Post by SwampFire on May 18, 2007 13:48:43 GMT -5
(Collected from the internet. Circulated in Danzig in 1875)
It is said that one of the last Sundays [before Lent] a servant woman went to confession and communion. Despite the reprimands of her mother, an honest laundress, who warned her not to desecrate the day by mundane festivities, she couldn't resist the temptation and was going that same night to dance at The Vineyard .
The punishment for her impiety came quickly. Around midnight, she saw a handsomely dressed stranger with black hair and eyes that glistened like onyx, coming towards her to ask her for a dance. She took his arm with pleasure as they began to dance with perfect grace, but faster and faster . . .
One of the musicians watched the dancing people carefully, and one can imagine how he felt when he noticed that the stranger had the cloven hoof of Satan! He drew his comrades' attention to it, and in the very middle of the waltz they were playing, they changed the tune and broke into a religious hymn. The clock struck twelve, the devil pulled his partner close to him and in a frantic whirl crossed with her to the other side of the room and crashed through the window. The girl was found lying on the green grass in the garden covered with broken glass. The devil had disappeared.
It is said that one of the last Sundays [before Lent] a servant woman went to confession and communion. Despite the reprimands of her mother, an honest laundress, who warned her not to desecrate the day by mundane festivities, she couldn't resist the temptation and was going that same night to dance at The Vineyard .
The punishment for her impiety came quickly. Around midnight, she saw a handsomely dressed stranger with black hair and eyes that glistened like onyx, coming towards her to ask her for a dance. She took his arm with pleasure as they began to dance with perfect grace, but faster and faster . . .
One of the musicians watched the dancing people carefully, and one can imagine how he felt when he noticed that the stranger had the cloven hoof of Satan! He drew his comrades' attention to it, and in the very middle of the waltz they were playing, they changed the tune and broke into a religious hymn. The clock struck twelve, the devil pulled his partner close to him and in a frantic whirl crossed with her to the other side of the room and crashed through the window. The girl was found lying on the green grass in the garden covered with broken glass. The devil had disappeared.
