BOOK I.

FROM THE RECEPTION OF SIDONIA AT THE DUCAL COURT OF WOLGAST UNTIL
HER BANISHMENT THEREFROM.


SIDONIA THE SORCERESS




CHAPTER I.

_Of the education of Sidonia._


The illustrious and high-born prince and lord, Bogislaff,
fourteenth Duke of Pomerania, Prince of Cassuben, Wenden, and
Rugen, Count of Guezkow, Lord of the lands of Lauenburg and Butow,
and my gracious feudal seigneur, having commanded me, Dr. Theodore
Ploennies, formerly bailiff at the ducal court, to make search
throughout all the land for information respecting the world-famed
sorceress, Sidonia von Bork, and write down the same in a book, I
set out for Stargard, accompanied by a servant, early one Friday
after the _Visitationis Mariae_, 1629; for, in my opinion, in
order to form a just judgment respecting the character of any one,
it is necessary to make one's self acquainted with the
circumstances of their early life; the future man lies enshrined
in the child, and the peculiar development of each individual
nature is the result entirely of education. Sidonia's history is a