Sidonia, the Sorceress Volume I Part 36

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

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 a.s.sert 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, Psellus gives an instance to show that it is not even at all necessary. (Psellus lived about the eleventh century, and wrote _De Operatione Doemonum,_ also _De Mysteriis AEgyptiorum,_ his works are very remarkable, and well worth a perusal.) He states that a sick woman all at once began to speak in a strange and barbarous tongue no one had ever heard before. At last some of the women about her brought an Armenian magician to see her, who instantly found that she spoke Armenian, though she had never in her life beheld one of that nation.

Psellus describes him as an old lean wrinkled man. He acted quite differently from our modern magnetisers, for he never sought to place himself in sympathetic relation with her by pa.s.ses or touches; on the contrary, he drew his sword, and placing himself beside the bed, began t.i.ttering the most harsh and cruel words he could think of in the Armenian tongue _(acriter conviciatus est)_. The woman retorted in the Armenian tongue likewise, and tried to get out of bed to fight with him. Then the barbarian grew as if mad, and endeavoured to stab her, upon which she shrunk back terrified and trembling, and soon fell into a deep sleep. Psellus seems to have witnessed this, for he says the woman was wife to his eldest brother. As further regards demoniacal possession, the New Testament is full of examples thereof; and though in the last century the reality of the fact was a.s.sailed, yet Franz Meyer has again defended it with arguments that cannot be overthrown.

Remarkable examples of possession in modern times we find in the _Didiskalia,_ No. 81, of the year 1833, and in Berner's "History of Satanic Possession," p. 20.] This was fully proved on the following Sunday; for during divine service in the Church of St. Peter, the young Princess was carried in on a litter and laid down before the altar, whereupon she commenced uttering horrible blasphemies, and mocking the holy prayer in a coa.r.s.e ba.s.s voice, while she foamed and raged so violently, that eight men could scarcely hold her in her bed. Whereat the whole Christian congregation were admonished to pray to the Lord for this poor maiden, that she might be freed from the devil within her; and during the week all priests throughout the land were commanded to offer up prayers day and night for her princely Grace. But on Sundays all the people were to unite in one common supplication to the throne of grace for the like object.

And it seemed, after some weeks, as if G.o.d had heard their prayers, and commanded Satan to leave the body of the young maiden, for she had now rest for fourteen days, and was able to pray again. Also her rosy cheeks began to bloom once more, so that her parents were filled with joy, and resolved to hold a thank-festival throughout the land, and receive the Holy Sacrament in St. Peter's Church with their beloved daughter.

But what happened? For as the G.o.dly discourse had ended, and their Graces stepped to the altar to make a rich offering on the plate which lay upon the little desk, free of approach from all sides, my knave Satan has again begun his work. Truly, he waited with cunning till her Grace had swallowed the Sacrament, that his blasphemies might seem more horrible. And this was the way he manifested himself.

After the court marshal and the castellan had laid down a black velvet carpet, embroidered in gold with the Pomeranian and Brandenburg arms, for their Graces to kneel upon, they took another black velvet cloth, on which the Holy Supper was represented embroidered in silver, to hold before their Graces like a serviette, while they received the blessed elements. Then advanced the priest with the Sacrament, but scarcely had the gracious young Princess swallowed the same, when she uttered a loud cry and fell backwards with her head upon the ground, while Satan raged so in her that it might have melted the heart of a stone.

So M. Aspius bade the organ cease, and then placed the young lady upon a seat, after which he called upon their Graces and the whole congregation to join him in offering up a prayer. Then he solemnly adjured the evil spirit to come out of her; it, however, had grown so daring that it only laughed at the priest; and when asked where it had been for so long, and in particular where it had lain while the Jesu bride was wedded to her Holy Saviour in the Blessed Sacrament, it impatiently answered that it had lain under her tongue; many knaves might lie under a bridge while an honourable seigneur pa.s.sed overhead, and why should not it do the like? And here, to the unspeakable horror of the whole congregation, it seemed to move up and down in the chest and throat of the young Princess, like some animal.

But the long-suffering of G.o.d was now at an end, for while the Reverend Dr. Aspius was talking himself weary with adjurations, and gaining no good by it, for the evil spirit only mocked and jeered him, crying, "Look at the fat parson how he sweats, maybe it will help as much as his chattering over the wine," who should enter the church (sent no doubt by the all-merciful G.o.d) but the Reverend Dr. Joel, Professor at Grypswald, for he had heard how this l.u.s.ty Satan had taken possession of the princely maiden. When the devil saw him, he began to tremble through all the limbs of the young Princess, and exclaimed in Latin, _"Consummatum est."_ [Footnote: "It is over."] For this Dr. Joel was a powerful man, and learned in all the cunning shifts of the arch-enemy, having many times disputed de Magis. [Footnote: Of Witchcraft; see Barthold, iv. 2, 412.]

Now when he advanced to the young Princess, and saw how the evil spirit ran up and down her poor form, like a mouse in a net, he was filled with horror, and removing his hat, exclaimed, without taking much heed of his Latin, _"Deus misereatur peccatoris."_ Upon which the devil, in a deep ba.s.s voice, corrected him, crying, _"Die peccatricls, die peccatricls."_ [Footnote: Peccatoris is masculine, Peccatricis feminine.]

However, Satan himself felt that his hour had come; for when Doctor Joel laid his hand upon the maiden, and repeated a powerful adjuration from the _Clavilcula Salomonis,_ Satan immediately promised to obey if he were allowed to take away the oblation-cloth which lay upon the desk.

_Ille._--"What did he want with the oblation-cloth?"

_Satanas._--"There was a coin in it which vexed him."

_Ille._--"What coin could it be, and wherefore did it vex him?"

_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-- [Footnote: The four letters which compose the name Jehovah ( [Hebrew Text]).

It was employed by the Theurgists in all their most powerful conjurations.]

"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 G.o.d, 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 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 t.i.tus, 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 pa.s.sing, to overturn a 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 gla.s.s 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. [Note: See Sastrowen, his family, birth, and adventures.

Edited by Mohnike, part i. 73.]

"So the Christian congregation might now see what silly 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 grat.i.tude 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 G.o.dless 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 Marienfliess--Item, 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 _praebenda_ here.

So the pious old abbess believed the story, and forthwith conducted her to the cell, No. 11; 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 a.s.sembled 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 t.i.ttered 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 doc.u.ments, 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 one-horse 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 _proebenda,_ 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 h.e.l.l-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.

And his Grace held by his word, though it cost him his life, as I shall just now relate with bitter sighs.

It happened that, A.D. 1600, there was a terribly hard winter, so that the fresh Haff [Footnote: The river Haff] was quite frozen over, and able to bear heavy beams. Now, as the ice was smooth and beautiful as a mirror, my Lord of Stettin proposed to his guests--Joachim Friedrich, Elector of Brandenburg, his brother-in-law, and old Duke Ulrich of Mecklenburg, his uncle, to go over the Haff in sleighs, and pay a visit to the princely widow and her little son.

Their Graces were well pleased at the idea. Whereupon his Highness of Stettin gave orders to have such a procession formed as never had been seen in Pomerania before for magnificence and beauty, and therefore I shall note down some particulars here.

There were a hundred sleighs, some drawn by reindeer caparisoned like horses, and all decorated gaily. The three ducal sleighs in particular were entirely girded and lined with sable skin; each was drawn by four Andalusian horses; and my Lady Erdmuth, who was a great lover of show and pomp, had hers hung with little tinkling bells and chains of gold, so that no one to look at them could imagine how very little of the dear gold her gracious lord and husband had in his purse, by reason of the hardness of the times.

The adornments of the other sleighs were less costly. Upon them came the ministers, the officials, and others pertaining to the retinue of the three princes: _item_, the ladies-in-waiting, and divers of the reverend clergy; last of all came the Duke's henchman, with a pack of wolf-dogs in leash: _item,_ several live hares and foxes; a live bear, which they purposed to let slip, for the pleasure and pastime of their Graces. But the young men out of the town, fifty head strong, and many of the knights, ran along on skates, headed by Dinnies Kleist, that mighty man, who bore in one hand the blood-banner of Pomerania, and in the other that of Brandenburg. Barthold von Ramin ran by his side with the Mecklenburg standard. He was a strong knight too. But ah! my G.o.d! how my Ramin, with his ox-head, was distanced by the wild men of Pomerania, as they ran upon the ice over the Haff! [Footnote: The blood-standard was granted by the Emperor Maximilian II. to Duke Johann Friedrich of Pomerania because he carried the imperial banner during the Turkish war of 1566. It only differed from the old banner by having a red ground--from thence its name. Both Pomerania and Brandenburg had wild men in their escutcheon, while Mecklenburg bore an ox's head.] Two reserve sleighs, drawn by six Frisian horses, finished the procession; they were laden with axes, planks, ropes, and dry garments, both for men and women.

When their Graces mounted the sleighs amidst the ringing of bells and roaring of cannon, great was their astonishment to see their own initials stamped into the hard ice by Dinnies Kleist, as thus: F. U. J. E. J. F., which, however, afterwards caused much dismay to the honest burghers, for one of them--M. Faber, _a praeceptor_--mistaking the J. for a G., read plainly upon the ice: "Fuge, J. F."--that is, "Fly, Johann Frederick!"

Ah! truly has the gracious Prince flown from thence; but it is to a bitter death.

During the journey, Duke Johann had much jesting with his brother-in-law, the Elector, who was filled with wonder at the strength of Dinnies Kleist, for he kept ahead even of the Andalusian stallions, and waved aloft the two banners of Pomerania and Brandenburg, while his long hair floated behind him; and sometimes he stopped, kissed the banners, and then inclined them to their Serene Princely Graces. Whereupon Duke Johann exclaimed, "Ay, brother, you might well give me a thousand of your wide-mouthed Berliners for this carl; though, methinks, if he had his will, he would make their wide mouths still wider." At this, his Electoral Grace looked rather vexed, and began to uphold the men of Cologne. Upon which his Highness cut him short, saying, "Marry, brother, you know the old proverb--