Mary Schweidler, the amber witch: The most interesting trial for witchcraft ever known, printed from an imperfect manuscript by her father, Abraham Schweidler, the pastor of Coserow in the island of Usedom / edited by W. Meinhold ; translated from the German by Lady Duff Gordon.Meinhold, Wilhelm
General
Mary Schweidler, the amber witch: The most interesting trial for witchcraft ever known, printed from an imperfect manuscript by her father, Abraham Schweidler, the pastor of Coserow in the island of Usedom / edited by W. Meinhold ; translated from the German by Lady Duff Gordon.
Meinhold, Wilhelm
Witchcraft -- Pomerania (Poland and Germany)
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 sty. 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.
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