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Page 31
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, then, could she
have wished to do her such grievous harm?
_Q_. Wilt thou even yet deny?--Reverend Abraham, how stubborn 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.
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