Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348

by Various

Thus called upon, the cripple gave a start forward, like a lion let loose upon the gladiator’s arena, through the barred gates of which he has already sniffed the odour of blood; and then, raising one of his long arms towards the stool of penitence, on which the criminal had been placed, he again repeated, with an eagerness amounting to frenzy, his accusation against her.

As the witchfinder’s hoarse voice was heard, a visible shudder passed through Magdalena’s frame; but she raised not her head, moved not a limb, spoke not; and it was only when called upon by the chief schreiber to declare what she had to say against this accusation, that she lowly murmured—“God’s will be done!” but still with bowed head and downcast eyes.

In support of his denunciation, the cripple proceeded to state how he had watched the mysterious female called “Mother Magdalena,” and had observed that she never would enter any consecrated building; how she would daily advance up the steps of the church, and then pause before the threshold, as if she feared to pass it, and then throw herself down upon the stones before the gate, where she would lie in strange convulsions, and at last return without having penetrated into the building—an evident proof that the devil she served had forbidden her to put her foot into any sacred dwelling, but had taught her, nevertheless, to approach near enough to treat the awful mysteries of the Christian religion, performed within, with mockery and contempt. To this accusation, which was confirmed by the acclamation of several persons present in the court, Magdalena, when called upon to speak, proffered no denial; she contented herself with the meek reply, that God alone knew the motives of the heart—that it was for him alone to judge. The words were still uttered in the same low despairing tone, and without the slightest movement of her head from its sunken posture.

The partially monastic dress, which was her habitual attire, was next brought forward against her as a proof of her desire to treat with contempt the dress of the religious orders: and to this absurd accusation, when asked why she had adopted a costume resembling that of the holy sisterhood of penitents, the old woman still refused any reply.

The events of the previous afternoon, when she had been openly seen to throw her staff at the Amtmann’s unoffending daughter, and wound her on the neck, and then break into pieces the image of the Holy Cross, were then recapitulated, as facts known upon the positive evidence of a hundred witnesses.

These matters disposed of, the cripple proceeded to detail his own peculiar grievances, and attributed, as he had done in the cases of the seven unhappy women who had already fallen victims of his frantic delusion, the severe pains that had racked his poor distorted limbs to the malefic charms of the sorceress. He related how, on the last night on which he had met Mother Magdalena, he had found her sitting by the well in the market-place, casting a spell upon the spring, and turning the waters to poison and blood—as a proof of which, he swore to have himself tasted in the water of the bucket the taste of blood; how, in revenge for his warning to her to desist from her foul practices, she had pointed up her finger to the sky, and immediately brought down upon his head all the combined waters of heaven; how she had vanished from his sight in this storm, he knew not how; and how immediately intense pains began to torture his joints, until he became half frantic with agony, and had been compelled, by hideous visions, to quit the shelter he had sought, in order to be exposed to all the peltings of the storm. He had since suffered, he declared, the tortures of the damned in all his limbs, with occasional fits of shuddering, sometimes of hot fever, sometimes of the most freezing cold, which were evidently torments worked upon him by the powers of darkness. And as he spoke, the unhappy wretch was again seized by one of his fearful fits of ague, during the convulsions of which the clamours of the crowd grew terrible against the sorceress.

“What sayest thou to this accusation, woman?” said the chief schreiber. “Thou see’st how even now he suffers.”

“I have never willed evil to any man—not even to him,” was Magdalena’s only reply.

When recovered from his fit, the cripple again raised his head—it was to cast a glance at the object of his denunciation, in which hatred and triumph were blended together, in one of those occasional flashes of wildness which showed that there was a vein of insanity running through all the frenzied zeal of the witchfinder. He had now arrived at a period of his narration, when the most damning proof of all was to overwhelm the accused woman.

It was not without an unaffected expression of horror, that he went on to relate how he had wandered around the building by the Watergate, in a lower cell of which he had discovered that she dwelt, seeking in vain to find an entrance or a peep-hole, that might enable him to penetrate into the interior; how he had, at last, dragged his crippled limbs up into a tree upon the river’s bank, overlooking an upper chamber of the building; how he had, at first, seen Mother Magdalena in conversation with the young illuminator; how, upon his departure, she had flung herself down upon her knees, and after spitting upon one of the books of holy writ upon the table, had made wild gestures of conjuration, upon which the demon himself, attired in a dark robe, had suddenly appeared by supernatural means, for he had not entered by the door; how the foul hag had fallen down and worshipped the arch-fiend; and how, after a conference of short duration, during which the woman at his feet appeared to supplicate with earnestness, probably a prolongation of her wretched term of power to work ill, and afterwards kissed his hand in token of adoration and submission, the demon had vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.