The gloomy provost was the man in the regiment who was held in the most awe; he was naturally considered as pre-eminently an adept. In 1618, it was supposed that the executioner of Pilsen could, with the help of an assistant, fire daily three fatal balls against the camp of Mansfeld; after the capture of the city, he was hanged on a special gallows. The provost of the Hatzfeld army of 1636 was still more versed in sorcery: he was killed by the Swedes with an axe, because he was magically hardened. It was very much in the interest of these authorities to keep up amongst the revengeful soldiery the belief in their invulnerability. We may add to these delusions, the endeavours of individuals to read from the course of the stars the events and issue of the war, and their own fate. Prognostics accumulated, the terrors of the approaching year were unweariedly prophesied from constellations, shooting-stars, comets, and other atmospheric phenomena; the casting of horoscopes was general. Some individuals also possessed second sight, they foresaw to whom the approaching future would be fatal. When in 1636 the Imperial Saxon army was lying before Magdeburg, there was an invalid mathematician in the camp who foretold to his friends that the 26th of June would be fatal to him. He was lying in a closed tent when a lieutenant rode up, and unloosening the tent cords, forced himself in and begged the sick man to draw his nativity. After refusing a long time, the invalid prophesied to him that he would be hanged that very hour. The lieutenant, very indignant that any one should dare to say such a thing to a cavalier, drew his sword and killed the sick man. There immediately arose a great tumult, the murderer then threw himself upon his horse and tried to escape; it happened however, accidentally, that the Elector of Saxony was riding through the camp with General Hatzfeld and a great retinue. The Elector exclaimed, that there would be bad discipline in the Imperial camp if the life of a sick man in bed could not be secured from murderers. The lieutenant was hanged. Whoever was considered the possessor of such secrets was feared by his comrades, but not esteemed. "For if they were not cowardly, dastardly ninnies, they would not use such charms." Certain officers in the sixteenth century caused every prisoner to be hanged upon whom were found jagged or iron-coated balls, "which were consecrated for the sake of a soul." In the Thirty years' war, a coward begged of his comrade a Passau parchment, who wrote on a strip of paper three times: "Defend yourself, scoundrel," folded it up and made the dastard sew it in his clothes. From that day every one imagined that he was invulnerable, and he went about on all occasions amongst the enemies' weapons, as hard as horn, like a _Siegfried_, and always came out unwounded.