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Sidonia The Sorceress
By William Mienhold
VOLUME I
BOOK I.
CHAPTER VI.
How the young Prince prepared a petition to his mother, the Duchess, in favour of Sidonia. Item, of the strange doings of the Laplander with his magic drum.
The day preceding that on which Sidonia was to repeat the Catechism of Doctor Gerschovius (of which, by the way, she had not learned one word), the young Duke suddenly entered his mother's apartment, where she and her maidens were spinning, and asked her if she remembered anything about a Laplander with a drum, who had foretold some event to her and his father whilst they were at Penemunde some years before; for he had been arrested at Eldena, and was now in Wolgast.
"Alas!" said her Grace, "I perfectly remember the horrible sorcerer. One spring I was at the hunt with your father near Penemunde, when this wretch suddenly appeared driving two cows before him on a large ice-field. He pretended that while he was telling fortunes to the girls who milked the cows, a great storm arose, and drove him out into the wide sea, which was a terrible misfortune to him. But your father told him in Swedish, which language the knave knew, that it had been better to prophesy his own destiny. To which he replied, a man could as little foretell his own fate as see the back of his own head, which every one can see but himself. However, if the Duke wished, he would tell him his fortune, and if it did not come out true, let all the world hold him as a liar for his life long.
"Alas! your father consented. Whereupon the knave began to dance and play upon his drum like one frenzied; so that it was evident to see the spirit was working within him. Then he fell down like one dead, and cried, 'Woe to thee when thy house is burning! Woe to thee when thy house is burning!'
"Therefore be warned, my son; have nothing to do with this fellow, for it so happened even as he said. On the 11th December '57, our castle was burned, and your poor father had a rib broken in consequence. Would that I had been the rib broken for him, so that he might still reign over the land; and this was the true cause of his untimely death. Therefore dismiss this sorcerer, for it is Satan himself speaks in him."
Here Sidonia grew quite pale, and dropped the thread, as if taken suddenly ill. Then she prayed the Duchess to excuse her, and permit her to retire to her own room.
The moment the Duchess gave permission, Sidonia glided out; but, in place of going to her chamber, she threw herself in a languid attitude upon a seat in the corridor, just where she knew Prince Ernest must pass, and leaned her head upon her hand. He soon came out of his mother's room, and seeing Sidonia, took her hand tenderly, asking, with visible emotion--
"Dear lady, what has happened?"
"Ah," she answered, "I am so weak that I cannot go on to my little apartment. I know not what ails me; but I am so afraid----"
"Afraid of what, dearest lady?"
"Of that sour old priest. He is to examine me to-morrow in the Catechism of Gerschovius, and I cannot learn a word of it, do what I will. I know Luther's Catechism quite well" (this was a falsehood, we know), "but that does not satisfy him, and if I cannot repeat it he will slap my hands or box my ears, and my lady the Duchess will be more angry than ever; but I am too old now to learn catechisms."
Then she trembled like an aspen-leaf, and fixed her eyes on him with such tenderness that he trembled likewise, and drawing her arm within his, supported her to her chamber. On the way she pressed his hand repeatedly; but with each pressure, as he afterwards confessed, a pang shot through his heart, which might have excited compassion from his worst enemy.
When they reached her chamber, she would not let him enter, but modestly put him back, saying, "Leave me--ah! leave me, gracious Prince. I must creep to my bed; and in the meantime let me entreat you to persuade the priest not to torment me to-morrow morning."
The Prince now left her, and forgetting all about the Lapland wizard whom he had left waiting in the courtyard, he rushed over the drawbridge, up the main street behind St. Peter's, and into the house of Dr. Gerschovius.
The doctor was indignant at his petition.
"My young Prince," he said, "if ever a human being stood in need of God's Word, it is that young maiden." At last, however, upon the entreaties of Prince Ernest, he consented to defer her examination for four weeks, during which time she could fully perfect herself in the catechism of his learned brother.
He then prayed the Prince not to allow his eyes to be dazzled by this fair, sinful beauty, who would delude him as she had done all the other men in the castle, not excepting even that old sinner Zitsewitz.
When the Prince returned to the castle, he found a great crowd assembled round the Lapland wizard, all eagerly asking to have their fortunes told, and Sidonia was amongst them, as merry and lively as if nothing had ailed her. When the Prince expressed his surprise, she said, that finding herself much relieved by lying down, she had ventured into the fresh air, to recreate herself, and have her fortune told. Would not the Prince likewise wish to hear his?
So, forgetting all his mother's wise injunctions, he advanced with Sidonia to the wizard. The Lapland drum, which lay upon his knees, was a strange instrument; and by it we can see what arts Satan employs to strengthen his kingdom in all places and by all means. For the Laplanders are Christians, though they in some sort worship the devil, and therefore he imparts to them much of his own power. This drum which they use is made out of a piece of hollow wood, which must be either fir, pine, or birch, and which grows in such a particular place that it follows the course of the sun; that is, the pectines, fibræ, and lineæ in the annual rings of the wood must wind from right to left. Having hollowed out such a tree, they spread a skin over it, fastened down with little pegs; and on the centre of the skin is painted the sun, surrounded by figures of men, beasts, birds, and fishes, along with Christ and the holy Apostles. All this is done with the rind of the elder-tree, chewed first beneath their teeth. Upon the top of the drum there is an index in the shape of a triangle, from which hang a number of little rings and chains. When the wizard wishes to propitiate Satan and receive his power, he strikes the drum with a hammer made of the reindeer's horn, not so much to procure a sound as to set the index in motion with all its little chains, that it may move over the figures, and point to whatever gives the required answer. At the same time the magician murmurs conjurations, springs sometimes up from the ground, screams, laughs, dances, reels, becomes black in the face, foams, twists his eyes, and falls to the ground at last in an ecstasy, dragging the drum down upon his face.
Any one may then put questions to him, and all will come to pass that he answers. All this was done by the wizard; but he desired strictly that when he fell upon the ground, no one should touch him with the foot, and secondly, that all flies and insects should be kept carefully from him. So after he had danced, and screamed, and twisted his face so horribly that half the women fainted, and foamed and raged until the demon seemed to have taken full possession of him, he fell down, and then every one put questions to him, to which he responded; but the answers sometimes produced weeping, sometimes laughing, according as some gentle maiden heard that her lover was safe, or that he had been struck by the mast on shipboard and tumbled into the sea. And all came out true, as was afterwards proved.
Sidonia now invited the Prince to try his fortune; and so, forgetting the admonitions of the Duchess, he said, "What dost thou prophesy to me?"
"Beware of a woman, if you would live long and happily," was the answer.
"But of what woman?"
"I will not name her, for she is present."
Then the Prince turned pale and looked at Sidonia, who grew pale also, but made no answer, only laughed, and advancing asked, "What dost thou prophesy to me?" But immediately the wizard shrieked, "Away! away! I burn, I burn! thou makest me yet hotter than I am!"
Many thought these exclamations referred to Sidonia's beauty, particularly the young lords, who murmured, "Now every one must acknowledge her beauty, when even this son of Satan feels his heart burning when she approaches." And Sidonia laughed merrily at their gallantries.
Just then the Grand Chamberlain came by, and having heard what had happened, he angrily dismissed the crowd, and sending for the executioner, ordered the cheating impostor to be whipped and branded, and then sent over the frontier.
The wizard, who had been lying quite stiff, now cried out (though he had never seen the Chamberlain before)--"Listen, Ulrich! I will prophesy something to thee: if it comes not to pass, then punish me; but if it does, then give me a boat and seven loaves, that I may sail away to-morrow to my own country."
Ulrich refused to hear his prophecy; but the wizard cried out--"Ulrich, this day thy wife Hedwig will die at Spantekow."
Ulrich grew pale, but only answered, "Thou liest! how can that be?" He replied, "Thy cousin Clas will visit her; she will descend to the cellar to fetch him some of the Italian wine for which you wrote, and which arrived yesterday; a step of the stairs will break as she is ascending; she will fall forward upon the flask, which will cut her throat through, and so she will die."
When he ceased, the alarmed Ulrich called loudly to the chief equerry, Appelmann, who just then came by--"Quick! saddle the best racer in the stables, and ride for life to Spantekow, for it may be as he has prophesied, and let us outwit the devil. Haste, haste, for the love of God, and I will never forget it to thee!"
So the equerry rode without stop or stay to Spantekow, and he found the cousin Clas in the house; but when he asked for the Lady Hedwig, they said, "She is in the cellar." So no misfortune had happened then; but as they waited and she appeared not, they descended to look for her, and lo! just as the wizard had prophesied, she had fallen upon the stairs while ascending, and there lay dead.
The mournful news was brought by sunset to Wolgast, and Ulrich, in his despair and grief, wished to burn the Laplander; but Prince Ernest hindered him, saying, "It is more knightly, Ulrich, to keep your word than to cool your vengeance." So the old man stood silent a long space, and then said, "Well, young man, if you abandon Sidonia, I will release the Laplander."
The Prince coloured, and the Lord Chamberlain thought that he had discovered a secret; but as the prophecy of the wizard came again into Prince Ernest's mind, he said--
"Well, Ulrich, I will give up the maiden Sidonia. Here is my hand."
Accordingly, next morning the wizard was released from prison and given a boat, with seven loaves and a pitcher of water, that he might sail back to his own country. The wind, however, was due north, but the people who crossed the bridge to witness his departure were filled with fear when they saw him change the wind at his pleasure to suit himself; for he pulled out a string full of knots, and having swung it about, murmuring incantations, all the vanes on the towers creaked and whirled right about, all the windmills in the town stopped, all the vessels and boats that were going up the stream became quite still, and their sails flapped on the masts, for the wind had changed in a moment from north to south, and the north waves and the south waves clashed together.
As every one stood wondering at this, the sailors and fishermen in particular, the wizard sprang into his boat and set forth with a fair wind, singing loudly, "Jooike Duara! Jooike Duara!"
[Footnote: This is the beginning of a magic rhyme, chanted even by the distant Calmucks--namely, Dschie jo eie jog.] and soon disappeared from sight, nor was he ever again seen in that country.