Witches Abroad

On the bleak heathland of Schleswig-Holstein, since the war, witches have been abroad. In one village a woman has been accused of bewitching her neighbors' cows; schoolchildren in another village created a problem by ostracizing one of their classmates, whose mother, they insisted, was a witch.

Clergymen of the area tend to blame such doings on religious apathy. "Church customs have mostly become hardened forms of hollow traditions," says Pastor Wolfgang Baader of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. "He who does not believe in God must fear the Devil." But though authorities shake their heads at witch talk, they shrug their shoulders over what to do about it and point to the case of Farmer Bading of Lueneberg Heath. Hannes Bading called in a witch doctor to fix up his ailing stock, his failing crops, his drying well. The Hexenmeister sold him some "letters from heaven" and warned him against witches and spirits who might show up disguised as friendly neighbors.

Farmer Bading went to work on the neighbors with a will. He clobbered the postman with a shovel, yelling "At last I have you, you witch!" He assaulted startled passersby with pitchfork and stave, crying "Witches! Devils!" and accusing them of blowing poisonous vapors into his barn. At last the authorities ar rested Farmer Bading and turned him over to a hospital for observation. Bading proceeded to pass his psychiatric tests with flying colors. Sane as a stoat, said the examining doctor; he just happens to believe in witches: "So do many other people." Last week Farmer Bading was back on his farm, with a pitchfork and a stave or two handy, just in case.

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