NOR should|the instances of harm inflicted by sorceress mid wives on children be passed over in silence. First, how they kill them; second, how in offering them to demons they dedicate them with a curse.

In the town of Zabern in the diocese of Strasburg, a certain respectable woman who is very devoted to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary frequently relates the following occurrence, recounting to the individuals who patronize the public inn that she owns (which has a black eagle as its sign) that it happened to her. “I was pregnant by my lawful husband, who is now dead, and when the days for giving birth were approaching, a certain midwife rudely demanded that I should accept her services as midwife for the child. Being aware of her bad reputation I had decided to hire someone else, but with soothing words I pretended that I would grant her request.|When the birthing time was at hand, however, I hired a different midwife. The first one was outraged and entered my bedroom one night barely eight days later with two other women. When they approached the bed in which I was lying, I wanted to summon my husband, who was sleeping in another room, but I remained bereft of the use of my individual limbs and tongue, so that apart from seeing and hearing I could not even move a toe. Standing between the other two, the midwife uttered the following words. ‘Well then, this awful woman's refusal to employ me as her midwife will not go unpunished.”’ When the two at her side pleaded for the woman, saying, “But she's never harmed any of our people,” the sorceress rejoined, “Because she has given me this displeasure, I will put some things in her guts, but as a favor to you she will feel no pain for a half year. When that time has elapsed, however, she will suffer a fair amount of torture.”