“She is out of her wits with the anguish of the torment,” said the clerk.
Katheline was taken back to prison. Three days after, the sheriff’s court being assembled in the Vierschare, Katheline after deliberation was condemned to the fire.
The executioner and his assistants brought her to the marketplace of Damme where there was a scaffold on which she mounted. In the marketplace were the provost, the herald, and the judges.
The trumpets of the town herald sounded three times, and turning to the people he announced:
“The magistrate of Damme, having had compassion on the woman Katheline, has been pleased not to exact punishment according to the extreme rigour of the law of the town, but in order to bear witness that she is a witch, her hair shall be burned, she shall pay twenty gold carolus by way of fine, and shall be banished for three years from the precincts of Damme under pain of losing one limb.”
And the people applauded this harsh lenity.
The executioner thereupon bound Katheline to the stake, set a wig of tow upon her shaven head and set it on fire. And the tow burned long and Katheline cried out and wept.
Then she was unbound and taken without the boundaries of Damme upon a cart, for her feet were burned.