I'm going to tell the story about a real family who experienced the horrors of the witch-craze in 17th century Germany. The people, places, and events are based on original official documents with supplemental information collected by qualified historians.
The family's ordeal began with accusations against one young man. I'm going to explain how you can make your own magic bullets.
And yes, there's an Opera. It is likely that the composer was familiar with this specific "magic bullet" trial document.
Feel free to digress...This is an open thread.
D-Day topics are especially appropriate today.
My wife's ancestor, her 9th great grandmother, is Anna Maria Von Ludwig whose family lived in Kleinheubach, Bavaria, Germany, also known as Kleinheubach am Main because of its location along the river Main.
Anna Maria was the last person in Kleinheubach who was convicted of heresy, witchcraft specifically.
But it's Anna Maria's older brother, Georg Von Ludwig, who was the first to be accused. It was Georg who started the witch hunt that ultimately destroyed the whole family.
Here's his story, sourced from the Kleinheubach archives, corroborated in 1853.
The saga of the three shots----- TheFreischütz
A farmer from Kleinheubach am Main, Georg Ludwig, went one evening in spring between eight and nine to the Springweise, in order to shoot a deer, shot three times, but couldn't hit the animal. Being angry about it, he walked towards home, as suddenly he encountered an unknown man, who was dressed like a forester and wore a gray cap.
This man spoke to him and asked what he was shooting at? Ludwig lied about having shot his rifle, but the stranger said "It doesn't help to lie, I heard the 3 shots" and wanted to teach Ludwig, who was a bad shot, how he could shoot 3 sure shots. Ludwig welcomed this and let the stranger explain what he should do.
He gave him a root and coaxed him to shoot three times with him. Georg Ludwig grabbed his canister and shot, first at the sun, then another time in the sky at the dear God and the third time at the stone wayside shrine at Steiner. From that evening on Ludwig carried the root on him and every day he had three good shots, not more, so that he shot 3 deer, rabbits, ducks, field chickens and other birds. After he used the three shots, the stranger showed him in a second a clerical spring and christened him the evil's name with his left hand and named him Fritz Mueckenwedel. Also the stranger gave him a lover, who wore a small green skirt , and gave him often her wares in Lachertal, in Roellbacher Bruennlein, and other places.
One day as many witches were being burnt at the gallows, came Ludwig, as he saw the bones lying in the fire, with good thoughts, he was suddenly startled by a wind that came up and blew the hat off his head to the ground. This made him think that this was an omen for his death. He would most likely be burnt in Kleinheubach later.
Sure enough, that happened.
Georg Von Ludwig was born in about 1580 in Kleinheubach.
He was tried and convicted of witchcraft on 27 May 1629 in Kleinheubach.
He was hanged and/or burned at the stake on 16 Jun 1629 in Kleinheubach.
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Here's how you can make your own magic bullets.
The expression "Freischuetz" describes in hunting mythology, a shooter on the hunt, who has a free bullet whose infallibility is guaranteed. He could obtain this, if he on a certain day at midnight watered in a remote place or if he hid in a church at a midnight mass and aimed at the raised host without shooting and made a cross on the bullet.
Nothing to it!
Just don't boast about practicing witchcraft, saying those magic spells and being outside at midnight peeing in the woods and hiding in the church pointing your gun and making that cross on your bullet and stuff.
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An 1822 illustration of Der Freischütz
depicting the opening scene with Max and Kilian
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber composed his opera,
Der Freischütz, which premiered in Berlin on 18 June 1821.
It is considered to be the first important German romantic opera.
The theme is revealed in the opening scene.
The young assistant forester Max loves Agathe and is to become the successor to Cuno, the head forester and Agathe's father. But a test of skill in marksmanship is required, the trial to be held the following day.
...
Because Max has had ill luck for several days he easily falls under the influence of Caspar, who persuades Max to cast seven magic bullets to be used in the contest. Caspar, whose soul is to be forfeited to the devil on the following day, hopes to obtain three more years of grace by substituting Max in his place.
It exceeded Weber's expectations. Soon it became an international hit.
Weber's opera was primarily based on a published version of the old German folk tale written by Johann August Apel.
Stories about the Freischütz were especially common in Germany during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. But the tale became widely circulated in 1811 when Johann August Apel included it as the first tale in the first volume of the Gespensterbuch or Book of Ghosts. Thomas de Quincey translated Apel's tale into English in 1823 as The Fatal Marksman.
Mary Adelaide Conrad
6th g-granddaughter of Anna Maria Von Ludwig
Anna Maria Von Ludwig's ordeal was a long, drawn out series of negotiations. You see, Anna Maria was accused of witchcraft but escaped to a different jurisdiction before she could be arrested and imprisoned. It is thought that her husband, Johann Georg Conrad may have bribed the jailers to enable her escape. Regardless, she found herself imprisoned in the other jurisdiction.
Her charges were fabricated:
...some of the inflated charges against Anna Maria Conrad: then even though they were of the opinion that she let herself be led to witchcraft, renounced the God almighty and has become an enemy of mankind, and in the devil's name let herself be bought and joined into the devil's play with whom she slept with at different times, witch's dances and the same coven visited...that the witches...sentenced to death saw her.
In the under torture confession, Anna Maria was found guilty, for dancing the witch's dance, to have met with a lover, and this being wore the face of her brother. [incest]
Anna Maria had three interrogation sessions with torture behind her, was pregnant for months in jail, her escape into Kurmaische territory, ventured into the reie Reichstadt Frankfurt, what else could she bear? So , also, with all of their knowledge of this; so they most recently on the 10th of September proclaimed: she must be a witch; that the pain drove her to say such things. Item: we let her be tortured to see if she stands by what she has said.
Anna Maria was tortured three times, escaped to yet another jurisdiction, Northwest to Frankfurt, and the ordeal continued.
After the Frankfurter escape and her return, everything started from the beginning, again she would be tried, and again she would be interrogated under torture. The University of Tuebingen suggested the following solution: that she in exchange for her payment of her Atzungand other costs for her keep to release her to her husband and children/in addition to the usual church penance/ a sworn oath to keep the peace/also where possible/townspeople should receive and take up with her/that she is not alone unless she gets further reprieve in the zehden of the city of Kleinheubach/or that she otherwise settles/to stay/but , above all, at any time, summoned by the respectable authorities will obediently be available. In the meantime, she could be granted lessons and consolation through the pastor or spiritual advisor/to let her do and conscientiously to warn her children, make mention of the times, what she has learned from them/or to be taught/diligently examined or questioned/and to raise more suspicion about her and no improvement/but should be much more evident/that the torture would continue/should your children or anyone else be led astray/also to do harm to any animals or person/ should attempt for yourself/wish at any time that you again be captured/also everything new and old would be added together/which wouldn't happen so easily/when you would be again at home released from a sentence .
The swearing under oath was suggested as a solution of the problem. No, this is no acquittal. The prisoner would simply be released from prison and swore, not to discuss what was said against her or what she had said. Also the citizens and the council of the city of Frankfurt, who avoided helping her are also locked into this. She is not allowed to take part in public events and may not leave the Zent Kleinheubach and must pay for all of the costs of her imprisonment and for food and lodging.
Those who withstand the full torture that means the tightening of the screws on both legs, the stretching with the cord, and simultaneously hanging with weights, so tortured people couldn't feed themselves and walk without hindrance. The embarrassing questions, the torture made them cripples, they were dependent on others for help and support but nobody wanted anything to do with them. So Anna Maria must also learn that her husband didn't want to live with a convicted witch and avoided taking her.
Also in Miltenberg there is a known case, and the letter of her husband to his wife, who was released on oath....It is amazing and injured my heart , that you took off all of your clothes for the executioner, to cut contrary to Nature and to be shameful, but much more I wonder that you are with the devil in eternity and so will stay. God pity the poor, tempted souls. Shame on you before our creator, God the almighty, shame yourself before God our savior, strong judge, who saw everything, what you did before his godly eyes, shame yourself, that so an unworthy life would be taken from you,...then I forgive you for everything, and , even though, I won't be able to see you anymore in this world or want to see you, I hope, though, that your search for home will be noticed by God and your conscience purified, that we shall happily see one another in the eternal life....your devoted landlord David Mohr.
Anna Maria Conrad found herself in the same desperate situation as the Frau Mohr of Miltenberg. She will be let out of prison but her husband is not prepared to take her back into the household. The discharge after swearing to keep the peace is not an acquittal due to lack of evidence but the discharge of a criminal, where there was no admission of guilt.
So it happened then too; Anna Maria (Von Ludwig) Conrad would be sentenced to church penance and must swear to the oath to keep the peace that had been laid before her. Her husband, as well, that then also the coverage of the costs that are laid out.
With the signature of the wife, one notices her inner turmoil. The costs, which Johann Georg Conrad should pay for his wife were in the amount: 640 Gulden and 200 Gulden for provisions and her keep in Kleinheubach. By all means , with the preliminary report , was the tragedy not quite over.
As Johann Georg Conrad's wife was let free, he refused at first, to take her with him; he didn't want to have a clear witch as a wife. She, however, requested to do her church penance in Erbach and not in Kleinheubach; she feared the ridicule of the people. In the end, he took her in the children's half of the house. Whether his wife agreed with her inflicted penalty is not in the files, we can just assume. Then came the difficult war days, from which we hear much about later. At the time, the Heubachs severely depleted people had to seek shelter in the neighboring woods or in Miltenberg. Regarding the suffering that it brought. one forgot the disgrace of the times. Anna Maria Conrad outlived her husband by 9 years. He died on the 27th of July 1637, she on the 27th of December 1646 in Miltenberg.