The most interesting trial for witchcraft ever known.
Printed from an imperfect manuscript by her father Abraham Schweidler,
the pastor of Coserow, in the Island of Usedom.
In laying before the public this deeply affecting and romantic trial, which I have not
without reason called on the title-page the most interesting of all trials for witchcraft
ever known, I will first give some account of the history of the manuscript.
At Coserow, in the Island of Usedom, my former cure, the same which was held by
our worthy author some two hundred years ago, there existed under a seat in the choir
of the church a sort of niche, nearly on a level with the floor. I had, indeed, often seen
a heap of various writings in this recess; but owing to my short sight, and the darkness
of the place, I had taken them for antiquated hymn-books, which were lying about in
great numbers. But one day, while I was teaching in the church, I looked for a paper
mark in the Catechism of one of the boys, which I could not immediately find; and
my old sexton, who was past eighty (and who, although called Appelmann, was
thoroughly unlike his namesake in our story, being a very worthy, although a most
ignorant man), stooped down to the said niche, and took from it a folio volume which
I had never before observed, out of which he, without the slightest hesitation, tore a
strip of paper suited to my purpose, and reached it to me. I immediately seized upon
the book, and, after a few minutes' perusal, I know not which was greater, my
astonishment or my vexation at this costly prize. The manuscript, which was bound in
vellum, was not only defective both at the beginning and at the end, but several leaves
had even been torn out here and there in the middle. I scolded the old man as I had
never done during the whole course of my life; but he excused himself, saying that
one of my predecessors had given him the manuscript for waste paper, as it had lain
about there ever since the memory of man, and he had often been in want of paper to
twist round the altar candles, etc. The aged and half-blind pastor had mistaken the
folio for old parochial accounts which could be of no more use to any one.[1]
Darklady's Occult