"In the year 1528, when my parents discovered that the Hartmann party were not to be mollified, and would not let my father return to the town and to his business, they desired, as is becoming an honest couple, to bear the burden of housekeeping together, and thus my mother must needs follow my father. Therefore my father became a citizen of Stralsund, and bought a house there; my mother in the spring quitted Greifswald, sold her house, and settled near the Sound. About the same time my step-grandfather, who was then chamberlain at Greifswald, took me to his house, that I might study there. I however studied very little, for I preferred riding and driving with my grandfather to the neighbouring villages, so that I made little progress in my studies. "In the year 1529, my mother being pregnant, wished to have a scouring and washing before her confinement, as is customary with women. Now my parents had at this time a servant-maid who was possessed with an evil spirit; it had hitherto not shown itself, but now, when she had to scour the numerous kitchen utensils, and took down the kettle and saucepan, she threw them on the ground in a dreadful way, and cried out, with a loud voice, 'I will away!' When therefore they found the reason of this, her mother, who dwelt in the Patinenmacher Strasse, took her home, and she was taken several times in a Riga sledge to the church of St. Nicholas. When the sermon was ended, the spirit was exorcised; and it appeared from its confession, that her mother having bought a fresh sour cheese, and placed it in the cupboard, the maiden had gone there in her absence and eaten of the cheese. Now when the mother saw that some one had been to the cheese, she had wished that person possessed of the evil spirit, and ever since, he had dwelt in the maiden. When he was then asked how he could have remained in the maiden, as since then she had received the sacrament, he answered, 'A rogue may lie under a bridge whilst a good man is passing over;' he had meanwhile been under her tongue. He was not only exorcised and expelled, but each and every one present in the church knelt down and prayed diligently and devoutly. He however, loudly scoffed at the exorcism, for when the preacher conjured him to go away, he said he would depart, he must forsooth give up the field; but he demanded that he might be allowed to take away with him sundry things, and if this demand were refused, he would be free to remain. One of those present having his hat on whilst praying, the evil spirit begged of the preacher to allow him to take off this hat; he would then depart, and carry it away with him. I feared that, had it been permitted him by God, the hair and scalp would have gone with the hat. At last, when he perceived that his time for vexing the maiden was passed, and that our Lord God listened mercifully to the prayers of the believers present, he demanded mockingly a square of glass from the window over the tower