And all who stood round saw, as it were, a wonderful sign from God; for as the executioner let the sword fall, head and sun appeared at the same moment-the head upon the earth, the sun above the earth; and there was a deep silence. Sidonia alone laughed out loud, and cried, "So ends the conversion!" And while the psalm was singing, "Now, pray we to the Holy Ghost," the executioner acting as clerk, she disappeared, and for thirty years, as we shall hear presently, no one could ascertain where she went to or how she lived; though sometimes, like a horrible ghost, she was seen occasionally here and there.

Summa. The miserable criminal was laid in his coffin, and as, in truth, it was too short for the corpse, and the poor sinner had requested that his head might not be placed between his feet, so it was laid upon his chest, with his hands folded over it, and thus he was buried.

The old father rejoiced greatly that his son remained steadfast in the truth until the last, and thanked God for it. Then he returned to Stargard; and I may just mention, to conclude concerning him, that the merciful God heard the prayer of this His faithful servant, for he scarcely survived his son a year, but, after a short illness, fell asleep in Jesus.*

CHAPTER XIX.

Of Sidonia's disappearance for thirty years-Item, how the young Princess Elizabeth Magdelene was possessed by a devil, and of the sudden death of her father, Ernest Ludovicus of Pomerania.

I HAVE said that Sidonia disappeared after the execution at Bruchhausen, and that for thirty years no one knew where

* For further particulars concerning this truly worthy man, who may well be called the Pomeranian Manlius, see Friedeborn, "Description of Old Stettin," vol. ii. p. 113; and Barthold, "Pomeranian History," pp. 46, 419.

she lived or how she lived. At her farm-house at Zachow she never appeared; but the Acta Criminalia set forth that during that period she wandered about the towns of Freienwald, Regenwald, Stargard, and other places, in company with Peter Konnemann and divers other knaves.

However, the ducal prosecutor, although he instituted the strictest inquiries at the period of her trial, could ascertain nothing beyond this, except that, in consequence of her evil habits and licentious tongue, she was held everywhere in fear and abhorrence, and was chased away from every place she entered after about six or eight o'clock. Further, that some misfortune always fell upon every one who had dealings with her, particularly young married people. To the said Konnemann, she betrothed herself after the death of her first paramour, but afterwards gave him fifty florins to get rid of the contract, as she confessed at the seventeenth question upon the rack, according to the Actis Lothmanni. Meantime her brother and cousins were so completely turned against her, that her brother even took those two farm-houses to himself; and though Sidonia wrote to him, begging that an annuity might be settled on her, yet she never received a line in answer—and this was the manner in which the whole cousinhood treated her in her despair and poverty.

I myself made many inquiries as to her mode of life during those thirty years, but in vain. Some said that she went into Poland and there kept a little tavern for twenty years; some had seen her living at Rügen at the old wall, where in heathen times the goddess Hertha was honoured. Some said she went to Rüden, a little uninhabited island between Rügen and Usdom, where the wild geese and other birds flock in the moulting season and drop their feathers. Thence, they said, she gathered the eggs, and killed the birds with clubs. At least this was the story of the Usdom fishermen, but whether it were Sidonia or some other outcast woman, I cannot in strict verity declare. Only in Freienwald did I

hear for certain that she lived there twelve years with some carl whom she called her shield-knight; but one day they quarrelled, and beat each other till the blood flowed, after which they both ran out of the town, and went different

ways.

Summa. On the 1st of May 1592, when the witches gather in the Brocken to hold their Walpurgis night, and the princely castle of Wolgast was well guarded from the evil one by white and black crosses placed on every door, an old wrinkled hag was seen about eight o'clock of the morning (just the time she had returned from the Blocksberg, according to my thinking), walking slowly up and down the great corridor of the princely castle. And the providence of the great God so willed it that at that moment the young and beautiful Princess Elizabeth Magdalena (who had been betrothed to the Duke Frederick of Courland) opened her chamber-door and slipped forth to pay her morning greetings to her illustrious father, Duke Ernest, and his spouse, the Lady Sophia Hedwig of Brunswick, who sat together drinking their warm beer, and had sent for her.

So the hag advanced with much friendliness and cried out, 'Hey, what a beautiful young damsel! But her lord papa was called the handsome' in his time, and wasn't she as like him as one egg to another. Might she take her ladyship's little hand and kiss it?" Now as the hag was bold in her bearing, and the young Princess was a timid thing, she feared to refuse; so she reached forth her hand, alas! to the witch, who first three times blew on it, murmuring some words before she kissed it; then as the young Princess asked her who she was and what she wanted, the evil hag answered, "I would speak with your gracious father, for I have known. him well. Ask his princely Grace to come to me, for I have somewhat to say to him." Now the Princess, in her

* Before the introduction of coffee or chocolate, warm beer was in general use at breakfast.

simplicity, omitted to ask the hag's name, whereby much evil came to pass, for had she told her gracious father that SIDONIA wished to speak to him, assuredly he never would have come forth, and that fatal and malignant glance of the witch would not have fallen upon him.

However, his Serene Grace, having a mild Christian nature, stepped out into the corridor at the request of his dear daughter, and asked the hag who she was and what she wanted. Upon this, she fixed her eyes on him in silence for a long while, so that he shuddered, and his blood seemed to turn to ice in his veins.* At last she spake: "It is a strange thing, truly, that your Grace should no longer remember the maiden to whom you once promised marriage." At this his Grace recoiled in horror, and exclaimed, “Ha, Sidonia! but how you are changed." "Ah!" she answered, with a scornful laugh, "you may well triumph, now that my cheek is hollow, and my beauty gone, and that I have come to you for justice against my own brother in Stramehl, who denies me even the means of subsistence-you, who brought me to this pass."

Upon which his Grace answered that her brother was a subject of the Duke of Stettin. Let her go then to Stettin, and demand justice there.

Illa." She had been there, but the Duke refused to see her, and to her request for a præbenda in the convent of Marienfliess had returned no answer. She prayed his Grace, therefore, out of old good friendship, to take up her cause, and use his influence with the Lord Duke of Stettin to obtain the præbenda for her, also to send a good scolding to her brother at Stramehl under his own hand."

Now my gracious Prince was so anxious to get rid of her,

* This belief in the witchcraft of a glance was very general during the witch period. And even the ancients notice it (Pliny, Hist. Nat. vii. 2), also Aul. Gell. Noct. Attic. ix. 4; and Virgil, Eclog. iii. 103. The glance of a woman with double pupils was particularly feared.

that he promised everything she asked. Whereupon she would kiss his hand, but he drew it back shuddering, upon which she went down the great castle steps again, murmuring to herself.

But her wickedness soon came to light; for markscarcely a few days had passed over, when the beautiful young Princess was possessed by Satan; she rolls herself upon the ground, twists and writhes her hands and feet, speaks with a great coarse voice like a common carl, blasphemes God and her parents; and what was more wonderful than all, her throat swelled, and when they laid their hand on it, something living seemed creeping up and down in it. Then it went up to her mouth, and her tongue swelled so, that her eyes seemed starting from their sockets, and the gracious young lady became fearful to look at.

Item, then she began to speak Latin, though she had never learned this tongue, whereupon many, and in particular Mag. Michael Aspius, the court chaplain (for Dr. Gerschovius was long since dead) pronounced that Satan himself verily must be in the maiden.* This was fully proved on the

* The ancients name three distinguishing marks of demoniacal pos session:

Ist, When the patient blasphemes God and cannot repeat the leading articles of his Christian belief.

2nd, When he foretells events which afterwards come to pass.

3rd, When he speaks in a strange tongue, which it can be proved he never learned.

Now the somnambulists of our day fulfil the second and third conditions without dispute; and some account for the divining power by saying it is the effect of the increased activity of the soul. They also assert that the patient speaks in a strange tongue only when the magnetiser with whom he is in en rapport understands the tongue himself, and the patient speaks it because all the thoughts, feelings, words, &c., of the operator become his in short, their souls become one. This explanation, however, is very improbable, and has not been confirmed by facts; for the phenomenon of speaking in a strange tongue often appears before a perfect rapport has been obtained between the patient and the operator. Indeed, P'sellus gives an instance to show that it is not even at all necessary. (Psellus lived about the eleventh century, and wrote