How a new leaf is turned over at Bruchhausen in a very fearful manner-Old Appelmann takes his worthless son prisoner, and admonishes him to repentance-Of Johann's wonderful Of Sidonia's disappearance for thirty years-Item, how the young Princess Elizabeth Magdelene was possessed by a devil, and How Sidonia demeans herself at the Convent of Marienfliess- Item, how their Princely and Electoral Graces of Pomerania, How Sidonia meets their Graces upon the ice-Item, how Dinnies How Barnim the Tenth succeeds to the government, and how Sidonia meets him as she is gathering bilberries-Item, of Duke Bogislaff XIII. accepts the government of the duchy, and gives Sidonia at last the long-desired præbenda-Item, of her How the sub-prioress, Dorothea Stettin, visits Sidonia and extols her virtue-Item, of Sidonia's quarrel with the dairy-woman, and how she beats the sheriff himself, Eggert Sparling, with How Sidonia visits the abbess, Magdalena von Petersdorf, and explains her wishes, but is diverted to other objects by a sight Sidonia tries another way to catch the priest, but fails through a mistake-Item, of her horrible spell, whereby she bewitched the whole princely race of Pomerania, so that, to the grievous sorrow of their fatherland, they remain barren even unto this BOOK I. FROM THE RECEPTION OF SIDONIA AT THE DUCAL COURT OF WOLGAST UNTIL HER BANISHMENT THEREFROM. VOL. I. A SIDONIA THE SORCERESS CHAPTER I. Of the education of Sidonia. THE illustrious and high-born prince and lord, Bogislaff, fourteenth Duke of Pomerania, Prince of Cassuben, Wenden, and Rugen, Count of Güzkow, Lord of the lands of Lauenburg and Butow, and my gracious feudal seigneur, having commanded me, Dr. Theodore Plönnies, formerly bailiff at the ducal court, to make search throughout all the land for information respecting the world-famed sorceress, Sidonia von Bork, and write down the same in a book, I set out for Stargard, accompanied by a servant, early one Friday after the Visitationis Maria, 1629; for, in my opinion, in order to form a just judgment respecting the character of any one, it is necessary to make one's self acquainted with the circumstances of their early life; the future man lies enshrined in the child, and the peculiar development of each individual nature is the result entirely of education. Sidonia's history is a remarkable proof of this. I visited first, therefore, the scenes of her early years; but almost all who had known her were long since in their graves, seeing that ninety years had passed since the time of her birth. However, the old innkeeper at Stargard, Zabel Wiese, himself very far advanced in years (whom I can recommend to all travellers-he lives in the Pelzerstrasse), told me that the old bachelor, Claude Uckermann of Dalow, an aged man of ninety-two years old, 3 |