Fürsteneck witch trial

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The place Fürsteneck in Lower Bavaria was in 1703 the scene of a witch trial . A detailed protocol of the trial was received in the Röhrnbach rectory .

Starting position

Afra Dickh (also Afra Dick ) was a maid for the farmer Frueth in Wittersitt, a district of today's Ringelai community . The charges were poisoning, bewitching humans and animals, associating with other bewitched persons and dealing with the devil. Co-defendants were the 13-year-old guardian dirndl Maria, who worked for the same farmer, and the widowed farmer Maria Kölbl, a mother of 15 from Neidberg near Ringelai.

The competent judicial authority was the prince-bishop Passau's care and district court Fürsteneck belonging to the Hochstift Passau . The chairman of the investigative commission was the judge Gottfried Wagner, recorder JW Lorenz, assessor of the hosts Simon Daikh, Josef Schonauer and the Bader von Perlesreut Korbinian Wenkh.

The protocol

The three women were held prisoner in the Perlesreut Fronfeste and in February 1703 were questioned for days in detail and according to the protocol about "amicable". Afra had 42 questions to answer, on the basis of which she told how she became acquainted and familiar with the devil, how she found access to all dwellings and stables with his strength, how she enchanted cows and so milk, cream and lard in large quantities won. She went on night rides on a fork and celebrated wild feasts with strange men, including Bohemia. Finally she is said to have admitted the use of the witch's ointment .

Maria, the shepherdess, with whom Afra shared the bedroom, had twenty questions to answer. Maria protested that although she noticed all sorts of strange things about Afra, she had no knowledge of her witchcraft. The farmer Maria Kölbl was asked thirteen questions. Accordingly, she confessed to have heard of the events, but not to have been involved. In the eleventh question she was accused of having found 34 suspicious items in a chest during a house search in her courtyard, including ointments, wax, salt, pitch, onion seeds, blood stones, shear or molehills, wood, shavings, silk, Yarn and belt. She claimed that she needed these items as remedies, especially for maintaining open legs.

Now three “experience persons” from Neidberg were interviewed, men aged 31, 49 and 59 years. They explained that their cows had been bewitched, which is why they had a heavy loss of milk, cream, butter and lard. The youngest of the three knew how to tell the farmer Maria's husband always traveled to Passau with large quantities of lard in summer and autumn and sold it there. Often in Neidberg or its vicinity one found creamed chunks the size of a man's fist, which the witches lost while riding home.

Repeatedly he observed a fiery dragon before it drove into a house. The teats of the cow's udders were bitten and the milk was slimy. A servant named Adam Drexler, who had previously worked for the farmer Maria, had also revealed to him that the farmer had not been faithful to her previous husband and had adulterous relationships with fellow servant Andreas.

the execution

The protocol closes with the reproduction of the witness statements. In the executioner's list of expenses, the execution of the sentence is listed: Afra Dickh was promoted from life to death on June 1, 1703 by Passau executioner Sebastian Fleischmann at the Fürstenecker high court near Perlesreut for sorcery and arson (in terms of veneficii et incendii) then burned to ashes on a stake with 30 fathoms of wood and 40 pounds of pitch. Maria Kölbl was executed a few weeks later.

Continuing effect

Afra, the witch of Wittersitt , was later celebrated in songs and ganzln . One is:

I'm from Wittersitt, where there are two houses.
D'Hexn burned down here
The witch burns and hits the pot.
I can never have worries for eternity!

A legend went on to tell that at the Frueth farmer's house the servants washed their feet during the rough night to smoke their feet. Afra had asked another maid if she wanted to marry one day, and after she answered yes, Afra asked her to choose a husband. Then the faces of several young men appeared in the footwater. The maid chose one and pointed her finger at him. Then he jumped out and bit her finger, which was bleeding profusely. It was the devil who entered her name in his book with the maid's blood. Everyone knew then that Afra was a witch.

In 1997, Manfred Böckl's novel Der Hexenstein was published , which denounced the persecution of witches based on the court records. In the same year a small witch museum was set up in Ringelai, which reminds of Afra Dickh and Maria Kölbl. The interrogation protocols of the witches' tribunal can be seen there with translations. In 2005 the Festspielverein Fürsteneck e. V. presented the play Pech und Puder (written and directed by Florian Schwartz) as part of the Fürsteneck Baroque Festival, which is being staged for the first time , in which the two women become victims of evil machinations.

The songwriter from Fürsteneck, Walter Peschl, also deals with the Fürsteneck witch trial in his lyrics and works on the topic musically - along with other social and economic problems in the Bavarian Forest. In this context the title "d'Hexnjagd" was created.

Remarks

  1. ^ Paul Praxl : The history of the Wolfsteiner country. In: The district of Freyung Grafenau. Freyung 1982, p. 178.
  2. ^ VdK newspaper on witch trial and witch museum , accessed on December 2, 2016.
  3. ↑ Max Peinkofer: The witch of Wittersitt. In: Der Brunnkorb , Verlag Passavia, Passau 1977 (originally 1947), ISBN 3-87616-060-X , p. 91.
  4. ↑ Max Peinkofer: The witch of Wittersitt. In: Der Brunnkorb , Verlag Passavia, Passau 1977 (originally 1947), ISBN 3-87616-060-X , p. 91f.
  5. ↑ http://www.ringelai.de/kultur/hexenmuseum.html
  6. ↑ http://www.barock-fuersteneck.de/schauspiel-pech-und-puder.php  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.barock-fuersteneck.de  
  7. ↑ http://walter.saitenhieb.net/

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