book itself, its external history may here be touched upon

as part of his biography. Inthe years 1841-42 fragments of what was afterwards to form The Amber Witch were published in the periodical entitled Christoterpe. They there appeared as extracts from the Muniment Chest at Coserow. Frederick William tv. saw the fragments and was interested in them, as might have been expected from one of the most romantic minded of monarchs. He made inquiries about the author and the work, and the whole manuscript was sent to him by Meinhold with an explanation of the fiction and the design with which it had been concocted. For some time he heard no more of the matter, but on June 1, 1843, the village postman handed him a small parcel containing his manuscript, neatly printed under the auspices of the eminent firm of Duncker and Humblot, accompanied by a letter which enclosed a
x1
The Amber Witch
honorarium, the amount of which history telleth not. Kings can do kingly deeds sometimes.
The book had considerable success and was everywhere accepted as a reproduction of medieval documents, no doubts as to its authenticity being expressed in the reviews. Thereupon Meinhold in great glee explained the trick he had played upon the critics in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, Jan. 15, 1844, an explanation which he repeated at greater length in the Second Edition, which came in 1846. Unless the First Edition was an exceptionally large one, this does not seem to imply a very large circulation for the book, notwithstanding the réclame obtained for it. Still there is no doubt the book had its vogue. Laube dramatised it, Lady Duff Gordon translated it, and Wallace turned her translation into an Opera. Meinhold was ad- mitted to an audience with his Mecenas the King, on March 12, 1844, at which he was given the appointment of Pastor at Rehwinkel in Stargard. His position in the publishing world was now well established, and a collected edition of his whole works appeared in seven volumes between the years 1846 and 1848. The last three volumes of his Gesammelte Schriften contained a companion picture to his Amber Witch, entitled Sidonia von Bork, die Klosterhexe, his greatest work both in extent and power.
The epoch year 1848 found Meinhold. on the side of the ancien régime. His contribution to the contests of the time consisted of a vehement attack upon the influence of the modern press (Die babylonische Sprach—und Ideen
xii
Sntroduction
Vernirrung der modernen Presse als die hauptsachliche Quelle der Leiden unserer Zeit). His pamphlet failed to prevent the fall of thrones and the change of constitutions, and Meinhold devoted his attention henceforth to theological discussion. His views approached the position of the Schlegels and Gérres. He became more and more dis- satisfied with his position as Protestant Pastor, and in 1850 he gave up his position at Rehwinkel and settled in Charlottenburg, now one of the suburbs of Berlin. It was thought at the time that this migration would serve as a half-way house to Rome, spiritually, if not locally, But before he had time to make up his mind a greater than the Pope had summoned him. He died at Char- lottenburg, November 30, 1851, leaving uncompleted a romance of Reformation times, entitled Der Getreue Ritter, in which his Romanist proclivities were conspicuous. Turning now from the man to his book we may first discuss briefly the claim made for it by its author. The fact that the newspaper critics did not discern the cheat has about as much to do with the higher criticism of the Gospels as the so-called canals of Mars. Meinhold’s argument was, that if the higher critics could mistake a forgery for an authentic document, they might equally be mistaken in calling forgeries what were really authentic documents. There is a delicious naiveté about the argu- ment which need not, however, blind us to the non sequitur involved in it. Nobody accuses the newspaper men of being higher critics ; still less was there any reason for xiii
The Amber Mitch
regarding T'he Amber Witch as a Gospel. Besides, Meinhold did not put his test in a very straightforward way. In the preface to the first edition he confesses that he has filled up certain lacunae in the original manuscript, and had besides omitted other passages. His challenge to the critics was rather to ascertain ‘where Pastor Schweidler speaks, and where Pastor Meinhold,’ as he himself puts it. As his point is that Pastor Meinhold speaks throughout, this was scarcely a fair challenge. Even as it was, he did not altogether escape detection. In the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung of December 17, 1843, an anonymous critic distinctly expressed doubts of the authenticity of the work, and it was owing to this that Meinhold made his open confession in the same journal five weeks later. Then came the fun of the affair. Several of the reviewers who had rejoiced at the recovery of such a vivid page of Social History refused to believe that they had been taken in, and declared for the authenticity of the document against the reiterated assertions of its author. Meinhold was justly proud of this compliment, but the Bible critics might have made effective use of it to turn his main position. The reviewers, they might have said, were only behaving like orthodox believers in the Gospels when their inauthenticity was proclaimed.
If it only depended for continued existence on its relation to the higher criticism of the Bible, Meinhold’s — Amber Witch would not have survived its original succes de réclame, But in trying to confound Strauss he hit upon
xiv
Introduction
what he claimed to be a new branch of the novelist’s art. This he calls the Chronicle Romance, or, in other words, the historical novel imitating the form of the medieval chronicles. Even for Germany his claim to priority is not undisputed. Kleist’s Kohlhaas and Hagen’s Norica are both of the same genre as The Amber Witch and preceded it by several years. Here in England, of course, his methods have been hit upon by Defoe in his Journal of the Plague and Memoirs of a Cavalier. What form of imagina- tive prose art, indeed, did not Defoe hit upon before any one else ?
Meinhold might with more reason have claimed priority for the use of witchcraft as an imaginative motif. Except Balzac’s powerful study of La Succube, and one of Erckmann-Chatrian’s short stories, entitled L’ Hil invisible, I know of no stories except Meinhold’s which make effective use of witchcraft as their motif:!
The Witch and her ways seem indeed to form an admirable subject for the imaginative artist if he has any tendency towards romanticism. The Witch is a sort of counterblast to the Saint. The one is the Bride of Heaven, the other, literally speaking, a Whore of Hell. The one does good for goodness’ sake, the other is an artist in devilry. One forms part of the Kingdom of God, the other helps to create the Kingdom of the Devil,
1 Harrison Ainsworth’s Zamcashire Witches scarcely deserves mention in this connection, though a couple of Jngoldsby Legends deserve at least a passing mention.
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The Amber Witch
both Kingdoms being separate from the World. Judging from the innumerable confessions of witches, there was just as much faith on their part in their infernal creed as in the scheme of salvation by those who had separated themselves from the world pour le bon motif. The weird figure of the Witch is thus a grotesque shadow brought into existence by the light of the Church.
Meinhold, however, reserved his most powerful portrait of the Witch for his Sidonia. The Lizzie of The Amber Witch is only a sketch which fails on the whole to produce conviction. The interest of The Amber Witch is rather in another direction which offers almost equal opportunities of effective treatment: nor can it be said that Meinhold has failed to avail himself of them. The universal belief in witchcraft produced in the Middle Ages thousands of tragedies of false accusation. Mr. Lecky in the first volume of his History of Rationalism, and Soldan more fully in his Geschichte der Hexenprocesse have dealt with these tragedies as a matter of history. Meinhold in the book before us has made an effective attempt to clothe the dry bones of History with the flesh and blood of Imagination.
His method is realistic, @ la Defoe. He himself called it the Chronicle Romance, as we have seen: but the Chronicles would find to-day many more readers if they were so full of human detail as The Amber Witch. Now and then indeed we get a Chronicler like Joce de Brakelond (of whom Carlyle makes so effective use in
xvi
Puntroductton
his Past and Present) or his contemporary, Richard of Devizes, who have preserved the dramatic and human, even in the historic pageant. But as a rule the Chronicle is but a walking State paper, and it requires the imagination of the modern artist before it can be invested with true vitality. One cannot deny to Meinhold the claim to retrospective creation. His opening scenes give us a more vivid account of the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War than all the wearisome pages of Schiller. The Cloister and the Hearth has more movement, but not more vividness. When we get to the trials Meinhold has reproduced, the pedantic formality and crass stupidity of the seventeenth century records with remarkable fidelity. It might seem impossible that such a travesty of justice could be permitted in any country professing to be in any way civilised. But many trials given in Horst’s Zauberbibliothek—Meinhold’s chief source—exceed the trial of The Amber Witch in ignorant injustice.
The essential part of the process in witch trials was to prove connection, in every sense, with His Infernal Majesty. It was supposed that every witch had some mark on her body indicating this connection, and denuda- tion always formed part of the proceeding. Any mole, mother’s mark, scar, or other mark was sufficient to enrol the case in the ranks of the Devil’s Own. The only test applied was, pricking the part with a needle; the true witch could feel no pain on the damnéd spot.
If, as was usual, the witch refused to confess her
xvii b
The Amber Witch
dealings with the Evil One, the judges then proceeded to the question under torture. And here again Meinhold follows his authorities closely. Usually the thumbscrews were sufficient, and there was no need to resort to the Spanish Boots or the Rack. During all these trials, while the judges were present, the greatest precaution was taken that the witch’s back should be turned towards them, for fear that her Evil Eye should bewitch them in revenge. Meinhold has missed a point in not making use of this characteristic touch in the proceedings.
Successful as he has been in what we may term his atmospheric effect, Meinhold can scarcely be equally con- gratulated on the composition of his medieval picture. The plot is on the whole one of those in which the pursuit of possession is the main motive force. One is familiar with that ‘common form’ of the transpontine or Adelphi drama in which the villain swears he will have the heroine of the piece or he will die; he generally dies. During the development of the action the villain has usually occasion to observe, ‘At last I have her in my power,’ and it is generally by means of a false accusation that a situation is arrived at in which it seems as if the heroine had no alternative but to yield or to die. Of course she prefers to die, and equally of course at the last moment the real lover appears and rescues her, while the villain simultaneously disappears, either at the hands of the hero, or by a mysterious visitation of Providence. The Amber Witch follows this formula with almost servile fidelity.
xViil
Introduction
Considering the pother that is made of passion and its consequences in the social life, it is curious how ineffective a motive it makes if used per se in drama or romance. As a complicating force, as in Anthony and Cleopatra, it is effective enough, though even there it is doubtful how far the attraction for Cleopatra is purely one of passion. But in stories like Pamela or The Amber Witch there is a want of dignity in the /eitmotif which lessens the value of the work in its artistic aspects. On the other hand, the in- tensity of feeling evoked by the sexual instinct can be made to lead to most effective contrasts of character, and Meinhold has managed to produce some of his best effects out of this contrast. The yielding of the father and the resistance of the daughter at the critical moment of trial is a striking piece of characterisation.
It is indeed the character of the father who tells the story—the simple old rector of Coserow, with his pedantry and simplicity, his superstition and servility, his trust in God and belief in the Devil—which constitutes Meinhold’s greatest triumph in the book before us. It was this indeed that gave the book its medieval tone and pro- duced that effect of vraisemblance which took in the critics at the first. Not even John Ridd himself tells his tale with equal consistency of dramatic personation. Nor has much, if any, of this effectiveness of narrative tone been lost in Lady Duff Gordon’s admirable version, one of the very few translations from the German that read as if they might have been written originally in English.
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The Amber Witch
Barring the omission of the dialectical forms of the original which Meinhold introduced in order to confuse the critics, Lady Gordon’s version has preserved in a remarkable manner the quaint pedantry and simplicity of tone which forms the chief characteristic of the original. It is rare indeed that such a specific quality as style is transferred with such fidelity from one language to an- other.
Who shall tell where Art will find her children? On the desolate and gloomy shores of the Baltic the child of a half-crazy father, unfriendly and unfriended as a Bursch, a Protestant Pastor with Romanist tendencies—who would have anticipated from Meinhold, perhaps the most effective presentation of mediaeval thought and feeling which the whole Romantic movement produced? And the occasion of the production of The Amber Witch was equally un- expected. Meinhold went forth to refute Strauss, and founded on his way a new kingdom in the realm of Romance. It is a repetition of the history of Saul.
XX
Wibliographtcal ote
Tue original appeared in 1843 under the title, ‘ Maria ‘ Schweidler, die Bernsteinhexe. Der interessanteste aller ‘ bisher bekannten Hexenprozesse, nach einer defekten Hand-
_ * schrift ihres Vaters, des Pfarrers Abraham Schweidler in
‘ Koserow auf Usedom, herausgegeben von W. Meinhold,’
This contained a preface giving an imaginary history of
_ the manner in which the original manuscript had been
: Pe :
oe
found. The second edition appeared in 1845 with a still more elaborate preface explaining the fiction and giving documentary proof that it was a fiction. No third edition
_ was asked for till 1872, when one was issued under the
auspices of the author’s son, Aurel Meinhold, who in his
_ preface suggests at the end that the reader will do well after reading The Amber Witch to peruse his own Kreuz _ von Veneta. I cannot indorse this recommendation. More
recently a reprint of the first edition has been produced as one of Meyer’s Volksbiicher (Leipzig, n.d.). Lady Duff Gordon’s version appeared in Murray’s
_ Traveller's Library in 1846, and has since been twice reprinted.
a ere Biers
List of Silustrations
THE APPARITION ON THE STRECKELBERG, . ‘ Frontispiece THE GALLOWS GHOST, ; ; ; ; To face page 51 THE TORTURE CHAMBER, . ‘ E . pe 153 THE DOOM OF THE WHEEL, . j ; re 189
THE BRIDAL GIFTS, . ; : ‘ ; ms) 217
MARY SCHWEIDLER THE AMBER WITCH
THE MOST INTERESTING TRIAL FOR WITCH- CRAFT EVER KNOWN. PRINTED FROM AN IMPERFECT MANUSCRIPT BY HER FATHER ABRAHAM SCHWEIDLER, THE PASTOR OF COSEROW, IN THE ISLAND OF USEDOM EDITED BY W. MEINHOLD
DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY, AND PASTOR, ETC. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY
LADY DUFF GORDON
1846
preface
N laying before the public this deeply affect- ing 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 Appelman, 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 xxvii
The Amber WMHitch
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 tome. 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.!
No sooner had I reached home than I fell to work upon my new acquisition, and after reading a bit here and there with considerable trouble, my interest was powerfully excited by the contents.
I soon felt the necessity of making myself better acquainted with the nature and conduct of these witch trials, with the proceedings, nay, even with the history of the whole period in which these events occur. But the
1 The original manuscript does indeed contain several accounts — which at first sight may have led to this mistake; besides, the hand- writing is extremely difficult to read, and in several places the paper is discoloured and decayed.
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preface
more I read of these extraordinary stories, the more was I confounded ; and neither the trivial Beeker (die bezauberte Welt, the enchanted world), nor the more careful Horst (Zauberbibliothek, the library of magic), to which, as well as to several other works on the same subject, I had flown for information, could resolve my doubts, but rather served to increase them.
Not alone is the demoniacal character, which pervades nearly all these fearful stories, so deeply marked, as to fill the attentive reader with feelings of alternate horror and dismay, but the eternal and unchangeable laws of human feeling and action are often arrested in a manner so violent and unforeseen, that the understanding is entirely baffled. For instance, one of the original trials which a friend of mine, a lawyer, discovered in our province, contains the account of a mother, who, after she had suffered the torture, and received the holy Sacrament, and was on the point of going to the stake, so utterly lost all maternal feeling, that her conscience obliged her to accuse as a witch her only dearly-loved daughter, a girl of fifteen, against whom no one had ever entertained a suspicion, in order, as she said, to save her poor soul. The court, justly amazed at an event which probably has never since been paralleled, caused the state of the mother’s mind to be examined both by clergymen and physicians, whose original testimonies are still appended to the records, and are all highly favourable to her soundness of mind. The unfortunate daughter, whose name was Elizabeth
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The Amber Tiitch
Hegel, was actually executed on the strength of her mother’s accusation.!
The explanation commonly received at the present day, that these phenomena were produced by means of animal magnetism, is utterly insufficient. How, for instance, could this account for the deeply demoniacal nature of old Lizzie Kolken as exhibited in the following pages? It is utterly incomprehensible, and perfectly explains why the old pastor, notwithstanding the horrible deceits practised on him in the person of his daughter, retained as firm a faith in the truth of witchcraft as in that of the Gospel.
During the earlier centuries of the middle ages little was known of witchcraft. The crime of magic, when it did occur, was leniently punished. For instance, the Council of Ancyra (314) ordained the whole punishment of witches to consist in expulsion from the Christian community. The Visigoths punished them with stripes, and Charlemagne, by advice of his bishops, confined them in prison until such time as they should sincerely repent.? It was not until very soon before the Reformation, that Innocent vi. lamented that the complaints of universal Christendom against the evil practices of these women had become so general and so loud, that the most vigorous measures must be taken against them; and towards the
1 It is my intention to publish this trial also, as it possesses very great psychological interest. 2 Horst, Zauberbibliothek, vi. p. 231.
XXX
preface
end of the year 1489, he caused the notorious Hammer for Witches (Malleus Malleficarum) to be published, according to which proceedings were set on foot with the most fanatical zeal, not only in Catholic, but, strange to say, even in Protestant Christendom, which in other respects abhorred everything belonging to Catholicism. Indeed, the Protestants far outdid the Catholics in cruelty, until, among the latter, the noble-minded Jesuit, J. Spee, and among the former, but not until seventy years later, the excellent Thomasius, by degrees put a stop to these horrors.
After careful examination into the nature and charac- teristics of witchcraft, I soon perceived that among all these strange and often romantic stories, not one surpassed my ‘amber witch’ in lively interest ; and I determined to throw her adventures into the form of a romance. Fortunately, however, I was soon convinced that her story was already in itself the most interesting of all romances ; and that I should do far better to leave it in its original antiquated form, omitting whatever would be uninteresting to modern readers, or so universally known as to need no repetition. I have therefore attempted, not indeed to supply what is missing at the beginning and end, but to restore those leaves which have been torn out of the middle, imitating, as accurately as I was able, the language and manner of the old biographer, in order that the difference between the original narrative and my own interpolations might not be too evident.
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The Amber Hitch
This I have done with much trouble, and after many ineffectual attempts; but I refrain from pointing out the particular passages which I have supplied, so as not to disturb the historical interest of the greater part of my readers. For modern criticism, which has now attained to a degree of acuteness never before equalled, such a confession would be entirely superfluous, as critics will easily distinguish the passages where Pastor Schweidler speaks from those written by Pastor Meinhold.
I am, nevertheless, bound to give the public some account of what I have omitted, namely,—
Ist. Such long prayers as were not very remarkable for Christian unction.
2d. Well-known stories out of the Thirty Years’ War.
3d. Signs and wonders in the heavens, which were seen here and there, and which are recorded by other Pomeranian writers of these fearful times ; for instance, by Micrelius.1_ But when these events formed part of the tale itself, as, for instance, the cross on the Streckelberg, I, of course, allowed them to stand.
4th. The specification of the whole income of the church at Coserow, before and during the terrible times of the Thirty Years’ War.
5th. The enumeration of the dwellings left standing,
1 Vom Alten Pommerlande (of old Pomerania), book v. XXxii
wreface
after the devastations made by the enemy in every village throughout the parish.
6th. The names of the districts to which this or that member of the congregation had emigrated.
7th. A ground plan and description of the old Manse.
I have likewise here and there ventured to make a few changes in the language, as my author is not always con- sistent in the use of his words or in his orthography. The latter I have, however, with very few exceptions, retained.
And thus I lay before the gracious reader a work, glowing with the fire of heaven, as well as with that of hell.
MEINHOLD.
XXXIli c
Contents
Inrropvuction, by Joseph Jacobs PREFACE InTRODUCTION