nd told them they were very good to give him thus a stick to
defend himself from the dogs. The same night he got up again, and by
his presence alarmed several persons, and strangled more amongst them
than he had hitherto done. Afterwards, they delivered him into the
hands of the executioner, who put him in a cart to carry him beyond
the village and there burn him. This corpse howled like a madman, and
moved his feet and hands as if alive. And when they again pierced him
through with stakes he uttered very loud cries, and a great quantity
of bright vermilion blood flowed from him. At last he was consumed,
and this execution put an end to the appearance and hauntings of this
spectre.

The same has been practiced in other places, where similar ghosts have
been seen; and when they have been taken out of the ground they have
appeared red, with their limbs supple and pliable, without worms or
decay; but not without a great stink. The author cites divers other
writers, who attest what he says of these spectres, which still
appear, he says, pretty often in the mountains of Silesia and Moravia.
They are seen by night and by day; the things which once belonged to
them are seen to move themselves and change their place without being
touched by any one. The only remedy for these apparitions is to cut
off the heads and burn the bodies of those who come back to haunt
people.

At any rate, they do not proceed to this without a form of justicial
law. They call for and hear the witnesses; they examine the arguments;
they look at the exhumed bodies, to see if they can find any of the
usual marks which lead them to conjecture that they are the parties
who molest the living, as the mobility and suppleness of the limbs,
the fluidity of the blood, and the flesh remaining uncorrupted. If all
these marks are found, then these bodies are given up to the
executioner, who burns them. It sometimes happens that the spectres
appear again for three or four days after the execution. Sometimes the
interment of the bodies of suspicious persons is deferred for six or
seven weeks. When they do not decay, and their limbs remain as supple
and pliable as when they were alive, then they burn them. It is
affirmed as certain that the clothes of these persons move without any
one living touching them; and within a short time, continues our
author, a spectre was seen at Olmutz, which threw stones, and gave
great trouble to the inhabitants.

CHAPTER VIII