The Adventurous Simplicissimus

same, and so both came to the witches’ Sabbath. So likewise they tell of a farm-servant that arose early to grease his wagon; but because he had taken the wrong pot of ointment in the dark, that wagon rose into the air and must be dragged down again. Olaus Magnus tells us of Hading, King of Denmark; how he, being driven from his kingdom by rebels, journeyed far over the sea through the air on the Spirit of Odin, which had turned himself to the shape of a horse. So do we know well enough, and too well, how wives and wenches in Bohemia will fetch their paramours to them, on the backs of goats, by night and from a great distance. And what Torquemada in his Hexameron relateth of his schoolfellow may in his own words be read. So, too, Ghirlandus speaketh of a nobleman which, when he marked that his wife anointed herself and thereafter flew out of the house, did once on a time compel her to take him with her to the sorcerers’ assembly. And when they feasted there, and there was no salt, he demanded such, and having with great pains gotten it, did cry, “God be praised, here cometh the salt!” Whereupon the lights went out and all vanished. So when now ’twas day he understood from the shepherds in that place that he was near to the town of Benevento in the kingdom of Naples, and therefore full five hundred miles from his home. And therefore, though he was rich, must he beg his way home, whither when he came he delated his wife for a witch before the magistrate, and she was burned. How Doctor Faust, too, and others, which were no enchanters, could journey through the air from one place to another is from his history sufficiently known. So I myself knew a wife and a maid (both dead at this time of writing, but the maid’s father yet alive), which maid was once greasing of her mistress’s shoes by the fire, and when she had finished one and set it by to grease the other, lo; the greased one flew up the chimney: which story, nevertheless, was hushed up.

All this I have set down for this reason only, that men may believe that witches and wizards do in truth at certain seasons in their proper bodies journey to these their assemblies, and not to make any man to believe that I, as I have told you, went myself to such: for to me ’tis all one whether a man believe me or not; and he that will not believe may devise for himself another way for me to have come from the lands of Fulda or Hirschfeld (for I know not myself whither I had wandered in the woods) into the Archbishopric of Magdeburg, and that in so brief a space of time.

XIX

How Simplicissimus Became a Fool Again as He Had Been a Fool Before

So now I begin my history again with this: that I assure the reader that I lay on my belly till ’twas at least broad daylight; as not having the heart to stand up: therewithal I doubted whether the things I have told of were a dream or not; and though I was yet in great terror, yet was I bold enough at my waking, for I deemed I could be in no worse place than in the wild woods; and therein I had spent the most of my time since I was separated from my dad, and therefore was pretty well accustomed thereto. Now it was about nine o’clock when there came foragers, which woke me up. And now for the first time I perceived I was in the open field. So they had me with them to certain windmills, and when they had ground their corn there, to the camp before Magdeburg, where I fell to the share of a colonel of a foot-regiment, who asked me what was my story and what manner of master I had served. So I told him all to a nicety, and because I had no name for the Croats, I did but describe their clothing and gave examples of their speech, and told how I escaped from them: yet of my ducats said I nought, and what I told of my journey through the air and of the witches’ dance, that they all held to be imagination and folly, and that especially because in the rest of my discourse I seemed to talk wildly. Meanwhile a crowd of folk gathered round me (for one fool makes a thousand), and among them was one that the year before had been made prisoner at Hanau and there had taken service, yet afterwards had come back to the Emperor’s army: who, knowing me again, said at once, “Hoho! ’tis the commandant’s calf of Hanau.”

Thereupon the colonel questioned him further; but the fellow knew no more save that I could play the lute well, and that I had been captured outside the walls at Hanau by the Croats of Colonel Corpes’ regiment, and, moreover, that the said commandant had been vexed at losing me; for I was a right clever fool. So then the colonel’s wife sent to another colonel’s wife that could play well upon the lute, and therefore always had one by her, and begged her for the loan of it: which, when it came, she handed to me with the command that I should play. But my view was they should first give me to eat; for an empty stomach accorded not well with a fat one, such as the lute had. So this was done, and when I had eaten my fill and drunk a good draught of Zerbst beer, I let them hear what I could do both with my voice and with the lute: and therewithal I talked gibberish, all that first came into my head, so that