The Most Interesting Trial for Witchcraft Ever Known.—
Printed From An Imperfect Manuscript by Her Father.—
Edited By W. Meinhold, Doctor of Theology, Pastor, Etc.
Originally published in Hood's Magazine and Comic Miscellany (Andrew Spottiswoode) vol.2 (1844).
A most curious and deeply interesting,—indeed, in a psychological point of view, most important subject of inquiry, is that of witchcraft. No belief has been so universal as this; no other superstition has cast its dark shadow over so many ages and so many countries. The most learned and the most ignorant have alike yielded unhesitating assent to its truth; men holding the most opposite political opinions, the most diverse religious creeds,—Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, have all met here on common ground. Indeed, although the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were most distinguished for their belief in witchcraft, and the persecutions then far surpassed in extent and wild cruelty those of any other age, still we shall scarcely find a period, from the earliest records of man, when a belief in Satanic possession and agency was unknown. And most curious is it to find, that amid all the differences of age, country, religion, and social arrangements, this belief was substantially the same,—modified by circumstances, indeed, like the dress or customs of the people, but the same in its grand outlines, like human nature itself. We find the magic song of Thessaly re-echoed in the "Runic rhyme," and are startled to find the old crone, who never wandered ten miles beyond her native village, using the same charm, compounding the same potion, as the witch of classical times, or the still more ancient Egyptian.
Among the many desiderata of the learned world, a good history of witchcraft may well be placed. Such a work would indeed require the labour of a lifetime, but it would be a work which for deep and appalling interest would have few rivals. The subject of witchcraft appears to have lately excited much attention in Germany, and the little work before us is offered by Dr. Meinhold as a contribution towards its history.
Abraham Schweidler, the pastor of Coserow, in the island of Usedom, an aged widower with one fair daughter, on whose education he had bestowed much pains, even teaching her Latin and Greek, is reduced to great poverty during the Thirty Years' war, through the plunder of the Imperial army. "Coffers, chests, closets, were all plundered and broken in pieces, and my surplice also was torn, so that I remained in great distress and tribulation, with not one dust of flour, nor one grain of corn, nor one morsel of meat even of a finger's length, left, and I knew not how I should longer support my own life, or that of my poor child." In this extremity he asks aid in vain from the sheriff of the district, and he would have perished from want if Hinrich Seden had not begged for him and obtained five loaves, two sausages, a goose, and a flitch of bacon." For this kindness the old man however prayed his pastor "to shield him from his wife,"
—"who would have had half for herself, and when he denied her she cursed him, and wished him gout in his head; whereupon he straightway felt a pain in his right cheek, and it was quite hard and heavy already. At such shocking news I was affrighted, as became a good pastor, and asked whether peradventure he believed that she stood in evil communication with Satan, and could bewitch folks? But he said nothing, and shrugged his shoulders. So I sent for old Lizzie to come to me, who was a tall, meagre woman of about sixty, with squinting eyes, so that she could not look any one in the face; likewise with quite red hair, and indeed her goodman had the same. But though I diligently admonished her out of God's word, she made no answer until at last I said, 'Wilt thou unbewitch thy goodman (for I saw from the window how that he was raving in the street like a madman), or wilt thou that I should inform the magistrate of thy deeds?' then, indeed, she gave in, and promised that he should soon be better (and so he was); moreover she begged that I would give her some bread and some bacon, inasmuch as it was three days since she had had a bit of anything to put between her lips, saving always her tongue. So my daughter gave her half a loaf, and a piece of bacon about two hands-breadths large; but she did not think it enough, and muttered between her teeth; whereupon my daughter said, 'If thou art not content, thou old witch, go thy ways and help thy goodman; see how he has laid his head on Zabel's fence, and stamps with his feet for pain.' Whereupon she went away, but still kept muttering between her teeth, 'Yea, forsooth, I will help him and thee too.'"
Soon after, the pastor's sole remaining cow drops down dead, and worse, another troop of Imperialists enter the district; so he and his flock retire to the woods, from whence they see their village in flames. While ill the woods, their sufferings are increased by seeing "the deer and wild boars run past us, when we would so gladly have had them, but there was neither a grain of powder or musket left in the whole parish." In this farther extremity he determines to write to a neighbouring pastor for aid from his parishioners, and returning to his cottage, "having scraped some soot from the chimney and mixed it with water, I tore a blank leaf out of 'Virgilius,' and wrote." This letter produces but little, only six loaves, a sheep, and some apples; so he again ventures to write to the churlish sheriff, which he does upon the only remaining blank leaf of his daughter's "Virgilius." In writing, unfortunately,
"A huge blot fell upon my paper; for the windows being boarded up, the room was dark, and but little light came through two small panes of glass, which I had broken out of the church, and stuck in between the boards: this, perhaps, was the reason why I did not see better. However, as I could not any where get another piece of paper, I let it pass, and ordered the maid, whom I sent with the letter to Pudgla, to excuse the same to his lordship the Sheriff, the which she promised to do; seeing that I could not add a word more on the paper, as it was written all over. I then scaled it as I had done before.
But the poor creature came back trembling for fear, and bitterly weeping, and said that bis lordship had kicked her out of the castle-gate, and had threatened to set her in the stocks if she ever came before him again. 'Did the parson think that he was as free with his money as I seemed to be with my ink? I surely had water enough to celebrate the Lord's Supper wherewithal.'"
In great distress the poor pastor meets his starving flock on the Sunday, and relates to them how the sheriff had refused them relief. This is told to him, and from henceforth "his lordship" becomes the bitter enemy of pastor Schweidler. Meanwhile the famine continues, and his daughter Mary gradually sinks under it; so at length he determines to leave his parish, "and beg our way to Hamburgh." From this his daughter dissuades him, and, rejoiced at the unexpected gift of "two loaves, a piece of meat, a bag of oatmeal, and a bag of salt," she cheers up her father, calls for the little children whom she was accustomed to instruct, and feeds them, bidding him take no thought for the morrow. In the afternoon Mary went up the Streckelberg to seek for blackberries.
"The maid was chopping wood in the yard, to which end she had borrowed old Paasch his axe, for the Imperialist thieves had thrown away mine, so that it could nowhere be found; and I myself was pacing up and down in the room, meditating my sermon; when my child, with her apron full, came quickly in at the door, quite red and with beaming eyes, and scarce able for joy to say more than 'Father, father, what have I got?' 'Well, quoth I, 'what hast thou got, my child?' Whereupon she opened her apron, and I scarce trusted my eyes when I saw, instead of the blackberries which she had gone to seek, two shining pieces of amber, each nearly as big as a man's head, not to mention the small pieces, some of which were as large as my hand, and that, God knows, is no small one. 'Child of my heart,' cried I, 'how cam'st thou by this blessing from God?' As soon as she could fetch her breath, she told me as follows;—
"That while she was seeking for blackberries in a dell near the shore, she saw somewhat glistening in the sun, and on coming near, she found this wondrous Godsend, seeing that the wind had blown the sand away from off a black vein of amber."
The overwhelming joy of the poor father at this most unlooked-for good fortune is very naïvely described, and his journey to Wolgast to sell the precious amber for 500 florins, and the many things they bought, and the "hair-net and scarlet silk bodice, and fine pair of ear-rings," which Mary coaxed him to buy, are all told at length, and also how they shoved two loaves in at a poor man's door, who had been kind to them, and how, the next morning, on their return, "my daughter cut up the blessed bread, and sent to every one in the village a good large piece."
The pastor now begins to prosper. He hires a man servant, purchases a cart and two horses, and on his journey to purchase these, meets with a young nobleman, whom he invites to lodge for the night at his house, and who greatly admires his daughter. Ere long, however, "my Lord Wittich, the sheriff," comes into the neighbourhood wolf-hunting, and catches a sight of the pastor's fair daughter. Next day, "old Seelen's squint-eyed wife" comes with proposals from the sheriff for her to go into service with him as housekeeper. This she refuses vehemently.
"This, however, did hot 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."
During the winter the parish was quiet; and toward spring the pastor lent money to several of the peasants to buy corn with; "and we sent seven waggons to Friedland, to fetch seed-corn for us all." The pastor was, indeed, now a rich man; for, besides the 500 florins, 700 more had been obtained for amber. Meanwhile, a murrain breaks out among the cows and swine, and the pastor's daughter is prayed, when Zabel's red cow appears dying, to pluck three hairs from its tail, and bury them under the threshold of the stall." This she does; and as the cow recovers, her aid is frequently asked to perform this silly but greatly valued charm. But success did not always attend her; so the people now begin to look suspectingly upon her. Unfortunately, she had been seen early in the morning on the Streckelberg, for
"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. (Oh, blessed Lord, how grave a matter is thy holy fourth commandment!) 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 any thing of it."
Soon after, old Scelen was missing; and, as some of his hair was found upon the Streckelberg, and Mary Schweidler was seen there, they began to watch, to find out wherefore she went. Meantime, the joyful news came that the great Gustavus Adolphus "was coming to the aid of poor persecuted Xtendom," and that he would pass direct through Coserow.
"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 on 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."
Great are the preparations throughout the parish, and on the eventful 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.
And proud was the father; but, ho observed with surprise, that although "all the folk looked at us, none drew near to see my child's fine clothes." But, ere long, onward came the procession.
" 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 every thing 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 he 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 scull-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 fore-feet right upon my field, which I took as a sign of good fortune.")
Gustavus now "motioned away the sheriff, and beckoned for me and my daughter to approach."
"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. As soon as she held her peace, his Majesty said: Propius accedas, palria viryo, 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."
Alas! the sorrows of the poor pastor and his daughter now begin. Mary's little god-daughter is said to be bewitched; and the people now speak out, and charge her as the cause; so, when the Sunday comes, and they go to the church, they find but six there; and they, upon the entrance of the daughter, fly away. She now attempts to inquire the cause, but finds that no one will approach her. So she returns to her desolate home; even the faithful old maid-servant having quitted them in terror; and "she went on to weep and sob the whole day and whole night, so that I was more miserable than even in the time of the great famine. But the worst was yet to come."
The following day the poor girl is taken up on charge of being a reputed witch, and is carried, amid the abuse of the populace, to the sheriff's castle, where she undergoes her first examination. At this she charges the sheriff and old Lizzie with having caused her to be suspected. This, however, avails nothing, and she undergoes a long cross-examination as to whether she had ever called upon the devil, bewitched the cattle, or injured the crops; to which she replies, she had always done good. She is then asked how she and her father had suddenly grown so rich, that she could go pranking about in a silk raiment."
"Hereupon she looked towards me, and said, 'Father, shall I tell?' Whereupon I answered, 'Yes, my child, now thou must openly tell all, even though we thereby become beggars.' She accordingly told how, when our need was sorest, she had found the amber, and how much we had gotten for it from the Dutch merchants."
"Q. How came so much amber on the Streckelberg? She had best confess at once that the devil had brought it to her. — R. She knew nothing about that. But there was a great vein of amber there, as she could show to them all that very day; and she had broken out the amber, and covered the hole well over with fir-twigs, so that none should find it.
"Q. When had she gone up the Streckelberg; by day or by night? — R. Hereupon she blushed, and for a moment held her peace; but presently made answer, 'Sometimes by day, and sometimes by night.'
"Q. Why did she hesitate? She had better make a full confession of all, so that her punishment might be less heavy. Had she not there given over old Seden to Satan, who had carried him off through the air, and left only a part of his hair and brains sticking to the top of an oak? — R. She did not know whether that was his hair and brains at all, nor how it came there. She went to the tree one morning because she heard a woodpecker cry so dolefully. Item, old Paasch, who also had heard the cries, came up with his axe in his hand."
She is at length charged with having met the devil "on the 10th of July at midnight, on the Streckelberg. "And now the whole court rose, and exhorted my poor child by the living God to confess the truth."
"Hereupon she heaved a deep sigh, and grew as red as she had been pale before, insomuch that even her hand upon the chair was like scarlet, and she did not raise her eyes from the ground.
"R. She would now then confess the simple truth, as she saw right well that wicked people had stolen after and watched her at nights. That she had been to seek for amber on the mountain, and that to drive away fear she had, as she was wont to do at her work, recited the Latin carmen which her father had made on the illustrious King Gustavus Adolphus: when young Rüdiger of Nienkerken, who had oft-times been at her father's house and talked of love to her, came out of the coppice, and when she cried out for fear, spoke to her in Latin, and clasped her in his arms. That he wore a great wolf's skin coat, so that folks should not know him if they met him, and tell the lord his father that he had been on the mountain by night."
As the poor girl had described the spot where the amber was to be found, the next day she is taken thither by the consul and sheriff; they there search about and dig for it in vain; and when, half despairing, she prays the judges to go with her to her house, where some of the amber was still remaining, she discovers that all is gone.
"But the gown which she had worn at the arrival of the most illustrious King Gustavus Adolphus, as well as the golden chain with his effigy which he had given her, I had locked up, as though it were a relic, in the chest in the vestry, among the altar and pulpit cloths, and there we found them still; and when I excused myself therefore, saying that I had thought to have saved them up for her there against her bridal day, she gazed with fixed and glazed eyes into the box, and cried out, 'Yes, against the day when I shall be burnt; Oh, Jesu, Jesu, Jesu!' Hereat Dom. Consul shuddered and said, 'See how thou still dost smite thyself with thine own words. For the sake of God and thy salvation, confess, for if thou knowest thyself to be innocent, how, then, canst thou think that thou wilt be burnt?' But she still looked him fixedly in the face, and cried aloud in Latin, 'Innocentia, quid est innocentia! Ubi libido dominatur, innocentia leve præsidium est.'
"Hereupon Dom. Consul again shuddered, so that his beard wagged, and said, 'What, dost thou indeed know Latin? Where didst thou learn the Latin?' And when I answered this question as well as I was able for sobbing, he shook his head, and said, 'I never in my life heard of a woman that knew Latin.'"
Heavily the father and child return to her dungeon, from whence she is soon taken to undergo another examination; and, as she still refuses to confess, she is led to the torture chamber. These scenes are painted with vivid and appalling minuteness, and (alas that we should say it!) with rigid truth. The Englishman may, however, well exult, that, fierce as was the persecution of witches during the seventeenth century, England was never disgraced by the cruelties of which the records of Germany, and even more of France, furnish such revolting proofs. The sight of the instruments of torture, terrify the poor girl into answers in the affirmative, to very ridiculous or disgusting question which they put, and she is finally sentenced to be burnt on the Streckelberg. Meanwhile old Lizzie dies in a fearful manner, confessing that the charges against the pastor's daughter have been made up by her and the sheriff. Her confession, however, avails nought, for only the old pastor heard it. In his utter despair of other means of relief the pastor listens to the proposal of the sheriff to carry her off to a house in the forest; but the daughter refuses the offer indignantly, and prepares for death.
On the fatal morning, Mary Schweidler, in the very dress in which she had met the King of Sweden, is placed in the cart with her father and the chaplain, the constable standing behind them with his drawn sword, and the wicked sheriff leading the procession. "We met with many wonders by the way," says the poor father, but when the crowd began to curse his daughter, I mentioned to the custos to begin singing again.
"Whereupon the folks were once more quiet for a while—i.e. for so long as the verse lasted; but afterwards they rioted worse than before. But we were now come among the meadows, and when my child saw the beauteous flowers which grew along the sides of the ditches, she fell into deep thought, and begun again to recite aloud the sweet song of St. Augustinus as follows:—
Around them, bright with endless Spring, perpetual roses bloom,
Warm balsams gratefully exude luxurious perfume;
Red crocusses, and lilies white, shine dazzling in the sun;
Green meadows yield them harvests green, and streams with honey run;
Unbroken droop the laden boughs, with heavy fruitage bent,
Of incense and of odours strange the air is redolent:
And neither sun, nor moon, nor stars dispense their changeful light,
But the Lamb's eternal glory makes the happy city bright!
By this Casus we gained that all the folk ran cursing away from the cart, and followed us at the distance of a good musket-shot, thinking that my child was calling on Satan to help her. Only one lad, of about five-and-twenty, whom, however, I did not know, tarried a few paces behind the cart, until his father came, and seeing he would not go away willingly, pushed him into the ditch, so that he sank up to his loins in the water. Thereat even my poor child smiled, and asked me whether I did not know any more Latin hymns wherewith to keep the stupid and foul-mouthed people still further from us. But, dear reader, how could I then have been able to recite Latin hymns, even had I known any?"
The chaplain now helps her to a verse of that noble hymn, "Dies Iras," "albeit it is heretical," naïvely says the father; but while repeating the verse, "Rex tremendæ majestatis," a heavy storm comes on, and the crowd, doubting not that the Latin had raised it, run away as fast as they can. Meanwhile there is thunder, lightning, and high wind, and the sheriff rides back to the cart.
"Moreover, just as we were crossing the bridge over the mill-race, we were seized by the blast, which swept up a hollow from the Achterwater with such force that we conceived it must drive our cart down the abyss, which was at least forty feet deep or more; and seeing that, at the same time, the horses did as though they were upon ice, and could not stand, the driver halted to let the storm pass over, the which the sheriff no sooner perceived, than he galloped up and bade him go on forthwith. Whereupon the man flogged on the horses, but they slipped about after so strange a fashion, that our guards with the pitchforks fell back, and my child cried aloud for fear; and when we were come to the place were the great water
wheell turned just below us, the driver fell with his horse, which broke one of its legs. Then the constable jumped down from the cart, but straightway fell too, on the slippery ground; item, the driver, after getting on his legs again, fell a second time. Hereupon the sheriff with a curse spurred on his grey charger, which likewise began to slip as our horses had also done.
"Presently a long flash of lightning shot into the water below us, followed by a clap of thunder so sudden and so awful that the whole bridge shook, and the Sheriff his horse (our horses stood quite still) started back a few paces, lost its footing, and, together with its rider, shot headlong down upon the great mill-wheel below, whereupon a fearful cry arose from all those that stood behind us on the bridge. For a while nought could be seen for the white foam, until the sheriff his legs and body were borne up into the air by the wheel, his head being stuck fast between the fellies; and thus, fearful to behold, he went round and round upon the wheel. Nought ailed the grey charger, which swam about in the mill-pond below. When I saw this, I seized the hand of my innocent lamb, and cried. Behold, Mary, our Lord God yet liveth! 'and he rode upon a cherub, and did fly; yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.'"
All is now confusion, "but as the Consul is certain that poor Mary Schweidler had brewed the storm, and caused the death of the sheriff, he commands the cart to move on, and after that Dom Consul had prayed 'God the father dwell in us,' likewise the Custos led another hymn, (I know not what he sung, neither does my child,) we went on our way."
"And when he had gone through the little wood, we suddenly saw the Streckelberg before us, covered with people, and the pile and stake upon the top, upon the which the tall constable jumped up when he saw us coming, and beckoned with his cap with all his might. Thereat my senses left me, and my sweet lamb was not much better; for she bent to and fro like a reed, and stretching her bound hands towards heaven, she once more cried out:
'Rex tremendæ majestatis
Qui salvandos salvas gratis
Salva me, fons pietatis.'
And, behold, scarce had she spoken these words, when the sun came out and formed a rainbow right over the mountain most pleasant to behold; and it is clear that this was a sign from the merciful God, such as he often gives us, but which we blind and unbelieving men do not rightly mark. Neither did my child heed it; for albeit she thought upon that first rainbow which shadowed forth our troubles, yet it seemed to her impossible that she could now be saved; wherefore she grew so faint, that she no longer heeded the blessed sign of mercy, and her head fell, forwards, (for she could no longer lean it upon me, seeing that I lay my length at the bottom of the cart,) till her garland almost touched my worthy gossip his knees. Thereupon, he bade the driver stop for a moment, and pulled out a small flask filled with wine, which he always carried in his pocket when witches are to be burnt, in order to comfort them therewith in their terror. (Henceforth, I myself will ever do the like, for this fashion of my dear gossip pleases me well.) He first poured some of this wine down my throat, and afterwards down my child's; and we had scarce come to ourselves again, when a fearful noise and tumult arose among the people behind us and they not only cried out in deadly fear, "The sheriff is come back! the sheriff is come again!" but as they could neither run away forwards or backwards (being afraid of the ghost behind and of ray child before them), they ran on either side, some rushing into the coppice, and others wading into the Achtemater up to their necks. Item, as soon as Dom. Camerarius saw the ghost come out of the coppice with a grey hat and a grey feather, such as the sheriff wore, riding on the grey charger, he crept under a bundle of straw in the cart; and Dom. Consul cursed my child again, and bade the coachmen drive on as madly as they could, even should all the horses die of it, when the impudent constable behind us called to him, "It is not the sheriff, but the young lord of Nienkerken, who will surely seek to save the witch."
And truly it was! The remainder of the story may be easily imagined. "The Amber Witch" is led home to her father's house, and soon after married to the young lord in that very silk gown in which she had been led to execution. "Here end these interesting communications," says the editor, who however tells us, that a tablet to the memory of that young lord and his wife may still be seen in the church of Mellenthin.
Froom the outline we have given of this story, the reader will perceives that it is indeed one of great interest; but he will probably be surprised to learn that it is believed to be a mere fiction. If this be the case, Dr. Meinhotd is entitled to rank very high among writers of fiction, to take, as the Quarterly has said, a station next to Defoe. But even if the Amber Witch be a mere tale, the illustrations it affords of the belief in witchcraft, and the cruelties practised on supposed witches, are all strictly true. None but one well versed in that history could have told the tale of Mary Schweidler, and none but a writer of great power could have told it so truthfully and so well.