Rupert_137
Governor
Advance info, new story: ‘The Witch and the Executioner’
Last autumn, I presented my story 'The last Witch of Bamberg' at this forum, which was based as strictly as possible on historical facts and focused on real people, even if the details of the descriptions naturally came from my imagination.
As an alternative, I would like to introduce you to a pure fantasy story that I wrote a few years ago, but which I have now completely revised. I got the original idea for this new story 'The Witch and the Executioner' from a collection of mostly shorter stories, which were freely accessible on the page Grenzbereich.org, which has unfortunately been discontinued in the meantime. I took parts of the initial situation from the original story 'The witch girl Luisa / Das Hexenmädchen Luisa'. I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to the authors of Grenzbereich.org at the time.
It is not entirely by chance that my sad heroine is called ‘Johanne’ in this story; of course I was thinking about Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc, she signed with ‘Johanne’ herself), because the two young women were about the same age. But this is where all the similarities end.
The Witch and the Executioner
The content
Johanne, a pretty, young country woman who is still almost a girl, is accused of being a witch. Although she is innocent, she has strong opponents: The village cop needs her admission to have bewitched him in order to exonerate him from the charge of fornication and adultery. The landlord seeks in her the culprit for the sudden death of his healthy boy and he seeks revenge.
Soon Johanne is defenceless at the mercy of the executioner, who fights an unequal ‘game’ with her and tries to defeat her in his own way through torture. In the worst agony she loses this fight. Her ‘just’ punishments are terribly humiliating and extraordinary cruel...
This is a witch fantasy based on the witch hunts of early modern times in Europe, but without strictly adhering to the historical model. The story is told from the point of view of the executioner and torturer who tries to put himself in his victim's thoughts. He accepts his job, which secures his income, but he makes his own thoughts about it...
Chapter 1 – Prologue
A young woman waits 'impatiently' for her embarrassing questioning to begin. She is accused of being a witch. She insists on her innocence, but the inquisitor and her torturers are determined to wrest a confession from her with great agony. They give her a lot of time to reflect...
01
Accused witch is waiting for her torture ... or is it starting with a witch test, the needle pricking?
She's been waiting for more than one hour; she kneels on the hard floor. Her arms are spread wide; her wrists hang from the ceiling on heavy chains. Her skin is flawless and beautiful. She sweats even though the room is cool and she is completely naked. Her upper body has sunk forward; her beautifully rounded, full breasts hang down wonderfully; they are a feast for the eyes, but a provocation for her torturers. She feels tired, but at the same time eaten away by her fear. Again and again her gaze wanders through the torture chamber. She sees pliers, whips, clamps, ropes, long needles and gruesome devices, the meaning of which she can only guess at. A coal fire is glowing before her eyes and she can feel that it gives off much more than just warmth.
Again and again the words of the examining magistrate go through her head: "Confess amicably, girl! Spare yourself the torture. You have to burn at the stake as a witch one way or the other..."
Nobody wants to hear of her innocence or about malicious accusations. Her judgment already seems to be certain: She has committed fornication with the devil, she nourished him with her large breasts, and she wrought evil spells... But she would never get involved with the devil or any monster ... And if she could do magic, she would get out of this dark place and free herself.
She is still clinging to a small spark of hope: Justice would prevail; everything will turn out for the better. It is in the human being to think like this: "Hope dies last."
Suddenly she hears footsteps in the corridors approaching... There are men who speak in coarse voices. Her heart beats loudly, beats up to her neck. She wants to sink into the ground now ... at least go to a toilet ... but still chained she remains kneeling on the hard stones. She has to face the torture now; because she doesn't want to make a false confession ... she is not a witch.
She doesn't know her malicious slanderer. She is defenseless and alone, but she shares her fate with thousands who lived in the wrong place at the wrong time and were exposed to false, even absurd suspicions. But the allegations against women as witches have been confirmed again and again by brutal torture and cruelly extorted confessions ... so they had to be true after all.
In the end she should burn alive at the stake as an appropriate punishment for the horrific 'exceptional crimes' she committed as a witch ... Her sinful body must be destroyed by fire, but she must be purified through pain, as a last resort to save her soul...
Last autumn, I presented my story 'The last Witch of Bamberg' at this forum, which was based as strictly as possible on historical facts and focused on real people, even if the details of the descriptions naturally came from my imagination.
As an alternative, I would like to introduce you to a pure fantasy story that I wrote a few years ago, but which I have now completely revised. I got the original idea for this new story 'The Witch and the Executioner' from a collection of mostly shorter stories, which were freely accessible on the page Grenzbereich.org, which has unfortunately been discontinued in the meantime. I took parts of the initial situation from the original story 'The witch girl Luisa / Das Hexenmädchen Luisa'. I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to the authors of Grenzbereich.org at the time.
It is not entirely by chance that my sad heroine is called ‘Johanne’ in this story; of course I was thinking about Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc, she signed with ‘Johanne’ herself), because the two young women were about the same age. But this is where all the similarities end.
The Witch and the Executioner
The content
Johanne, a pretty, young country woman who is still almost a girl, is accused of being a witch. Although she is innocent, she has strong opponents: The village cop needs her admission to have bewitched him in order to exonerate him from the charge of fornication and adultery. The landlord seeks in her the culprit for the sudden death of his healthy boy and he seeks revenge.
Soon Johanne is defenceless at the mercy of the executioner, who fights an unequal ‘game’ with her and tries to defeat her in his own way through torture. In the worst agony she loses this fight. Her ‘just’ punishments are terribly humiliating and extraordinary cruel...
This is a witch fantasy based on the witch hunts of early modern times in Europe, but without strictly adhering to the historical model. The story is told from the point of view of the executioner and torturer who tries to put himself in his victim's thoughts. He accepts his job, which secures his income, but he makes his own thoughts about it...
Chapter 1 – Prologue
A young woman waits 'impatiently' for her embarrassing questioning to begin. She is accused of being a witch. She insists on her innocence, but the inquisitor and her torturers are determined to wrest a confession from her with great agony. They give her a lot of time to reflect...
01
Accused witch is waiting for her torture ... or is it starting with a witch test, the needle pricking?
She's been waiting for more than one hour; she kneels on the hard floor. Her arms are spread wide; her wrists hang from the ceiling on heavy chains. Her skin is flawless and beautiful. She sweats even though the room is cool and she is completely naked. Her upper body has sunk forward; her beautifully rounded, full breasts hang down wonderfully; they are a feast for the eyes, but a provocation for her torturers. She feels tired, but at the same time eaten away by her fear. Again and again her gaze wanders through the torture chamber. She sees pliers, whips, clamps, ropes, long needles and gruesome devices, the meaning of which she can only guess at. A coal fire is glowing before her eyes and she can feel that it gives off much more than just warmth.
Again and again the words of the examining magistrate go through her head: "Confess amicably, girl! Spare yourself the torture. You have to burn at the stake as a witch one way or the other..."
Nobody wants to hear of her innocence or about malicious accusations. Her judgment already seems to be certain: She has committed fornication with the devil, she nourished him with her large breasts, and she wrought evil spells... But she would never get involved with the devil or any monster ... And if she could do magic, she would get out of this dark place and free herself.
She is still clinging to a small spark of hope: Justice would prevail; everything will turn out for the better. It is in the human being to think like this: "Hope dies last."
Suddenly she hears footsteps in the corridors approaching... There are men who speak in coarse voices. Her heart beats loudly, beats up to her neck. She wants to sink into the ground now ... at least go to a toilet ... but still chained she remains kneeling on the hard stones. She has to face the torture now; because she doesn't want to make a false confession ... she is not a witch.
She doesn't know her malicious slanderer. She is defenseless and alone, but she shares her fate with thousands who lived in the wrong place at the wrong time and were exposed to false, even absurd suspicions. But the allegations against women as witches have been confirmed again and again by brutal torture and cruelly extorted confessions ... so they had to be true after all.
In the end she should burn alive at the stake as an appropriate punishment for the horrific 'exceptional crimes' she committed as a witch ... Her sinful body must be destroyed by fire, but she must be purified through pain, as a last resort to save her soul...