Stedelen

Stedelen, (dead c. 1400) was a man who was accused of being a witch in Switzerland between 1397 and 1406. His trial took place in a secular court, where he confessed under torture to summoning forth demons as part of a pact with the devil.

After the harvest had failed at his village, Stedelen was accused of using black magic to destroy the crops, by allegedly sacrificing a black rooster on the Sabbath at a crossroad and placing a lizard under the doorway of a local church.

Peter von Greyerz, the judge of Simmental between 1398-1406, was a firm believer in witchcraft, which he believed had been introduced in Simmental by a noble man called Scavius in 1375, who claimed he could transform himself to a mouse. He was slaughtered by his enemies, but he had a student, Hoppo, who according to Greyerz had been the tutor of Stedelen.

There are no records about Hoppo, but Stedelen from Boltigern had by Hoppo been made expert on magic and learned to stela menure, hey and such from other's fields to his own by magic, create hail and storms with thunder, make people and animals sterile, make horses crazy when he touched their hoops and fly and scear thos who captured him. Greyerz accused Stedelen of having taken the milk from the cows of a married couple and make the wife miscarry.

After torture, Stedelen admitted to the charges by having buried a lisard under the house of the couple. Stedelen was burned at the stake.

Greyertz believed that it existed a satanic cult, who swore themselves to the Devil and ate children at the churches at night, and he continued his persecutions, and once tortured a woman to confirm this.

ee also

* Diabolical pact
* Witch trial
* Witchcraft

Source

* Eva Kärfve, "Den stora ondskan i Valais", (Swedish).

External links

* [http://www.fortunecity.de/roswell/astrozombie/195/hexen.htm Hexerei - the Pact with the Devil (in German)]