handsbreadths

Updated: June 18, 2025

So my daughter gave her half a loaf, and a piece of bacon about two handsbreadths large; but she did not think it enough, and muttered between her teeth; whereupon my daughter said, 'If thou art not content, thou old witch, go thy ways and help thy goodman; see how he has laid his head on Zabel's fence, and stamps with his feet for pain. Whereupon she went away, but still kept muttering between her teeth, 'Yea, forsooth, I will help him and thee too."

Wilhelm Meinhold - Mary Schweidler, the amber witch : the most interesting trial for witchcraft ever known, printed from an imperfect manuscript by her father, Abraham Schweidler, the pastor of Coserow in the island of Usedom / edited by W. Meinhold ; translated from the German by Lady Duff Gordon.