The unsuspecting witch

Chapter 1 and 2

His full body testified to it. He was a very welcome guest as he enriched every social gathering with his always thoughtful, intelligent, and interesting stories. He had already visited many foreign countries and spoke fluent English, Spanish, and Greek in addition to the church language, Latin. And although none of the villagers even dreamed of leaving Gelderland, they all enjoyed listening to his stories of the vast world.

When our story begins, Drahbegg had been the head of the small community for many decades and not just the spiritual one. People also came to him when they had legal issues and problems because he solved disputes with the utmost kindness and wisdom. Already on his first evening in the village, he had been able to prove this to the impressed villagers.

Everyone in Gelderland knows this story: on the night pastor Jophius came to Gelderland, he had barely gotten out of his coach when he was beset by two completely distraught women. Each had given birth to a child recently. Unfortunately, fate wanted it so that one of the two children died a little later. The problem was that both women claimed that their child was still alive and were now arguing over the new-born.

And since they were both convinced that their baby was still alive, there was no reason for them to give in.

The villagers waited anxiously for the priest's advice. At the time, he was still very young and

inexperienced but what he did was as smart as well-considered. After listening attentively to both women, he brought the baby and took out a large knife. Then Drahbegg spoke to the villagers. He said that it was not up to him to decide who the birth mother was, because only the Lord could do it alone. So he would split the baby in half to give each of the two women part of the baby.

You are as horrified as the villagers were back then. Surely, you will understand quickly what

Drahbegg intended. In the face of his determined words, one of the two women suddenly collapsed sobbing at his feet. In tears, she said that the child should rather be given to the other woman than to die.

Now, there was clarity in this matter: a true mother would rather have her child raised in the arms of another woman, but healthy and sound than to see it die. The villagers were deeply impressed by the behaviour of their priest. However, they did not know that this wise decision had come not from Drahbegg himself, but from the Old Testament and that wise King Solomon had already decided that way in a similar case. The pastor had taken this approach, but he kept that to himself.

Through his wisdom, the young pastor got the respect of the villagers from day one, who have never doubted his decisions since then. Hardly ever.

Except for this one time, a good 13 years before. No one understood his actions at that time and he was even sharply criticized behind his back.

At that time, on a mild autumn night, behind the big wooden cross in the village square, a half-frozen infant wrapped in dirty linen was found.

The perplexed citizens, who became aware of the baby due to the pitiful weeping and whining, called a congregation meeting that same night to decide what was to happen to the child.

Now, you have to know that there was an unwritten law in Gelderland, according to which each

parentless baby had to be abandoned in the forest and thus left to certain death by starvation, thirst, cold, or wild animals.

This may seem extremely cruel, but when this regime had been introduced generations ago, it was done knowing that it would be hard for the already-poor villagers to feed another mouth, especially if it was not related to them. Before the storage facility was built, most people were happy to be able to take care of themselves and their own family. In the past, crop failures had been recurrent for a variety of reasons and people were often scared about having to starve one day. Thankfully, this had changed with the construction of the stockpile.