ABRAHAM SCHWEIDLER,
PASTOR OF COSEROW,

IN USEDOM.

BY

MEINHOLD,
DOCTOR OF DIŅINITY, AND PASTOR, ETC.

Wilhelm

ary minds make every thing in the trials of witchcraft
to be the work of imagination. But he who has read many such
trials finds that impossible."-JEAN PAUL.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN

BY

E. A. FRIEDLÆNDER,

LONDON:
H. G. CLARKE AND CO., 66, OLD BAILEY.

1844.

PREFACE.

In submitting to the public this deeply affecting and very romantic trial of witchcraft, which in the foregoing title-page, I have probably not unjustly called " the most interesting hitherto known," I offer in the first place, the following account respecting the history of the manuscript.

In Coserow, upon the Island Usedom, in my former parish and the same, over which upwards of two hundred years ago our venerable author presided, there was under the singers' seat of the parish church, and almost level with the ground, a sort of niche or closet, in which, though I have often seen a number of written papers lying about, I on account of my short-sightedness, and the darkness of the place, took for old hymnbooks, as indeed a number of such were lying scattered abouț. One day however, when engaged in instructing the children at the church, I was seeking for a

a