and thy salvation, confess, for if thou knowest thyself to be innocent, how, then, canst thou think that thou wilt be burnt ?" But she still looked him fixedly in the face, and cried aloud in Latin, "Innocentia, quid est innocentia ! Ubi libido dominatur, innocentia leve præsidium est.” *

1.

Hereupon Dom. Consul again shuddered, so that his beard wagged, and said, "What, dost thou indeed know Latin? Where didst thou learn the Latin ?" And when I answered this question as well as I was able for sobbing, he shook his head, and said, "I never in my life heard of a woman that knew Latin." Upon this he knelt down before her coffer, and turned over everything therein, drew it away from the wall, and when he found nothing he bade us show him her bed, and did the same with that. This, at length, vexed the Sheriff, who asked him whether they should not drive back again, seeing that night was coming on? But he answered, "Nay, I must first have the written paction which Satan has given her;" and he went on with his search until it was almost dark. But they found nothing at all, although Dom. Consul, together with the constable, passed over no hole or corner, even in the kitchen and cellar. Hereupon he got up again into the coach, muttering to himself, and bade my daughter sit so that she should not look upon him.

And now we once more had the same spectaculum with the accursed old witch Lizzie Kolken, seeing that she again sat at her door as we drove by, and began to sing at the top of her voice, "We praise thee, O Lord." But she screeched like a stuck pig, so that Dom. Consul was amazed thereat, and when he had heard who she was, he asked the Sheriff whether he would not that she should be seized by the constable and be tied behind the coach, to run after it, as we had no room for her elsewhere; for that he had often been told that all old women who had red squinting eyes and sharp voices were witches, not to mention the suspicious things which Rea had declared against her. But he answered that he could not do this, seeing that old Lizzie was a woman in good repute, and fearing God, as Dom. Consul might

*These words are from Cicero, if I do not mistake. ↑ At this time it was believed that as a man bound himself to the devil by writing, so did the devil in like manner to the man

learn for himself; but that, nevertheless, he had had her summoned for the morrow, together with the other witnesses.

Yea, in truth, an excellently devout and worthy woman!→→ for scarcely were we out of the village, when so fearful a storm of thunder, lightning, wind, and hail burst over our heads, that the corn all around us was beaten down as with a flail, and the horses before the coach were quite maddened; however, it did not last long. But my poor child had to bear all the blame again,* inasmuch as Dom. Consul thought that it was not old Lizzie, which, nevertheless, was as clear as the sun at noon-day! but my poor daughter who brewed the storm-for, beloved reader, what could it have profited her, even if she had known the black art? This, however did not strike Dom. Consul, and Satan, by the permission of the all-righteous God, was presently to use us still worse; for just as we got to the Master's Dam,† he came flying over us in the shape of a stork, and dropped a frog so exactly over us that it fell into my daughter her lap : she gave a shrill scream, but I whispered her to sit still, and that I would secretly throw the frog away by one leg.

-But the constable had seen it, and cried out, “Hey, sirs! hey, look at the cursed witch! what has the devil just thrown into her lap?" Whereupon the Sheriff and Dom. Consul looked round and saw the frog, which crawled in her lap, and the constable, after he had blown upon it, three times, took it up and showed it to their lordships. Hereat Dom. Consul began to spew, and when he had done, he ordered the coachman to stop, got down from the coach, and said we might drive home, that he felt qualmish, and would go a-foot and see if he got better. But first he privately whispered to the constable, which, how beit, we heard right well, that when he got home he should lay my poor child in chains, but not so as to hurt her much; to which neither she nor I could answer save by tears and sobs. But the Sheriff had heard it too, and when his worship was out of sight he began to stroke my child her cheeks from be hind her back, telling her to be easy, as he also had a word to say in the matter, and that the constable should not lay her in chains. But that she must leave off being so hard to him as she * Such sudden storms were attributed to witches.

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It is so called to the present day, and is distant a mile from Coserow.

when the midwife sought for it it had disappeared?-R. Truly she did; and indeed she had all the days of her life done good to the people instead of harm, for during the terrible famine she had often taken the bread out of her own mouth to share it among the others, especially the little children. To this the whole parish must needs bear witness, if they were asked; whereas witches and warlocks always did evil and no good to men, as our Lord Jesus taught (Matt. xii.), when the Pharisees blasphemed him, saying that he cast out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils; hence his worship might see whether she could in truth be a witch.

Q. He would soon teach her to talk of blasphemies; he saw that her tongue was well hung; but she must answer the questions he asked her, and say nothing more. The question was not what good she had done to the poor, but wherewithal she had done it; she must now show how she and her father had of a sudden grown so rich that she could go pranking about in silken raiment, whereas she used to be so very poor?

Hereupon she looked towards me, and said, "Father, shall I tell?" Whereupon I answered, "Yes, my child, now thou must openly tell all, even though we thereby become beggars." She accordingly told how, when our need was sorest, she had found the amber, and how much we had gotten for it from the Dutch merchants.

Q. What were the names of these merchants?-R. Dieterich von Pehnen and Jakob Kiekebusch; but, as we have heard from a schipper, they since died of the plague at Stettin.

Q. Why had we said nothing of such a godsend?-R. Out of fear of our enemy the Sheriff, who, as it seemed, had condemned us to die of hunger, inasmuch as he forbade the parishioners, under pain of heavy displeasure, to supply us with any thing, saying, that he would soon send them a better parson.

Hereupon Dom. Consul again looked the Sheriff sharply in the face, who answered that it was true he had said this, seeing that the parson had preached at him in the most scandalous manner from the pulpit; but that he knew very well, at the time, that they were far enough from dying of hunger.

Q. How came so much amber on the Streckelberg? She had best confess at once that the devil had brought it to her.-R.

She knew nothing about that. But there was a great vein of, amber there, as she could show to them all that very day; and she had broken out the amber, and covered the hole well over with fir-twigs, so that none should find it.

Q. When had she gone up the Streckelberg; by day or by night?-R. Hereupon she blushed, and for a moment held her peace; but presently made answer, "Sometimes by day, and sometimes by night."

Q. Why did she hesitate? She had better make a full confession of all, so that her punishment might be less heavy. Had she not there given over old Seden to Satan, who had carried him off through the air, and left only a part of his hair and brains sticking to the top of an oak?-R. She did not know whether that was his hair and brains at all, nor how it came there. She went to the tree one morning because she heard a woodpecker cry so dolefully. Item, old Paasch, who also had heard the cries, came up with his axe in his hand.

Q. Whether the woodpecker was not the devil himself, who had carried off old Seden?-R. She did not know: but he must have been dead some time, seeing that the blood and brains which the lad fetched down out of the tree were quite dried up. Q. How and when, then, had he come by his death?-R. That Almighty God only knew. But Zuter his little girl had said that one day, while she gathered nettles for the cows under Seden his hedge, she heard the goodman threaten his squint-eyed wife that he would tell the parson that he now knew of a certainty that she had a familiar spirit; whereupon the goodman had presently disappeared. But that this was a child's tale, and she would fyle no one on the strength of it.

Hereupon Dom. Consul again looked the Sheriff steadily in the face, and said, "Old Lizzie Kolken must be brought before us this very day:" whereto the Sheriff made no answer; and he went on to ask,-

Q. Whether, then, she still maintained that she knew nothing of the devil?-R. She maintained it now, and would maintain it until her life's end.

Q. And nevertheless, as had been seen by witnesses, she had been re-baptized by him in the sea in broad daylight.—Here again she blushed, and for a moment was silent.

Q. Why did she blush again? She should for God his sake think on her salvation, and confess the truth.-R. She had bathed herself in the sea, seeing that the day was very hot; that was the whole truth.

Q. What chaste maiden would ever bathe in the sea? Thou liest; or wilt thou even yet deny that thou didst bewitch old Paasch his little girl with a white roll?-R. Alas! alas! She loved the child as though it were her own little sister; not only had she taught her as well as all the other children without reward, but during the heavy famine she had often taken the bit from her own mouth to put it into the little child's. How ther could she have wished to do her such grievous harm?

Q. Wilt thou even yet deny ?-Reverend Abraham, how stub born is your child! See here, is this no witches' salve,* which the constable fetched out of thy coffer last night? Is this no witches' salve, eh ?-R. It was a salve for the skin, which would make it soft and white, as the apothecary at Wolgast had told her, of whom she bought it.

Q. Hereupon he shook his head, and went on: How! wil thou then lastly deny that on this last Saturday the 10th July, at 12 o'clock at night, thou didst on the Streckelberg cal upon thy paramour the devil in dreadful words, whereupon he appeared to thee in the shape of a great hairy giant, and clipped thee and toyed with thee?

At these words she grew more pale than a corpse, and tottere so that she was forced to hold by a chair; and I, wretched man who would readily have sworn away my life for her, when I sav and heard this, my senses forsook me, so that I fell down from th bench, and Dom. Consul had to call in the constable to help me up

When I had come to myself a little, and the impudent varle saw our common consternation, he cried out, grinning at th court the while, "Is it all out? is it all out? has she confessed? Whereupon Dom. Consul again showed him the door with sharp rebuke, as might have been expected; and it is said tha this knave played the pimp for the Sheriff, and indeed I thin he would not otherwise have been so bold.

*It was believed that the devil gave the witches a salve, by the use which they made themselves invisible, changed themselves into anima! flew through the air, &c.