Mary Schweidler, the Amber Witch

Wilhelm Meinhold, Lady Duff Gordon

Description

“Mary Schweidler, the Amber Witch” is an 1838 novel by Wilhelm Meinhold, originally published in German and translated into English by Lady Duff-Gordon. Initially published as a hoax claiming to be a 17th-century account of witchcraft, Meinhold eventually confessed to the deceit but encountered significant trouble when trying to prove that he actually wrote the book. Set during the Thirty Years War, the plot revolves around the story of a pastor, whose only daughter, Maria, has been accused of practicing witchcraft by a rejected suitor. What follows is a tale of heart-break, jealousy and innocence. Read & Co. Classics is proudly republishing this vintage novel now in a brand new edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 24 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528792035
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

MARY SCHWEIDLER, THE AMBER WITCH
By
WILHELM MEINHOLD
Translated from the German by
LADY DUFF GORDON

First published in 1838



Copyright © 2020 Read & Co. Classics
This edition is published by Read & Co. Classics, an imprint of Read & Co.
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The most interesting trial for witchcraft ever known. Printed from an imperfect manuscript by her father Abraham Schweidler, the pastor of Coserow, in the Island of Usedom.


Contents
Johann Wilhe lm Meinhold
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
THE SEV ENTH CHAPTER
THE EI GHTH CHAPTER
THE N INTH CHAPTER
THE T ENTH CHAPTER
THE ELEV ENTH CHAPTER
THE TWE LFTH CHAPTER
THE THIRTE ENTH CHAPTER
THE FOURTE ENTH CHAPTER
THE FIFTE ENTH CHAPTER
THE SIXTE ENTH CHAPTER
THE SEVENTE ENTH CHAPTER
THE EIGHTE ENTH CHAPTER
THE NINETE ENTH CHAPTER
THE TWENT IETH CHAPTER
THE TWENTY-F IRST CHAPTER
THE TWENTY-SE COND CHAPTER
THE TWENTY-T HIRD CHAPTER
THE TWENTY-FO URTH CHAPTER
THE TWENTY-F IFTH CHAPTER
THE TWENTY-S IXTH CHAPTER
THE TWENTY-SEV ENTH CHAPTER
THE TWENTY-EI GHTH CHAPTER
THE TWENTY-N INTH CHAPTER



Johann Wilhelm Meinhold
In the year 1843 appeared from an important Prussian publishing house a small volume, which was received with the liveliest interest by literary Germany. Its title was Maria Schweidler, the Amber Witch: Being the most Interesting Trial for Witchcraft yet Known: Taken from a Defective Manuscript, made by the Father of the Accused, the Reverend Abraham Schweidler, of Coserow [Usedom Island]; Edited by Reverend W. Meinhold. Within its pages was brought up from the superstitious past of the rural life of North Germany, in 1630, a grim yet absorbingly interesting picture and personal drama. Rev. Johann Wilhelm Meinhold, in editing the relic, stated that he had discovered its yellowed and torn pages by merest accident among some literary rubbish in the choir of the old Coserow church. The writer of it, the Reverend Abraham Schweidler, a godly and simple-minded man, had almost lost his only child Maria through a villainous plot on the part of a rejected suitor, aided by an evil and jealous woman of the neighborhood,—the latter confessing herself an actual servant of Satan. After a formal trial, and the beginnings of those direful tortures to induce confession that were then the ordinary accompaniment of German criminal processes, the unfortunate young girl, wholly innocent of the preposterous charge, had confessed it. She had found herself conquered by sheer physical agony, and by her inability to endure the torment of the executioners. Sentenced to the stake, Maria had prepared herself to meet her undeserved doom; and not before she was fairly on the way to the pyre was she rescued by a courageous young nobleman who loved her, and not only made himself her deliverer, but anon her husband and protector for life. The whole narrative was given with a simplicity of accent, and with a minuteness of detail, that precluded doubt as to its being a genuine contribution to the literature of the witchcraft delusion in Europe,—to which Massachusetts furnished an American supplement.
In offering to the public his interesting treasure, the Reverend Pastor Meinhold particularly stated that he had kept the connection between the fragments of Pastor Schweidler's old manuscript by interpolating passages of his own editorial composition, “imitating as accurately as I was able the language and manner of the old biographer.” The careful Meinhold noted that he expressly refrained from pointing out the particular passages supplied, because “modern criticism, which has now attained to a degree of acuteness never before equalled,” could easily distin guish them.
The work met with the most complete success. Maria Schweidler, the Amber Witch was received with high commendation, as a mediaeval document most happily brought to light. Not only did its dramatic treatment attract critical notice: a sharp argument soon arose among those reviewers especially keen in dealing with curious mediaeval chronicles, as to the extent of Pastor Meinhold's “editorial” additions; and as to whether this passage or that were original, or only a nice imitation of the crabbed chronicle. The discussion soon became a literary tempest in a teapot. Meinhold observed for months a strict silence: then he abruptly announced that Maria Schweidler, the Amber Witch was a total fabrication; that he had written the whole story; that no part of it had ever been found in Coserow Church or elsewhere; and further, that he had not been inspired to perpetrate his brilliant fraud by merely the innocent vanity of a story-teller or antiquarian. He had desired to prove to the learned Biblical critics of the date (it was the time of the attacks of Strauss and Baur on the authenticity of certain books of the Scriptures) how untrustworthy was their reasoning, from purely internal evidence, as to the sources of the Canon. If a contemporary could deceive their judgment with a forged romance, how much more might they err in their Biblical arguments! Maria Schweidler, the Amber Witch was thus a country parson's protest against inerrancy in the “higher criticism” then agitating German orthodoxy. It is interesting to know that Meinhold's confession was at first rejected; although he soon proved the story to be indeed the result of his scholarship and quaint imagination. Its reputation grew; and the acknowledged imposture only added to its c irculation.
Of Meinhold's life and career, except as the author of Maria Schweidler, the Amber Witch there is little to be said. His father was a Protestant minister, eccentric almost to the degree of insanity. Wilhelm was born at Netzelkow, Usedom Island, February 27th, 1797. He studied at Greifswald University, was a private tutor at Uekermunde and a curate at Gutzkow. On his marriage he settled first at Usedom, later at Coserow. His literary success attracted the favor of King Frederic Wilhelm IV. of Prussia; but after taking a pastorate at Rehwinkel, in Stargard, Meinhold remained there almost to the close of his life, although he inclined to the Roman Catholic theology as he came to middle years. Another mediaeval romance of witchcraft, Sidonia von Bork, the Cloister-Witch , is by some critics considered superior to Maria Schweidler, the Amber Witch ; but it has never met with the popularity of the less pretentious story that gave the Usedom clergyman his wide reputation. It is of interest to add that not only has the translation of the tale by Lady Duff Gordon been recognized as one of the very best examples of English translation of a fiction,—the translation that does not suggest the conveyance of a tale at second-hand,—but that on the appearance of her version she was credited with the authorship of the story, and the likelihood of a German original denied. From first to last, the drama of Maria Schweidler's peril and romance seems to have been destined to deceive better even than it was planned to deceive.
The Amber Witch belongs in the same category of “fictions that seem fact” which includes Defoe's Robinson Crusoe , or his History of the Plague in London ; where the appropriate detail is so abundant, and the atmosphere of an epoch and community is so fully conveyed, as to bar suspicion that the story is manufactured. As Mr. Joseph Jacobs happily remarks in his excellent study of Meinhold, and of the history that has kept his name alive among German r omanticists:
“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 unexpected. 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 histo ry of Saul.”
A c hapter from Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Mod ern, Vol XXV



PREFACE
In laying before the public this deeply affecting 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 Appelmann, was thoroughly unlike his namesake in our story, being a very worthy, al