“I, Christopher Njezkowski, as mayor of the Braslawski area, witness by this, my sign in the court’s book, that I followed the invitation of the royal farmers from the village Magun, based in the Braslawski area, at the 15th of May 1615. The whole village had to suffer since long the loss of many animals, because of a hex and poisoning of the cattle. The perpetrators are Sophie Jurgelew Sunjanow and her son Gasul.”
As they arrested Sophie Jurgelew and her son Gasul, they told the judge all about the man named Tumel Pawlowitch Daradundin, who pushed them under sorcery in the witches workshop and that all of his relatives, friends and neighbours were dealing with sorcery and witchcraft since long and that several of his relatives, friends and neighbours, thirty by number, were burned at the stake.
So they gave order to the executioner to push the witch Sophie and her son Gasul into the fire. The son cried out loudly the following text: ”Tumel blinded us with witchcraft and because of him we meet our death!” The farmers helped the executioner to push the three delinquents into the fire, where they burned.
That’s how “The people’s court about the wizard” ends in the year 1615. It is a very rare and maybe the only existing detailed document about the hunt of witches and sorcery and their sentence to death by fire through a people’s court.
(The censorship of the Witebsk area allowed the publishing of this document first at the 8th of April 1896.)Teksty umieszczone na naszej stronie są własnością wytwórni, wykonawców, osób mających do nich prawa.
