The Diary of Caspar Kruse III, Executioner: Goslar, April 2, 1641 – The Cat in the Corner

 She did not look at me when she was brought in two days ago.

Bregje Menze, widow of a watchman, fifty-four years old.
Small of stature, with gray braids hanging down her back like ropes.
Her face was sharp — like a knife sharpened too often.
Her hands were like claws — not a cat’s, but labor’s.
She had raised three children, and buried two.

The accusation came from a neighbor: the child had fallen ill after a failed churning of butter. Then followed the usual testimonies — dreams of scratching, a hen that refused to lay, a child that suddenly stopped speaking. And so, as always, the order came.

I no longer asked questions of guilt. We do not ask those anymore.
We ask for confession.

She was bound on the wooden bench, her feet bare. The air in the Ulrich Chapel was cold, but my hands were warm from work. I chose no iron that day, but the old method I had learned from my grandfather: sulfur, dry cloths, hot ash.

Jörg held the torch beneath the cloth until it smoked. I pressed it against her soles. She threw her head back, her body bending like a bow. But she did not scream.
I increased the heat. She bit her tongue. Literally. Blood streamed from the corners of her mouth.
After fifteen minutes she collapsed.

I called for the surgeon. He examined her mouth, pulled her tongue forward gently with a hook, and said:
“She can speak. If she wishes.”

Then she began. Softly. As if her own voice had become a stranger to her.
“I saw a black cat with human eyes,” she whispered.
“It walked around my bed and spoke.”
I wrote as she spoke.
“Then came a goat with a human face. Its voice was like the wind beneath the door. It promised me warmth, meat, milk.”
I asked if she had lain with him.
She did not answer.
I asked, who else?
She said, “There were others. They wore masks of birch bark.”
Then she fell silent again.

I stopped.
I did not know if it was vision or memory.
But the next day, the Council ruled: “enough to burn.”
They did not write why.
The words cat, goat, night were enough.
They needed no proof. Only imagery.

When the sentence was read, I bowed my head. Not out of reverence — but because I did not want to see her eyes.

Spring had barely awakened. Nothing was blooming. Only the grass around the field was damp, still, without birdsong. The gallows stood empty. The pyre was prepared on the stone platform: four carts of peat, a basket of resin, straw, and three cauldrons of pitch.

She was brought today, in a wooden cart, bound. Her feet were wrapped in linen. She could hardly walk. Jörg and Bastian lifted her down. Her head was bowed, but her back was straight.

The preacher spoke:
“Bregje Menze, you have been found guilty of consorting with the devil, of attending night dances, of causing illness through sorcery and sin. You shall be cleansed by fire.”
She was silent.

I helped tie her. Her hands were bound to the stake, her shoulders leaned against the wood. She looked upward, toward the smoke already rising from the torch in Hinrich’s hand. I stood beside her. She whispered something.
I leaned closer.
“My son died in the winter. There was nothing. No bread, no warm straw. Only the dream.”
I placed my hand on her shoulder.
Then I lit the straw.

The flames licked upward slowly. First at her feet. Then her skirt.
She did not move. She did not cry out. Only when the fire reached her side did I hear a sigh. No scream. No complaint.
Only a sigh.

Home – late at night
The air still smelled of burning, even behind the shuttered windows.
Anna did not ask about the fire. She only asked:
“Do you believe her?”
I looked at her.
“I believed the smoke.”




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