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)
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, 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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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