Posted on 10/06/2023 8:25:31 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
Maria Pauer on October 6, 1750 achieved the milestone of being the last person executed for witchcraft in the territory of present-day Austria — a “judicial murder” for which the Archbishop of Salzburg begged “forgiveness for this atrocity” in 2009.
It’s a late year for a witchcraft execution; we’ve seen in these pages that the ancient superstition was still in its dying throes.
Pauer (English wiki entry | a longer German one) was a household maid of about 15 years in the Bavarian town of Muehldorf, where she must have carriead a fey reputation — because when the locals started believing a building afflicted by some sort of poltergeist, they proceed to associate the haunt with a recent visit paid by the maid.
Held for over a year under close confinement and closer questioning, she eventually capitulated to the accusations, maybe even believed them herself. The Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Andreas Jakob von Dietrichstein, refused the now-16-year-old mercy for her infernal traffic and permitted her beheading and subsequent burning in his beautiful city.
we are in similar unsettling times...
Beheaded and burned a sixteen year old girl. That is witchcraft hysteria, and, as O’Reilly points out, is the popular, government approved state of mind in the United States today. The Salem folk would feel right at home now in this country.
They say there were entire villages with no women, they’d all been executed as witches.
Not a very smart move if you want to have kids.
And have kids with witches? No thanks!
They’d have let her go but she weighed the same as a duck.
So, they’re all gone now?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.