quantity of these persuasive
liquors, you will find it possible to believe most anything. And the
blessing of the holy fathers who have prepared the beverages for your
repast will be given you gratis in addition to their liquors.

The journey of Luther's mother to Eisleben which compelled her to put up
at an inn is, likewise, imaginary. Melanchthon, Luther's associate
during the greater part of the Reformer's life, investigated the matter
and states that Luther was born at his parents' home in Eisenach during
their temporary sojourn in that city, prior to their removal to Mansfeld.

These stories about the place and manner of Luther's birth originated in
the seventeenth century. They were unknown in Luther's time. Generations
after a great man has died gossip becomes busy and begins to relate
remarkable incidents of his life. Lincoln did not say or do one half of
the interesting things related about him. He has been drawn into that
magical circle where myths are formed, because his great name will
arouse interest in the wildest tale. That is what has happened to
Luther. These "myths" are an unconscious tribute to his greatness. One
might let them pass as such and smile at them.

But the Catholic version of Luther's birth is needed by their writers as
a corollary to another "fact" which they have discovered about Luther's
father Hans. Hans Luther, so their story runs, was a fugitive from
justice at the time of his Martin's birth. In a fit of anger he had
assaulted or slain a man in his native village of Moehra, and abandoning
his small landholdings, he fled with his wife, who was in an advanced
stage of pregnancy. Color is lent to this story by the discovery that
the Luthers at Moehra were generally violent folk. Research in the
official court-dockets at Salzungen, the seat of the judicial district
to which Moehra belonged, shows that brawls were frequent in that
village, and some Luthers were involved in them. Now follows the
Catholic deduction, plausible, reasonable, appealing, just like the
"assumption" of Mary: "Out of the gnarly wood of this relationship,
consisting mostly of powerful, pugnacious farmers, assertive of their
rights, Luther's father grew."

This story was started in Luther's lifetime. George Wicel, who had
fallen away from the evangelical faith, accused Luther of having a
homicide for a father. In 1565, he published the story under a false
name at Paris, but gave no details. In Moehra nothing was