ld himself to the devil, if he could have raised him,
for a good dinner and cakes every day of his life, and a pony to ride
upon. This luxurious youngster, instead of being horsewhipped for his
folly, was hanged and burned.

The small district of Lindheim was, if possible, even more notorious
than Wurzburg for the number of its witch-burnings. In the year 1633 a
famous witch, named Pomp Anna, who could cause her foes to fall sick by
merely looking at them, was discovered and burned, along with three of
her companions. Every year in this parish, consisting at most of a
thousand persons, the average number of executions was five. Between
the years 1660 and 1664, the number consumed was thirty. If the
executions all over Germany had been in this frightful proportion,
hardly a family could have escaped losing one of its members.

In 1627 a ballad entitled the "Druten Zeitung," or the "Witches
Gazette," was very popular in Germany. It detailed, according to the
titlepage of a copy printed at Smalcald in 1627, "an account of the
remarkable events which took place in Franconia, Bamberg, and Wurzburg,
with those wretches who from avarice or ambition have sold themselves
to the devil, and how they had their reward at last: set to music, and
to be sung to the tune of Dorothea." The sufferings of the witches at
the stake are explained in it with great minuteness, the poet waxing
extremely witty when he describes the horrible contortions of pain upon
their countenances, and the shrieks that rent the air when any one of
more than common guilt was burned alive. A trick resorted to in order
to force one witch to confess, is told in this doggrel as an excellent
joke. As she obstinately refused to own that she was in league with the
powers of evil, the commissioners suggested that the hangman should
dress himself in a bear's skin, with the horns, tail, and all the et
ceteras, and in this form penetrate into her dungeon. The woman, in the
darkness of her cell, could not detect the imposture, aided as it was
by her own superstitious fears. She thought she was actually in the
presence of the prince of hell; and when she was told to keep up her
courage, and that she should be relieved from the power of her enemies,
she fell on her knees before the supposed devil, and swore to dedicate
herself hereafter body and soul to his service. Germany is, perhaps,
the only country in Europe where the delusion was so great as to have
made such detesta