Many witnesses could prove this fact; for Tewes Barth, Dinnies Koch, and old Fritz were by, when the plaster was taken off.
Then Sheriff Sparling deposed, that having smothered his bees lately, he sent a pot of pure honey to each of the nuns, as was his custom; but Sidonia scolded, and said her pot was not large enough, and abused him in a cruel manner about his stinginess in not sending her more. So, some days after, as he was riding quietly home to his house, across the convent court, suddenly the whole ground before him became covered with the shadows of bee-hives, and little shadows like bees went in and out, and wheeled about just as real bees do. Whereupon, he looked in every direction for the hives, for no shadows can be without a body, but not a hive nor a bee was in the whole place round; but he heard a peal of mocking laughter, and, on looking up, there was the wicked witch looking out at him from a window, and she called out--
"Ho! sir sheriff, when you smother bees again, send me more honey. A couple of pounds of the best--good weight!"
And this he did to have peace for the future.
Now the commissioners noted all this down diligently; but the state prosecutor shook his head, and asked the abbess--
"Wherefore she had not long ago brought this vile witch before the princely court?"
"What would that help? She had already tasted the vengeance of the wicked sorceress, and feared to taste it again. Well, night and day had she cried to God to free the convent from this she-devil, and often resolved to unfold the whole Satan's work to his Highness, though her own life would be perilled surely by so doing. But she was ready, as a faithful mother of the convent, to lay it down for her children, if, indeed, that could save them. But how would her death help these poor young virgins? For assuredly the moment Sidonia had brought her to a cruel end, she would make herself abbess by force, and this was such a dread to the sorrowing virgins, that they themselves entreated her to keep silence and be patient, waiting for the mercy of God to help them. For truly the power of this accursed sorceress was as great as her wickedness."
"This power can soon be broken; he knew many receipts out of Albertus Magnus, Raimundus Lallus, Theophrastus, Paracelsus, &c., against sorcery and evil witches."