Sidonia The Sorceress, vol 1 | Page 3

heavy upon her heart, and the desire for revenge increased with years; besides, in place of reading the Bible, her private hours were passed studying the _Amadis_, wherein she found many examples of how forsaken maidens have avenged themselves upon their false lovers by means of magic. So she at last yielded to the temptations of Satan, and after some years learned the secrets of witchcraft from an old woman. By means of this unholy knowledge, along with several other evil deeds, she so bewitched the whole princely race that the six young princes, who were each wedded to a young wife, remained childless; but no public notice was taken until Duke Francis succeeded to the duchy in 1618. He was a ruthless enemy to witches; all in the land were sought out with great diligence and burned, and as they unanimously named the Abbess of Marienfliess [Footnote: Sidonia never attained this dignity, though Micraelius and others gave her the title.] upon the rack, she was brought to Stettin by command of the Duke, where she freely confessed all the evil wrought by her sorceries upon the princely race.
"The Duke promised her life and pardon if she would free the other princes from the ban; but her answer was that she had enclosed the spell in a padlock, and flung it into the sea, and having asked the devil if he could restore the padlock again to her, he replied, 'No; that was forbidden to him;' by which every one can perceive that the destiny of God was in the matter.
"And so it was that, notwithstanding the intercession of all the neighbouring courts, Sidonia was brought to the scaffold at Stettin, there beheaded, and afterwards burned.
"Before her death the Prince ordered her portrait to be painted, in her old age and prison garb, behind that which represented her in the prime of youth. After his death, Bogislaff XIV., the last Duke, gave this picture to my grandmother, whose husband had also been killed by the Sorceress. My father received it from her, and I from him, along with the story which is here written down.
"HENRY GUSTAVUS SCHWALENBERG."
[Footnote: The style of this "Inscription" proves it to have been written in the beginning of the preceding century, but it is first noticed by D?hnert. I have had his version compared with the original in Stargord--through the kindness of a friend, who assures me that the transcription is perfectly correct, and yet can he be mistaken? for Horst (Magic Library, vol. ii. p. 246), gives the conclusion thus: "From whom my father received it, and I from him, along with the story precisely as given here by H. G. Schwalenberg." By this reading, which must have escaped my friend, a different sense is given to the passage; by the last reading it would appear that the "I" was a Bork, who had taken the tale from Schwalenberg's history of the Pomeranian Dukes, a work which exists only in manuscript, and to which I have had no access; but if we admit the first reading, then the writer must be a Schwalenberg. Even the "grandmother" will not clear up the matter, for Sidonia, when put to the torture, confessed, at the seventh question, that she had caused the death of Doctor Schwalenberg (he was counsellor in Stettin then), and at the eleventh question, that her brother's son, Otto Bork, had died also by her means. Who then is this "I"? Even Sidonia's picture, we see, utters mysteries.
In my opinion the writer was Schwalenberg, and Horst seems to have taken his version from Paulis's "General History of Pomerania," vol. iv. p. 396, and not from the original of D?hnert.
For the picture at that early period was not in the possession of a Bork, but belonged to the Count von Mellin in Schillersdorf, as passages from many authors can testify. This is confirmed by another paper found along with that containing the tradition, but of much more modern appearance, which states that the picture was removed by successive inheritors, first from Schillersdorf to Stargord, from thence to Heinrichsberg (there are three towns in Pomerania of this name), and finally from Heinrichsberg, in the year 1834, was a second time removed to Stargord by the last inheritor.
This Schillersdorf lies between Gartz and Stettin on the Oder. WILLIAM MEINHOLD.]
LETTER OF DR. THEODORE PL?NNIES
TO BOGISLAFF THE FOURTEENTH, THE LAST DUKE OF POMERANIA.
MOST EMINENT PRINCE AND GRACIOUS LORD,--Serene Prince, your Highness gave me a commission in past years to travel through all Pomerania, and if I met with any persons who could give me certain "information" respecting the notorious and accursed witch Sidonia von Bork, to set down carefully all they stated, and bring it afterwards into connexum for your Highness. It is well known that Duke Francis, of blessed