour), that one might
have measured them by the bushel; and before long my poor trees
looked like brooms; and the blessed fruit, which was so well set,
all fell off, and was scarce good enough for the pigs. I do not
choose to lay this to any one, though I had my own private
thoughts upon the matter, and have them yet. However, my barley,
whereof I had sown about three bushels out on the common, shot up
bravely. On my field I had sown nothing, seeing that I dreaded the
malice of Satan. Neither was corn at all plentiful throughout the
parish, in part because they had sown no winter crops, and in part
because the summer crops did not prosper. However, in all the
villages a great supply of fish was caught by the mercy of God,
especially herring; but they were very low in price. Moreover,
they killed many seals; and at Whitsuntide I myself killed one as
I walked by the sea with my daughter. The creature lay on a rock
close to the water, snoring like a Christian. Thereupon I pulled
off my shoes and drew near him softly, so that he heard me not,
and then struck him over his nose with my staff (for a seal cannot
bear much on his nose), so that he tumbled over into the water;
but he was quite stunned, and I could easily kill him outright. It
was a fat beast, though not very large; and we melted forty pots
of train-oil out of his fat, which we put by for a winter store.
Meanwhile, however, something seized old Seden all at once, so
that he wished to receive the Holy Sacrament. When I went to him,
he could give no reason for it; or perhaps he would give none for
fear of his old Lizzie, who was always watching him with her
squinting eyes, and would not leave the room. However, Zuter his
little girl, a child near twelve years old, said that a few days
before, while she was plucking grass for the cattle under the
garden hedge by the road, she heard the husband and wife
quarrelling violently again, and that the goodman threw in her
teeth that he now knew of a certainty that she had a familiar
spirit, and that he would straightway go and tell it to the
priest. Albeit this is only a child's tale, it may be true for all
that, seeing that children and fools, they say, speak the truth.
But be that as it may. _Summa:_ my old warden grew worse and
worse; and though I visited him every morning and evening, as I
use to do to my sick, in order to pray with him, and often
observed that he had somewhat on his mind, nevertheless he could
not disburthen himself of it, seeing that old Lizzie never left
her post.
This went on for a while, when at last one day about noon, he sent
to beg me to scrape a little silver off the new sacramental cup,
because he had been told that he should get better if he took it
mixed with the dung of fowls. For some time I would not consent,
seeing that I straightway suspected that there was some devilish
mischief behind it; but he begged and prayed, till I did as he
would have me.
And lo and behold, he mended from that very hour, so that when I
went to pray with him at evening, I found him already sitting on
the bench with a bowl between his knees, out of which he was
supping broth. However, he would not pray (which was strange,
seeing that he used to pray so gladly, and often could not wait
patiently for my coming, insomuch that he sent after me two or
three times if I was not at hand, or elsewhere employed), but he
told me he had prayed already, and that he would give me the cock,
whose dung he had taken, for my trouble, as it was a fine large
cock, and he had nothing better to offer for my Sunday's dinner.
And as the poultry was by this time gone to roost, he went up to
the perch which was behind the stove, and reached down the cock,
and put it under the arm of the maid, who was just come to call me
away.
Not for all the world, however, would I have eaten the cock, but I
turned it out to breed. I went to him once more and asked whether
I should give thanks to the Lord next Sunday for his recovery;
whereupon he answered that I might do as I pleased in the matter.
Hereat I shook my head, and left the house, resolving to send for
him as soon as ever I should hear that his old Lizzie was from
home (for she often went to fetch flax to spin from the sheriff).
But mark what befell within a few days! We heard an outcry that
old Seden was missing, and that no one could tell what had become
of him. His wife thought he had gone up into the Streckelberg,
whereupon the accursed witch ran howling to our house and asked my
daughter whether she had not seen anything of her goodman, seeing
that she went up the mountain every day. My daughter said she had
not; but, woe is me, she was soon to hear enough of him. For one
morning, before sunrise, as she came down into the wood on her way
back from her forbidden digging after amber, she heard a
woodpecker (which, no doubt, was old Lizzie herself), crying so
dolefully, close beside her, that she went in among the bushes to
see what was the matter. There was the woodpecker, sitting on the
ground before a bunch of hair, which was red, and just like what
old Seden's had been, and as soon as it espied her it flew up with
its beak full of the hair, and slipped into a hollow tree. While
my daughter still stood looking at this devil's work, up came old
Paasch, who also had heard the cries of the woodpecker, as he was
cutting roofing shingles on the mountain, with his boy, and was
likewise struck with horror when he saw the hair on the ground. At
first they thought a wolf must have eaten him, and searched all
about, but could not find a single bone. On looking up they
fancied they saw something red at the very top of the tree, so
they made the boy climb up, and he forthwith cried out that here,
too, there was a great bunch of red hair, stuck to some leaves as
if with pitch, but that it was not pitch, but something speckled
red and white, like fish-guts; _item_, that the leaves all
around, even where there was no hair, were stained and spotted,
and had a very ill smell. Hereupon the lad, at his master's
bidding, threw down the clotted branch, and they two below
straightway judged that this was the hair and brains of old Seden,
and that the devil had carried him off bodily, because he would
not pray nor give thanks to the Lord for his recovery. I myself
believed the same, and told it on the Sunday as a warning to the
congregation. But further on it will be seen that the Lord had yet
greater cause for giving him into the hands of Satan, inasmuch as
he had been talked over by his wicked wife to renounce his Maker,
in the hopes of getting better. Now, however, this devil's whore
did as if her heart was broken, tearing out her red hair by whole
handfuls when she heard about the woodpecker from my child and old
Paasch, and bewailing that she was now a poor widow, and who was
to take care of her for the future, &c.
Meanwhile we celebrated on this barren shore, as best we could and
might, together with the whole Protestant Church, the 25th day
_mensis Junii_, whereon, one hundred years ago, the Estates
of the Holy Roman Empire laid their confession before the most
high and mighty Emperor Carolus V., at Augsburg; and I preached a
sermon on Matt. x. 32, of the right confession of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, whereupon the whole congregation came to the
Sacrament. Now towards the evening of the self-same day, as I
walked with my daughter by the sea-shore, we saw several hundred
sail of ships, both great and small, round about Ruden, and
plainly heard firing, whereupon we judged forthwith that this must
be the most high and mighty king Gustavus Adolphus, who was now
coming, as he had promised, to the aid of poor persecuted
Christendom. While we were still debating a boat sailed towards us
from Oie, [Footnote: Ruden and Oie, two small islands between
Usedom and Rügen.] wherein was Kate Berow her son, who is a farmer
there, and was coming to see his old mother. The same told us that
it really was the king, who had this morning run before Ruden with
his fleet from Rügen; that a few men of Oie were fishing there at
the time, and saw how he went ashore with his officers, and
straightway bared his head and fell upon his knees. [Footnote: See
also the _Theatrum Europeum_, p. 226 fl.]
Thus, then, most gracious God, did I Thy unworthy servant enjoy a
still greater happiness and delight that blessed evening than I
had done on the blessed morn; and any one may think that I delayed
not for a moment to fall on my knees with my child, and to follow
the example of the king; and God knows I never in my life prayed
so fervently as that evening, whereon the Lord showed such a
wondrous sign upon us as to cause the deliverer of His poor
Christian people to come among them on the very day when they had
everywhere called upon Him, on their knees, for His gracious help
against the murderous wiles of the Pope and the devil. That night
I could not sleep for joy, but went quite early in the morning to
Damerow, where something had befallen Vithe his boy. I supposed
that he, too, was bewitched; but this time it was not witchcraft,
seeing that the boy had eaten something unwholesome in the forest.
He could not tell what kind of berries they were, but the
_malum_, which turned all his skin bright scarlet, soon
passed over. As I therefore was returning home shortly after, I
met a messenger from Peenemünde, whom his Majesty the high and
mighty king Gustavus Adolphus had sent to tell the sheriff that on
the 29th of June, at ten o'clock in the morning, he was to send
three guides to meet his Majesty at Coserow, and to guide him
through the woods to Swine, where the Imperialists were encamped.
_Item_, he related how his Majesty had taken the fort at
Peenemünde yesterday (doubtless the cause of the firing we heard
last evening), and that the Imperialists had run away as fast as
they could, and played the bush-ranger properly, for after setting
their camp on fire they all fled into the woods and coppices, and
part escaped to Wolgast and part to Swine.
Straightway I resolved in my joy to invent a _carmen
gratulatorium_ to his Majesty, whom, by the grace of Almighty
God, I was to see, the which my little daughter might present to
him. I accordingly proposed it to her as soon as I got home, and
she straightway fell on my neck for joy, and then began to dance
about the room. But when she had considered a little, she thought
her clothes were not good enough to wear before his Majesty, and
that I should buy her a blue silk gown, with a yellow apron,
seeing that these were the Swedish colours, and would please his
Majesty right well. For a long time I would not, seeing that I
hate this kind of pride; but she teased me with her kisses and
coaxing words, till I, like an old fool, said yes, and ordered my
ploughman to drive her over to Wolgast to-day to buy the stuff.
Wherefore I think that the just God, who hateth the proud and
showeth mercy on the humble, did rightly chastise me for such
pride. For I myself felt a sinful pleasure when she came back with
two women who were to help her to sew, and laid the stuff before
me. Next day she set to work at sunrise to sew, and I composed my
_carmen_ the while. I had not got very far in it when the
young Lord Rüdiger of Nienkerken came riding up, in order, as he
said, to inquire whether his Majesty were indeed going to march
through Coserow. And when I told him all I knew of the matter,
_item_, informed him of our plan, he praised it exceedingly,
and instructed my daughter (who looked more kindly upon him to-day
than I altogether liked) how the Swedes use to pronounce the
Latin, as _ratscho_ pro _ratio_, _uet_ pro
_ut_, _schis_ pro _scis_ &c., so that she might be
able to answer his Majesty with all due readiness. He said,
moreover, that he had held much converse with Swedes at
Wittenberg, as well as at Griepswald, wherefore if she pleased
they might act a short _colloquium_, wherein he would play
the king. Hereupon he sat down on the bench before her, and they
both began chattering together, which vexed me sore, especially
when I saw that she made but small haste with her needle the
while. But say, dear reader, what was I to do?--Wherefore I went
my ways, and let them chatter till near noon, when the young lord
at last took leave. But he promised to come again on Tuesday when
the king was here, and believed that the whole island would flock
together at Coserow. As soon as he was gone, seeing that my
_vena poetica_ (as may be easily guessed) was still stopped
up, I had the horses put to and drove all over the parish,
exhorting the people in every village to be at the Giant's Stone
by Coserow at nine o'clock on Tuesday, and that they were all to
fall on their knees as soon as they should see the king coming and
that I knelt down; _item_, to join at once in singing the
Ambrosian hymn of praise, which I should lead off as soon as the
bells began to ring. This they all promised to do; and after I had
again exhorted them to it on Sunday in church, and prayed to the
Lord for his Majesty out of the fulness of my heart, we scarce
could await the blessed Tuesday for joyful impatience.
CHAPTER XV.
_Of the arrival of the high and mighty King Gustavus Adolphus,
and what befell thereat._
Meanwhile I finished my _carmen_ in _metrum elegiacum_,
which my daughter transcribed (seeing that her handwriting is
fairer than mine) and diligently learned, so that she might say it
to his Majesty. _Item_, her clothes were gotten ready, and
became her purely; and on Monday she went up to the Streckelberg,
although the heat was such that the crows gasped on the hedges:
for she wanted to gather flowers for a garland she designed to
wear, and which was also to be blue and yellow. Towards evening
she came home with her apron filled with all manner of flowers;
but her hair was quite wet, and hung all matted about her
shoulders. (My God, my God, was everything to come together to
destroy me, wretched man that I am!) I asked, therefore, where she
had been that her hair was so wet and matted; whereupon she
answered that she had gathered flowers round the Kölpin,
[Footnote: a small lake near the sea.] and from thence she had
gone down to the sea-shore, where she had bathed in the sea,
seeing that it was very hot and no one could see her. Thus, said
she, jesting, she should appear before his Majesty to-morrow
doubly a clean maid. This displeased me at the time, and I looked
grave, although I said naught.
Next morning at six o'clock all the people were already at the
Giant's Stone, men, women, and children. _Summa_, everybody
that was able to walk was there. At eight o'clock my daughter was
already dressed in all her bravery, namely, a blue silken gown,
with a yellow apron and kerchief, and a yellow hair-net, with a
garland of blue and yellow flowers round her head. It was not long
before my young lord arrived, finely dressed as became a nobleman.
He wanted to inquire, as he said, by which road I should go up to
the Stone with my daughter, seeing that his father, Hans von
Nienkerken, _item_, Wittich Appelmann, and the Lepels of
Gnitze, were also going, and that there was much people on all the
high roads, as though a fair was being held. But I straightway
perceived that all he wanted was to see my daughter, inasmuch as
he presently occupied himself about her, and began chattering with
her in the Latin again. He made her repeat to him the
_carmen_ to his Majesty; whereupon he, in the person of the
king, answered her, "_Dulcissima et venustissima puella, quæ
mihi in coloribus cœli, ut angelus Domini appares, utinam semper
mecum esses, nunquam mihi male caderei_;" whereupon she grew
red, as likewise did I, but from vexation, as may be easily
guessed. I therefore begged that his lordship would but go forward
toward the Stone, seeing that my daughter had yet to help me on
with my surplice; whereupon, however, he answered, that he would
wait for us the while in the chamber, and that we might then go
together. _Summa_: I blessed myself from this young lord; but
what could I do? As he would not go, I was forced to wink at it
all: and before long we went up to the Stone, where I straightway
chose three sturdy fellows from the crowd, and sent them up the
steeple that they might begin to ring the bells as soon as they
should see me get up upon the Stone and wave my napkin. This they
promised to do, and straightway departed; whereupon I sat down on
the Stone with my daughter, thinking that the young lord would
surely stand apart, as became his dignity; albeit he did not, but
sat down with us on the Stone. And we three sat there all alone,
and all the folk looked at us, but none drew near to see my
child's fine clothes, not even the young lasses, as is their wont
to do; but this I did not observe till afterwards, when I heard
how matters stood with us even then. Towards nine o'clock, Hans
von Nienkerken and Wittich Appelmann galloped up, and old
Nienkerken called to his son in an angry voice; and seeing that
the young lord heard him not, he rode up to the Stone, and cried
out so loud that all the folk might hear, "Can'st thou not
hearken, boy, when thy father calls thee?" Whereupon Rüdiger
followed him in much displeasure, and we saw from a distance how
the old lord seemed to threaten his son, and spat out before him;
but knew not what this might signify: we were to learn it soon
enough, though, more's the pity! Soon after the two Lepels of
Gnitze [Footnote: a peninsula in Usedom] came from the Damerow;
and the noblemen saluted one another on the green sward close
beside us, but without looking on us. And I heard the Lepels say
that naught could yet be seen of his Majesty, but that the
coast-guard fleet around Ruden was in motion, and that several
hundred ships were sailing this way. As soon as this news was
known, all the folk ran to the sea-shore (which is but a step from
the Stone); and the noblemen rode thither too, all save Wittich,
who had dismounted, and who, when he saw that I sent old Paasch
his boy up into a tall oak-tree to look out for the king,
straightway busied himself about my daughter again, who now sat
all alone upon the Stone: "Why had she not taken his huntsman? and
whether she would not change her mind on the matter and have him
now, or else come into service with him (the sheriff) himself? for
that if she would not, he believed she might be sorry for it one
day." Whereupon she answered him (as she told me), that there was
but one thing she was sorry for, namely, that his lordship would
take so much useless pains upon her; whereupon she rose with all
haste and came to where I stood under the tree, looking after the
lad who was climbing up it. But our old Ilse said that he swore a
great curse when my daughter turned her back upon him, and went
straightway into the alder-grove close by the high road, where
stood the old witch Lizzie Kolken.
Meanwhile I went with my daughter to the sea-shore and found it
quite true that the whole fleet was sailing over from Ruden and
Oie towards Wollin, and several ships passed so close before us
that we could see the soldiers standing upon them and the flashing
of their arms. _Item_, we heard the horses neigh and the
soldiery laugh. On one ship, too, they were drumming, and on
another cattle lowed and sheep bleated. Whilst we yet gazed we saw
smoke come out from one of the ships, followed by a great noise,
and presently we were aware of the ball bounding over the water,
which foamed and splashed on either side, and coming straight
towards us. Hereupon the crowd ran away on every side with loud
cries, and we plainly heard the soldiery in the ships laugh
thereat. But the ball flew up and struck into the midst of an oak
hard by Paasch his boy, so that nearly two cart-loads of boughs
fell to the earth with a great crash, and covered all the road by
which his Majesty was to come. Hereupon the boy would stop no
longer in the tree, however much I exhorted him thereto, but cried
out to us as he came down that a great troop of soldiers was
marching out of the forest by Damerow, and that likely enough the
king was among them. Hereupon the sheriff ordered the road to be
cleared forthwith, and this was some time a-doing, seeing that the
thick boughs were stuck fast in the trees all around; the nobles,
as soon as all was made ready, would have ridden to meet his
Majesty, but stayed still on the little greensward, because we
already heard the noise of horses, carriages, and voices close to
us in the forest.
It was not long before the cannons broke through the brushwood
with the three guides seated upon them. And seeing that one of
them was known to me (it was Stoffer Krauthahn, of Peenemünde), I
drew near and begged him that he would tell me when the king
should come. But he answered that he was going forward with the
cannon to Coserow, and that I was only to watch for a tall dark
man, with a hat and feather and a gold chain round his neck, for
that that was the king, and that he rode next after the great
standard whereon was a yellow lion.
Wherefore I narrowly watched the procession as it wound out of the
forest. And next after the artillery came the Finnish and Lapland
bowmen, who went clothed all in furs, although it was now the
height of summer, whereat I greatly wondered. After these there
came much people, but I know not what they were. Presently I
espied over the hazel-tree which stood in my way, so that I could
not see everything as soon as it came forth out of the coppice,
the great flag with the lion on it, and, behind that, the head of
a very dark man with a golden chain round his neck, whereupon
straightway I judged this must be the king. I therefore waved my
napkin toward the steeple, whereupon the bells forthwith rang out,
and while the dark man rode nearer to us, I pulled off my
skull-cap, fell upon my knees, and led the Ambrosian hymn of
praise, and all the people plucked their hats from their heads and
knelt down on the ground all around singing after me; men, women,
and children, save only the nobles, who stood still on the
greensward, and did not take off their hats and behave with
attention until they saw that his Majesty drew in his horse. (It
was a coal-black charger, and stopped with its two forefeet right
upon my field, which I took as a sign of good fortune.) When we
had finished, the sheriff quickly got off his horse, and would
have approached the king with his three guides who followed after
him; _item_, I had taken my child by the hand, and would also
have drawn near to the king. Howbeit, his Majesty motioned away
the sheriff and beckoned us to approach, whereupon I wished his
Majesty joy in the Latin tongue, and extolled his magnanimous
heart, seeing that he had deigned to visit German ground for the
protection and aid of poor persecuted Christendom; and praised it
as a sign from God that such had happened on this the highest
festival of our poor Church, and I prayed his Majesty graciously
to receive what my daughter desired to present to him; whereupon
his Majesty looked on her and smiled pleasantly. Such gracious
bearing made her bold again, albeit she trembled visibly just
before, and she reached him a blue and yellow wreath whereon lay
the _carmen_, saying, "_Accipe hanc vilem coronam et
hæc_," whereupon she began to recite the _carmen_.
Meanwhile his Majesty grew more and more gracious, looking now on
her and now on the _carmen_, and nodded with especial
kindness towards the end, which was as follows:--
"Tempus erit, quo tu reversus ab hostibus ultor
Intrabis patriæ libera regna meæ;
Tune meliora student nostræ tibi carmina musæ,
Tunc tua, maxime rex, Martia facta canam.
Tu modo versiculis ne spernas vilibus ausum
Auguror et res est ista futura brevi!
Sis fœlix, fortisque diu, vive optlme princeps,
Omnia, et ut possis vincere, dura. Vale!"
[Footnote:
Thou shall return chastier of the foe,
To the freed kingdoms of my native land!
Then shall our song with loftier cadence flow,
Boasting the deeds of thy heroic hand!
Scorn not, meanwhile, the feeble lines which thus
Thy future glory and success foretell.
Live, prince beloved! be brave, be prosperous;
Conquer, howe'er opposed,--and fare thee well!]
As soon as she held her peace his Majesty said, "_Propius
accedas, patria virgo, ut te osculer_;" whereupon she drew near
to his horse, blushing deeply. I thought he would only have kissed
her forehead, as potentates commonly use to do; but not at all, he
kissed her lips with a loud smack, and the long feathers on his
hat drooped over her neck, so that I was quite afraid for her
again. But he soon raised up his head, and taking off his gold
chain, whereon dangled his own effigy, he hung it round my child's
neck with these words, "_Hocce tuæ pulchritudini! et si favente
Deo redux fuero victor, promissum carmen et præterea duo oscula
exspecto_."
Hereupon the sheriff, with his three men, again came forward and
bowed down to the ground before his Majesty. But as he knew no
Latin, _item_, no Italian nor French, I had to act as
interpreter. For his Majesty inquired how far it was to Swine, and
whether there was still much foreign soldiery there? And the
sheriff thought there were still about 200 Croats in the camp.
Whereupon his Majesty spurred on his horse, and, nodding
graciously, cried "_Valete_!" And now came the rest of the
troops, about 3000 strong, out of the coppice, which likewise had
a valiant bearing, and attempted no fooleries, as troops are wont
to do, when they passed by us and the women, but marched on in
honest quietness, and we followed the train until the forest
beyond Coserow, where we commended it to the care of the Almighty,
and every one went on his way home.
CHAPTER XVI.
_How little Mary Paasch was sorely plagued of the devil, and the
whole parish fell off from me._
Before I proceed any further, I will first mark that the
illustrious king Gustavus Adolphus, as we presently heard, had cut
down the 300 Croats at Swine, and was thence gone by sea to
Stettin. May God be for ever gracious to him! Amen.
But my sorrows increased from day to day, seeing that the devil
now played pranks such as he never had played before. I had begun
to think that the ears of God had hearkened to our ardent prayers,
but it pleased Him to try us yet more hardly than ever. For, a few
days after the arrival of the most illustrious king Gustavus
Adolphus, it was bruited about that my child her little
god-daughter was possessed of the evil one, and tumbled about most
piteously on her bed, insomuch that no one was able to hold her.
My child straightway went to see her little god-daughter, but
presently came weeping home. Old Paasch would not suffer her even
to come near her, but railed at her very angrily, and said that
she should never come within his doors again, as his child had got
the mischief from the white roll which she had given her that
morning. It was true that my child had given her a roll, seeing
that the maid had been, the day before, to Wolgast, and had
brought back a napkin full of them.
Such news vexed me sore, and after putting on my cassock I went to
old Paasch his house, to exorcise the foul fiend, and to remove
such disgrace from my child. I found the old man standing on the
floor by the cockloft steps, weeping; and after I had spoken "The
peace of God," I asked him first of all, whether he really
believed that his little Mary had been bewitched by means of the
roll which my child had given her? He said "Yes!" And when I
answered, That in that case I also must have been bewitched,
_item_, Pagel his little girl, seeing that we both had eaten
of the rolls, he was silent, and asked me with a sigh, whether I
would not go into the room, and see for myself how matters stood.
I then entered with "The peace of God," and found six people
standing round little Mary her bed; her eyes were shut, and she
was as stiff as a board; wherefore Kit Wels (who was a young and
sturdy fellow) seized the little child by one leg, and held her
out like a hedge-stake, so that I might see how the devil plagued
her. I now said a prayer, and Satan, perceiving that a servant of
Christ was come, began to tear the child so fearfully that it was
pitiful to behold; for she flung about her hands and feet, so that
four strong men were scarce able to hold her; _item_, she was
afflicted with extraordinary risings and fallings of her belly, as
if a living creature were therein, so that at last the old witch
Lizzie Kolken sat herself upon her belly, whereupon the child
seemed to be somewhat better, and I told her to repeat the
Apostles' Creed, so as to see whether it really were the devil who
possessed her. [Footnote: It was imagined in those fearful times
that when the sick person could repeat the three articles of
belief, and especially some passages from the Bible bearing
particular reference to the work of redemption, he was not
possessed, since "no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by
the Holy Ghost" (I Cor, xii. 3).] She straightway grew worse than
before, and began to gnash her teeth, to roll her eyes, and to
strike so hard with her hands and feet that she flung her father,
who held one of her legs, right into the middle of the room, and
then struck her foot so hard against the bedstead that the blood
flowed, and Lizzie Kolken was thrown about on her belly, as though
she had been in a swing. And as I ceased not, but exorcised Satan
that he should leave her, she began to howl and to bark like a
dog, _item_, to laugh, and spoke at last, with a gruff bass
voice like an old man's, "I will not depart." But he should soon
have been forced to depart out of her, had not both father and
mother besought me, by God's holy Sacrament, to leave their poor
child in peace, seeing that nothing did her any good, but rather
made her worse. I was therefore forced to desist, and only
admonished the parents to seek for help like the Canaanitish
woman, in true repentance and incessant prayer, and with her to
sigh in constant faith, "Have mercy upon me, O Lord, thou son of
David, my daughter is grievously vexed of a devil" (Matt. xv.);
that the heart of our Lord would then melt, so that He would have
mercy on their child, and command Satan to depart from her.
_Item_, I promised to pray for the little child on the
following Sunday with the whole congregation, and told them to
bring her, if it were any ways possible, to the church, seeing
that the ardent prayer of the whole congregation has power to rise
beyond the clouds. This they promised to do, and I then went home
sorely troubled, where I soon learned that she was somewhat
better; thus it still is sure that Satan hates nothing so much,
after the Lord Jesus, as the servants of the Gospel. But wait, and
I shall even yet "bruise thy head with my heel" (Gen. iii.);
naught shall avail thee.
Howbeit, before the blessed Sunday came I perceived that many of
my people went out of my way, both in the village and elsewhere in
the parish, where I went to visit sundry sick folks. When I went
to Uekeritze to see young Tittelwitz, there even befell me as
follows. Claus Pieper the peasant stood in his yard chopping wood,
and on seeing me he flung the axe out of his hand so hastily that
it stuck in the ground, and he ran towards the pig-stye, making
the sign of the cross. I motioned him to stop, and asked why he
thus ran from me his confessor? Whether, peradventure, he also
believed that my daughter had bewitched her little godchild?
_Ille_. Yes, he believed it, because the whole parish did.
_Ego_. Why, then, had she been so kind to her formerly, and
kept her like a sister, through the worst of the famine?
_Ille_. This was not the only mischief she had done.
_Ego_. What, then, had she done besides? _Ille_. That
was all one to me. _Ego_. He should tell me, or I would
complain to the magistrate. _Ille_. That I might do, if I
pleased. Whereupon he went his way insolently. Any one may guess
that I was not slow to inquire everywhere, what people thought my
daughter had done; but no one would tell me anything, and I might
have grieved to death at such evil reports. Moreover, not one
child came during this whole week to school to my daughter; and
when I sent out the maid to ask the reason, she brought back word
that the children were ill, or that the parents wanted them for
their work. I thought and thought, but all to no purpose, until
the blessed Sunday came round, when I meant to have held a great
Sacrament, seeing that many people had made known their intention
to come to the Lord's Table. It seemed strange to me that I saw no
one standing, as was their wont, about the church door; I thought,
however, that they might have gone into the houses. But when I
went into the church with my daughter, there were not more than
six people assembled, among whom was old Lizzie Kolken; and the
accursed witch no sooner saw my daughter follow me, than she made
the sign of the cross and ran out of the door under the steeple;
whereupon the five others, among them mine own churchwarden Claus
Bulken (I had not appointed any one in the room of old Seden),
followed her. I was so horror-struck that my blood curdled, and I
began to tremble, so that I fell with my shoulder against the
confessional. My child, to whom I had as yet told nothing, in
order to spare her, then asked me, "Father, what is the matter
with all the people? are they, too, bewitched?" Whereupon I came
to myself again, and went into the churchyard to look after them.
But all were gone save my churchwarden Claus Bulken, who stood
under the lime-tree whistling to himself. I stepped up to him, and
asked what had come to the people? whereupon he answered, he could
not tell; and when I asked him again, why, then, he himself had
left the church, he said, What was he to do there alone, seeing
that no collection could be made? I then implored him to tell me
the truth, and what horrid suspicion had arisen against me in the
parish? But he answered, I should very soon find it out for
myself; and he jumped over the wall and went into old Lizzie her
house, which stands close by the churchyard.
My child had made ready some veal broth for dinner, for which I
mostly use to leave everything else; but I could not swallow one
spoonful, but sat resting my head on my hand, and doubted whether
I should tell her or no. Meanwhile the old maid came in, ready for
a journey, and with a bundle in her hand, and begged me with tears
to give her leave to go. My poor child turned pale as a corpse,
and asked in amaze what had come to her? but she merely answered,
"Nothing!" and wiped her eyes with her apron. When I recovered my
speech, which had well-nigh left me at seeing that this faithful
old creature was also about to forsake me, I began to question her
why she wished to go; she who had dwelt with me so long, and who
would not forsake us even in the great famine, but had faithfully
borne up against it, and indeed had humbled me by her faith, and
had exhorted me to stand out gallantly to the last, for which I
should be grateful to her as long as I lived. Hereupon she merely
wept and sobbed yet more, and at length brought out that she still
had an old mother of eighty, living in Liepe, and that she wished
to go and nurse her till her end. Hereupon my daughter jumped up,
and answered with tears, "Alas, old Ilse, why wilt thou leave us,
for thy mother is with thy brother! Do but tell me why thou wilt
forsake me, and what harm have I done thee, that I may make it
good to thee again." But she hid her face in her apron, and
sobbed, and could not get out a single word; whereupon my child
drew away the apron from her face, and would have stroked her
cheeks, to make her speak. But when Ilse saw this she struck my
poor child's hand, and cried "Ugh!" spat out before her, and
straightway went out at the door. Such a thing she had never done
even when my child was a little girl, and we were both so shocked
that we could neither of us say a word.
Before long my poor child gave a loud cry, and cast herself upon
the bench, weeping and wailing, "What has happened, what has
happened?" I therefore thought I ought to tell her what I had
heard, namely, that she was looked upon as a witch. Whereat she
began to smile instead of weeping any more, and ran out of the
door to overtake the maid, who had already left the house, as we
had seen. She returned after an hour crying out that all the
people in the village had run away from her, when she would have
asked them whither the maid was gone. _Item_, the little
children, for whom she had kept school, had screamed, and had
hidden themselves from her: also no one would answer her a single
word, but all spat out before her, as the maid had done. On her
way home she had seen a boat on the water, and had run as fast as
she could to the shore, and called with might and main after old
Ilse, who was in the boat. But she had taken no notice of her, not
even once to look round after her, but had motioned her to be
gone. And now she went on to weep and to sob the whole day and the
whole night, so that I was more miserable than even in the time of
the great famine. But the worst was yet to come, as will be shown
in the following chapter.
CHAPTER XVII.
_How my poor child was taken up for a witch, and carried to
Pudgla._
The next day, Monday, the 12th July, at about eight in the
morning, while we sat in our grief, wondering who could have
prepared such great sorrow for us, and speedily agreed that it
could be none other than the accursed witch Lizzie Kolken, a coach
with four horses drove quickly up to the door, wherein sat six
fellows, who straightway all jumped out. Two went and stood at the
front, two at the back door, and two more, one of whom was the
constable Jacob Knake, came into the room, and handed me a warrant
from the sheriff for the arrest of my daughter, as in common
repute of being a wicked witch, and for her examination before the
criminal court. Any one may guess how my heart sunk within me when
I read this. I dropped to the earth like a felled tree, and when I
came to myself my child had thrown herself upon me with loud
cries, and her hot tears ran down over my face. When she saw that
I came to myself, she began to praise God therefore with a loud
voice, and essayed to comfort me, saying that she was innocent,
and should appear with a clean conscience before her judges.
_Item_, she repeated to me the beautiful text from Matthew,
chap. v.: "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute
you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for My
sake."
And she begged me to rise and to throw my cassock over my doublet,
and go with her, for that without me she would not suffer herself
to be carried before the sheriff. Meanwhile, however, all the
village--men, women, and children--had thronged together before my
door; but they remained quiet, and only peeped in at the windows
as though they would have looked right through the house. When we
had both made us ready, and the constable, who at first would not
take me with them, had thought better of it, by reason of a good
fee which my daughter gave him, we walked to the coach; but I was
so helpless that I could not get up into it.
Old Paasch, when he saw this, came and helped me up into the
coach, saying, "God comfort ye! Alas, that you should ever see
your child come to this!" and he kissed my hand to take leave.
A few others came up to the coach, and would have done likewise;
but I besought them not to make my heart still heavier, and to
take Christian charge of my house and my affairs until I should
return. Also to pray diligently for me and my daughter, so that
the evil one, who had long gone about our village like a roaring
lion, and who now threatened to devour me, might not prevail
against us, but might be forced to depart from me and from my
child as from our guileless Saviour in the wilderness. But to this
none answered a word; and I heard right well, as we drove away,
that many spat out after us, and one said (my child thought it was
Berow her voice), "We would far sooner lay fire under thy coats
than pray for thee." We were still sighing over such words as
these, when we came near to the churchyard, and there sat the
accursed witch Lizzie Kolken at the door of her house with her
hymn-book in her lap, screeching out at the top of her voice, "God
the Father, dwell with us," as we drove past her: the which vexed
my poor child so sore that she swooned, and fell like one dead
upon me. I begged the driver to stop, and called to old Lizzie to
bring us a pitcher of water; but she did as though she had not
heard me, and went on to sing so that it rang again. Whereupon the
constable jumped down, and at my request ran back to my house to
fetch a pitcher of water; and he presently came back with it, and
the people after him, who began to say aloud that my child's bad
conscience had stricken her, and that she had now betrayed
herself. Wherefore I thanked God when she came to life again, and
we could leave the village. But at Uekeritze it was just the same,
for all the people had flocked together, and were standing on the
green before Labahn his house when we went by.
Nevertheless, they were quiet enough as we drove past, albeit some
few cried, "How can it be, how can it be?" I heard nothing else.
But in the forest near the watermill the miller and all his men
ran out and shouted, laughing, "Look at the witch, look at the
witch!" Whereupon one of the men struck at my poor child with the
sack which he held in his hand, so that she turned quite white,
and the flour flew all about the coach like a cloud. When I
rebuked him, the wicked rogue laughed and said, That if no other
smoke than that ever came under her nose, so much the better for
her. _Item_, it was worse in Pudgla than even at the mill.
The people stood so thick on the hill, before the castle, that we
could scarce force our way through, and the sheriff caused the
death-bell in the castle tower to toll as an _avisum_.
Whereupon more and more people came running out of the ale-houses
and cottages. Some cried out, "Is that the witch?" Others, again,
"Look at the parson's witch! the parson's witch!" and much more,
which for very shame I may not write. They scraped up the mud out
of the gutter which ran from the castle kitchen and threw it upon
us; _item_, a great stone, the which struck one of the horses
so that it shied, and belike would have upset the coach had not a
man sprung forward and held it in. All this happened before the
castle gates, where the sheriff stood smiling and looking on, with
a heron's feather stuck in his grey hat. But so soon as the horse
was quiet again he came to the coach and mocked at my child,
saying, "See, young maid, thou wouldest not come to me, and here
thou art nevertheless!" Whereupon she answered, "Yea, I come; and
may you one day come before your Judge as I come before you;"
whereunto I said, Amen, and asked him how his lordship could
answer before God and man for what he had done to a wretched man
like myself and to my child? But he answered, saying, Why had I
come with her? And when I told him of the rude people here,
_item_, of the churlish miller's man, he said that it was not
his fault, and threatened the people all around with his fist, for
they were making a great noise. Thereupon he commanded my child to
get down and to follow him, and went before her into the castle;
motioned the constable, who would have gone with them, to stay at
the foot of the steps, and began to mount the winding staircase to
the upper rooms alone with my child.
But she whispered me privately, "Do not leave me, father;" and I
presently followed softly after them. Hearing by their voices in
which chamber they were, I laid my ear against the door to listen.
And the villain offered to her that if she would love him naught
should harm her, saying he had power to save her from the people;
but that if she would not, she should go before the court next
day, and she might guess herself how it would fare with her,
seeing that he had many witnesses to prove that she had played the
wanton with Satan, and had suffered him to kiss her. Hereupon she
was silent, and only sobbed, which the arch rogue took as a good
sign, and went on, "If you have had Satan himself for a
sweetheart, you surely may love me." And he went to her and would
have taken her in his arms, as I perceived; for she gave a loud
scream, and flew to the door; but he held her fast, and begged and
threatened as the devil prompted him. I was about to go in when I
heard her strike him in the face, saying, "Get thee behind me,
Satan," so that he let her go. Whereupon she ran out at the door
so suddenly that she threw me on the ground, and fell upon me with
a loud cry. Hereat the sheriff, who had followed her, started, but
presently cried out, "Wait, thou prying parson, I will teach thee
to listen!" and ran out and beckoned to the constable who stood on
the steps below. He bade him first shut me up in one dungeon,
seeing that I was an eavesdropper, and then return and thrust my
child into another. But he thought better of it when he had come
half way down the winding-stair, and said he would excuse me this
time, and that the constable might let me go, and only lock up my
child very fast, and bring the key to him, seeing she was a
stubborn person, as he had seen at the very first hearing which he
had given her.
Hereupon my poor child was torn from me, and I fell in a swound
upon the steps. I know not how I got down them; but when I came to
myself, I was in the constable his room, and his wife was throwing
water in my face. There I passed the night sitting in a chair, and
sorrowed more than I prayed, seeing that my faith was greatly
shaken, and the Lord came not to strengthen it.
CHAPTER XVIII.
_Of the first trial, and what came thereof._
Next morning, as I walked up and down in the court, seeing that I
had many times asked the constable in vain to lead me to my child
(he would not even tell me where she lay), and for very
disquietude I had at last begun to wander about there; about six
o'clock there came a coach from Uzdom, [Footnote: Or Usedom, a
small town which gives its name to the whole island.] wherein sat
his worship, Master Samuel Pieper, _consul dirigens_,
_item_, the _camerarius_ Gebhard Wenzel, and a
_scriba_, whose name, indeed, I heard, but have forgotten it
again; and my daughter forgot it too, albeit in other things she
has an excellent memory, and, indeed, told me most of what
follows, for my old head well-nigh burst, so that I myself could
remember but little. I straightway went up to the coach, and
begged that the worshipful court would suffer me to be present at
the trial, seeing that my daughter was yet in her nonage, but
which the sheriff, who meanwhile had stepped up to the coach from
the terrace, whence he had seen all, had denied me. But his
worship Master Samuel Pieper, who was a little round man, with a
fat paunch, and a beard mingled with grey hanging down to his
middle, reached me his hand, and condoled with me like a Christian
in my trouble: I might come into court in God's name; and he
wished with all his heart that all whereof my daughter was fyled
might prove to be foul lies. Nevertheless I had still to wait full
two hours before their worships came down the winding stair again.
At last towards nine o'clock I heard the constable moving about
the chairs and benches in the judgment chamber; and as I conceived
that the time was now come, I went in and sat myself down on a
bench. No one, however, was yet there, save the constable and his
young daughter, who was wiping the table, and held a rosebud
between her lips. I was fain to beg her to give it me, so that I
might have it to smell to; and I believe that I should have been
carried dead out of the room that day if I had not had it. God is
thus able to preserve our lives even by means of a poor flower, if
so He wills it!
At length their worships came in and sat round the table,
whereupon _Dom. Consul_ motioned the constable to fetch in my
child. Meanwhile he asked the sheriff whether he had put
_Rea_ in chains, and when he said No, he gave him such a
reprimand that it went through my very marrow. But the sheriff
excused himself, saying that he had not done so from regard to her
quality, but had locked her up in so fast a dungeon, that she
could not possibly escape therefrom. Whereupon _Dom. Consul_
answered that much is possible to the devil, and that they would
have to answer for it should _Rea_ escape. This angered the
sheriff, and he replied that if the devil could convey her through
walls seven feet thick, and through three doors, he could very
easily break her chains too. Whereupon _Dom. Consul_ said
that hereafter he would look at the prison himself; and I think
that the sheriff had been so kind only because he yet hoped (as,
indeed, will hereafter be shown) to talk over my daughter to let
him have his will of her.
And now the door opened, and my poor child came in with the
constable, but walking backwards, [Footnote: This ridiculous
proceeding always took place at the first examination of a witch,
as it was imagined that she would otherwise bewitch the judges
with her looks. On this occasion indeed such an event was not
unlikely.] and without her shoes, the which she was forced to
leave without. The fellow had seized her by her long hair, and
thus dragged her up to the table, when first she was to turn round
and look upon her judges. He had a vast deal to say in the matter,
and was in every way a bold and impudent rogue, as will soon be
shown. After _Dom. Consul_ had heaved a deep sigh, and gazed
at her from head to foot, he first asked her her name, and how old
she was; _item_, if she knew why she was summoned before
them? On the last point she answered that the sheriff had already
told her father the reason; that she wished not to wrong any one,
but thought that the sheriff himself had brought upon her the
repute of a witch, in order to gain her to his wicked will.
Hereupon she told all his ways with her, from the very first, and
how he would by all means have had her for his housekeeper; and
that when she would not (although he had many times come himself
to her father his house), one day, as he went out of the door, he
had muttered in his beard, "I will have her, despite of all!"
which their servant Claus Neels had heard, as he stood in the
stable; and he had also sought to gain his ends by means of an
ungodly woman, one Lizzie Kolken, who had formerly been in his
service; that this woman, belike, had contrived the spells which
they laid to her charge: she herself knew nothing of witchcraft;
_item_, she related what the sheriff had done to her the
evening before, when she had just come, and when he for the first
time spoke out plainly, thinking that she was then altogether in
his power: nay, more, that he had come to her that very night
again, in her dungeon, and had made her the same offers, saying
that he would set her free if she would let him have his will of
her; and that when she denied him, he had struggled with her,
whereupon she had screamed aloud, and had scratched him across the
nose, as might yet be seen, whereupon he had left her; wherefore
she would not acknowledge the sheriff as her judge, and trusted in
God to save her from the hand of her enemies, as of old He had
saved the chaste Susannah.
When she now held her peace amid loud sobs, _Dom. Consul_
started up after he had looked, as we all did, at the sheriff's
nose, and had in truth espied the scar upon it, and cried out in
amaze, "Speak, for God His sake, speak, what is this that I hear
of your lordship?" Whereupon the sheriff, without changing colour,
answered, that although, indeed, he was not called upon to say
anything to their worships, seeing that he was the head of the
court, and that _Rea_, as appeared from numberless
_indicia_, was a wicked witch, and therefore could not bear
witness against him or any one else; he, nevertheless, would
speak, so as to give no cause of scandal to the court; that all
the charges brought against him by this person were foul lies; it
was, indeed, true, that he would have hired her for a housekeeper,
whereof he stood greatly in need, seeing that his old Dorothy was
already growing infirm; it was also true that he had yesterday
questioned her in private, hoping to get her to confess by fair
means, whereby her sentence would be softened, inasmuch as he had
pity on her great youth; but that he had not said one naughty word
to her, nor had he been to her in the night; and that it was his
little lap-dog, called Below, which had scratched him, while he
played with it that very morning; that his old Dorothy could bear
witness to this, and that the cunning witch had only made use of
this wile to divide the court against itself, thereby, and with
the devil's help, to gain her own advantage, inasmuch as she was a
most cunning creature, as the court would soon find out.
Hereupon I plucked up a heart, and declared that all my daughter
had said was true, and that the evening before I myself had heard,
through the door, how his lordship had made offers to her, and
would have done wantonness with her; _item_, that he had
already sought to kiss her once at Coserow; _item_, the
troubles which his lordship had formerly brought upon me in the
matter of the first-fruits.
Howbeit the sheriff presently talked me down, saying, that if I
had slandered him, an innocent man, in church, from the pulpit, as
the whole congregation could bear witness, I should doubtless find
it easy to do as much here, before the court; not to mention that
a father could, in no case, be a witness for his own child.
But _Dom. Consul_ seemed quite confounded, and was silent,
and leaned his head on the table, as in deep thought. Meanwhile
the impudent constable began to finger his beard from under his
arm; and _Dom. Consul_, thinking it was a fly, struck at him
with his hand, without even looking up; but when he felt the
constable his hand, he jumped up and asked him what he wanted?
whereupon the fellow answered, "Oh, only a louse was creeping
there, and I would have caught it."
At such impudence his worship was so exceeding wroth that he
struck the constable on the mouth, and ordered him, on pain of
heavy punishment, to leave the room.
Hereupon he turned to the sheriff, and cried angrily, "Why, in the
name of all the ten devils, is it thus your lordship keeps the
constable in order? and truly, in this whole matter there is
something which passes my understanding." But the sheriff
answered, "Not so; should you not understand it all when you think
upon the eels?"
Hereat _Dom. Consul_ of a sudden turned ghastly pale, and
began to tremble, as it appeared to me, and called the sheriff
aside into another chamber. I have never been able to learn what
that about the eels could mean.
Meanwhile _Dominus Camerarius_ Gebhard Wenzel sat biting his
pen and looking furiously--now at me, and now at my child, but
said not a word; neither did he answer _Scriba_, who often
whispered somewhat into his ear, save by a growl. At length both
their worships came back into the chamber together, and _Dom.
Consul_, after he and the sheriff had seated themselves, began
to reproach my poor child violently, saying that she had sought to
make a disturbance in the worshipful court; that his lordship had
shown him the very dog which had scratched his nose, and that,
moreover, the fact had been sworn to by the old housekeeper.
(Truly _she_ was not likely to betray him, for the old harlot
had lived with him for years, and she had a good big boy by him,
as will be seen hereafter.)
_Item_, he said that so many _indicia_ of her guilt had
come to light, that it was impossible to believe anything she
might say; she was therefore to give glory to God, and openly to
confess everything, so as to soften her punishment; whereby she
might perchance, in pity for her youth, escape with life, &c.
Hereupon he put his spectacles on his nose, and began to
cross-question her, during near four hours, from a paper which he
held in his hand. These were the main articles, as far as we both
can remember:
_Quæstio_. Whether she could bewitch?--_Responsio_. No;
she knew nothing of witchcraft.
_Q_. Whether she could charm?--_R_. Of that she knew as
little.
_Q_. Whether she had ever been on the Blocksberg?--_R_.
That was too far off for her; she knew few hills save the
Streckelberg, where she had been very often.
_Q_. What had she done there?--_R_. She had looked out
over the sea, or gathered flowers; _item_, at times carried
home an apronful of dry brushwood.
_Q_. Whether she had ever called upon the devil
there?--_R_. That had never come into her mind.
_Q_. Whether, then, the devil had appeared to her there,
uncalled?--R. God defend her from such a thing.
_Q_. So she could not bewitch?--_R_. No.
_Q_. What, then, befell Kit Zuter his spotted cow, that it
suddenly died in her presence?--_R_. She did not know; and
that was a strange question.
_Q_.. Then it would be as strange a question, why Katie Berow
her little pig had died?--_R_. Assuredly; she wondered what
they would lay to her charge.
_Q_. Then she had not bewitched them?--_R_. No; God
forbid it.
_Q_. Why, then, if she were innocent, had she promised old
Katie another little pig, when her sow should litter?--_R_.
She did that out of kind-heartedness. (And hereupon she began to
weep bitterly, and said she plainly saw that she had to thank old
Lizzie Kolken for all this, inasmuch as she had often threatened
her when she would not fulfil all her greedy desires, for she
wanted everything that came in her way; moreover, that Lizzie had
gone all about the village when the cattle were bewitched,
persuading the people that if only a pure maid pulled a few hairs
out of the beasts' tails they would get better. That she pitied
them, and knowing herself to be a maid, went to help them; and
indeed, at first it cured them, but latterly not.)
_Q_. What cattle had she cured?--_R_. Zabel his red cow;
_item_, Witthan her pig, and old Lizzie's own cow.
_Q_. Why could she afterwards cure them no more?--_R_.
She did not know, but thought-albeit she had no wish to fyle any
one--that old Lizzie Kolken, who for many a long year had been in
common repute as a witch, had done it all, and bewitched the cows
in her name and then charmed them back again, as she pleased, only
to bring her to misfortune.
_Q_. Why, then, had old Lizzie bewitched her own cow,
_item_, suffered her own pig to die, if it was she that had
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