Satanas.- "He would not say."

Ille.-(Adjures him again.)

Satanas.-" -"Let him have it, or he would tear the young maiden to pieces." And here he began to foam and rage so horribly, that her eyes turned in her head, and she gnashed with her teeth, so that father and mother had to cover their eyes not to see her great agony. Whereupon Doctor Joel bent down and wrote with his finger upon her breast the Tetragrammaton,* crying out

"Away, thou unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Ghost!

Upon which the young maiden sank down as quiet as a corpse, and the oblation-cloth, which lay upon the desk, whirled round of itself in the middle of the church with great noise and clatter, as if seized by a storm-wind, and the money therein was all scattered about the church, so that the old wives who sat upon the benches fell down upon the floor, right and left, to try and catch it.

Great horror and amazement now filled the whole congregation; yet as some had expressed an opinion that the young Princess was only afflicted by a sickness, and not possessed at all, Doctor Joel thought it needful to admonish them in the following words :

“Those wise persons who, forsooth, would not credit such a thing as Satanic possession, might see now of a truth, by the oblation-cloth, that Satan bodily had been amongst them. He knew there were many such wise knaves in the church; therefore let them hold their tongue for evermore, and remember that such signs had been permitted before of God, to testify of the real bodily presence of the devil. Example (Matt. viii.), where, on the command of Christ, a legion of devils went into the swine of the Gergasenes; so that these animals, contrary to their nature, ran down into the sea

* The four letters which compose the name Jehovah (M). It was employed by the Theurgists in all their most powerful conjurations.

and were drowned. But the wise people of this day little heed these divine signs; so he will add two from historical records which he happened to remember.

"First, the Jew Josephus relates that, in presence of the world-renowned Roman captain Vespasian, of his son Titus, also of all the officers and troops of the army, an acquaintance of his, by name Eleazer, adjured the devil out of one possessed by means of the ring of Solomon, repeating at the same time the powerful spell which, no doubt, the great king himself employed to control the demons, and which, probably, was the very one he had just now exorcised the devil with, out of the Clavicula Salomonis. And to show the bystanders that it was indeed a devil which he had exorcised out of the nose of the patient, the said Eleazer bid him, as he was passing, to overturn vessel of water that lay there, which indeed was done, to the great wonderment of all present. Thus even the blind heathen were convinced, though the would-be wise of the present day ignorantly doubted.

"But people might say this happened in old times, and was only told by a stupid Jew; therefore he would give a modern example.

"There was a woman named Kronisha (she was still well remembered by the old people of Stralsund), who was sorely given to pomp and vanity, wherefore a devil was sent into her to punish her; and after the preacher at St. Nicholas had exorcised him to the best of his power, the wicked spirit said, mockingly, that he would go if they gave him a pane of glass out of the window over the tower door; and this being granted, one of the panes was instantly scattered with a loud clang, and the devil flew away through the opening.*

"So the Christian congregation might now see what silly

* See Sastrowen, his family, birth, and adventures. Mohnike, part i. 73.

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fools these wise people were who presumed to doubt," &c. Then Doctor Joel admonished the Prince himself to keep a diligent eye over this Satan, who, day by day, was growing more impudent in the land-no doubt because the pure doctrine of Dr. Luther vexed him sorely.

And indeed his Highness, to show his gratitude for the recovery of his dear daughter, did not cease in his endeavours to banish witches from the land, knowing that Sidonia had brought all the evil upon the young Princess. Fifteen were seized and burned at this time, to the great joy of the country; but, alas ! these truly princely and Christian measures little helped among the godless race, for evil seemed still to strengthen in the land, and many wonderful signs appeared, one of which I would not set down here, as it was only seen by the court-fool, but that events confirmed it.

I mean that strange thing, along with a three-legged hare, which appeared eighty years before at the death of Duke Bogislaus the Great, and since at the death of each Duke of his house. By a strange whim of Satan's, this apparition was only visible to fools; until indeed (as we shall hear anon) it appeared to the nuns at Marienfliess, who bore witness of it.

Summa. On the very day wherein the devil's brides were burned at Wolgast, the fool was walking at evening time up and down the great corridor, when a little manikin, hardly three hands high, started out from behind a beer-barrel, riding on a three-legged hare. He was dressed all in black, except little red boots which he had on, and he rides up and down the corridor-hop! hop! hop!-stares at my fool and makes a face at him; then rides off again-hop! hop! hop!-till he vanished behind the barrel.

No one would believe the fool's story; but woe, alas! it soon became clear what the little manikin Puck denoted. For my gracious Prince, who had grown quite weak ever since this horrible witch-work, which had been raging for some weeks— so that Pomerania never had seen the like-became daily worse,

and not even the fine Falernian wine from Italy, which used to cure him, helped him now. So he died on the 17th July 1591, aged forty-six years, seven months, and fifteen days, leaving his only son, Philippus Julius, a child of eight years old, to reign in his place. Whereupon the deeply afflicted widow placed the boy under the tutelage and guardianship of his uncle, the princely Lord of Stettin; but, woe! woe! the guardian must soon follow his dear brother! and all through the evil wickedness of Sidonia, as we shall hear in the following chapters.

CHAPTER XX.

How Sidonia demeans herself at the Convent of MarienfliessItem, how their Princely and Electoral Graces of Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Mecklenburg, went on sleighs to Wolgast, and of the divers pastimes of the journey.

AFTER this, Sidonia disappeared again for a couple of years, and no man knew whither she had flown or what she did, until one morning she appeared at the convent of Marienfliess, driving a little one-horse waggon herself, and dressed no better than a fish-wife. On driving into the court, she desired to speak with the abbess, Magdalena von Petersdorf; and when she came, Sidonia ordered the cell of the deceased nun, Barbara Kleist, to be got ready for her reception, as his Highness of Stettin had presented her to a præbenda here.

So the pious old abbess believed the story, and forthwith conducted her to the cell, No. II; but Sidonia spat out at it, said it was a pig-sty, and began to run clattering through all the cells till she reached the refectory, a large chamber where the nuns assembled for evening prayer. This, she said, was the only spot fit for her to put her nose in, and she would keep it for herself. Meanwhile, the whole sisterhood ran together to the refectory to see Sidonia; and as most of them were girls under

twenty, they tittered and laughed, as young women-folk will do when they behold a hag. This angered her.

"Ha!" she exclaimed, "the flesh and the devil have not been destroyed in them yet, but I will soon give them something else to think of than their lovers."

And here, as one of them laughed louder than the rest, Sidonia gave her a blow on the mouth.

"Let that teach the peasant-girl more respect for a castle and land dowered maiden."

When the good abbess saw and heard all this, she nearly fainted with shame, and had to hold by a stool, or she would have fallen to the ground. However she gained fresh courage, when, upon asking for Sidonia's documents, she found that there were none to show. Without more ado, therefore, she bade her leave the convent; and, amidst the jeers and laughter of all the sisterhood, Sidonia was obliged to mount her onehorse cart again, or the convent porter had orders to force her out.

By this all may perceive that, in place of repenting, Sidonia had fallen still further in the mire, wherein she wallowed yet for many years, as if it were, indeed, her true and natural element, like that beetle of which Albertus Magnus speaks, that died if one covered it with rose-leaves, but came to life again when laid in dung.

Hardly had she left the convent-gate when the old abbess bade a carl get ready a carriage, and flew in it to Stettin herself, to lay the whole case before my gracious Prince, and entreat him, even on her knees, not to send such a notorious creature amongst them; for what blessing could the convent hope to obtain if they harboured such an infamous sinner? So his Grace wonders much over the daring of the harlot; for he had given her no præbenda, though she was writing to him constantly requesting one. Nor would he ever think of giving her one; for why should he send such a hell-besom to sweep the pious convent of Marienfliess? The good abbess might rise up, for as long as he lived Sidonia should never enter the convent.