Q. Why did she hesitate? She had better make a full confession of all, so that her punishment might be less heavy. Had she not there given over old Seden to Satan, who had carried him off through the air, and left only a part of his hair and brains sticking to the top of an oak?—R. She did not know whether that was his hair and brains at all, nor how it came there. She went to the tree one morning because she heard a woodpecker cry so dolefully. Item, old Paasch, who also had heard the cries, came up with his axe in his hand.
Q. Whether the woodpecker was not the devil himself, who had carried off old Seden?—R. She did not know: but he must have been dead some time, seeing that the blood and brains which the lad fetched down out of the tree were quite dried up.
Q. How and when, then, had he come by his death?—R. That Almighty God only knew. But Zuter his little girl had said that one day, while she gathered nettles for the cows under Seden his hedge, she heard the goodman threaten his squint-eyed wife that he would tell the parson that he now knew of a certainty that she had a familiar spirit; whereupon the goodman had presently disappeared. But that this was a child's tale, and she would fyle no one on the strength of it.
Hereupon Dom. Consul again looked the sheriff steadily in the face, and said, "Old Lizzie Kolken must be brought before us this very day:" whereto the sheriff made no answer; and he went on to ask—
Q. Whether, then, she still maintained that she knew nothing of the devil?—R. She maintained it now, and would maintain it until her life's end.
Q. And nevertheless, as had been seen by witnesses, she had been re-baptized by him in the sea in broad daylight.—Here again she blushed, and for a moment was silent.
Q. Why did she blush again? She should for God His sake think on her salvation, and confess the truth.—R. She had bathed herself in the sea, seeing that the day was very hot; that was the whole truth.
Q. What chaste maiden would ever bathe in the sea? Thou liest; or wilt thou even yet deny that thou didst bewitch old Paasch his little girl with a white roll?—R. Alas! alas! she loved the child as though it were her own little sister; not only had she taught her as well as all the other children without reward, but during the heavy famine she had often taken the bit from her own mouth to put it into the little child's. How then could she have wished to do her such grievous harm?
Q. Wilt thou even yet deny? Reverend Abraham, how stubborn is your child! See here, is this no witches' salve, [Footnote: It was believed that the devil gave the witches a salve, by the use of which they made themselves invisible, changed themselves into animals, flew through the air, &c.] which the constable fetched out of thy coffer last night? Is this no witches' salve, eh?—R. It was a salve for the skin, which would make it soft and white, as the apothecary at Wolgast had told her, of whom she bought it.
Q. Hereupon he shook his head, and went on: How! wilt thou then lastly deny that on this last Saturday the 10th July, at twelve o'clock at night, thou didst on the Streckelberg call upon thy paramour the devil in dreadful words, whereupon he appeared to thee in the shape of a great hairy giant, and clipped thee and toyed with thee?