The Child Witches of Lucerne and Buchau: A Translation of Eveline Hasler’s Novel

Switzerland 1652: an eleven-year old girl, a strong-willed child with rich imagination, who grows up without parents in a remote valley, claims that she can create birds. The girl is arrested, accused of witchcraft, put to a long and painful trial in Lucerne and finally executed. She was punished for assuming creative power which was God’s alone. It was with good reasons that the authorities had chosen the parentless child for an exemplary trial: she was the weakest member of a community of rebelling peasant farmers, whom they wanted to bring to reason. Seven years later a similar case, this time in Upper Swabia, one of the German territories: A boy of nine years and his eleven-year old sister are suspected and condemned for alleged sexual relations with the devil. Because they were found to be too young to be executed, they were kept for four long years in the monastery of Buchau, until the verdict could be executed.

Translated from the original work of Swiss writer Eveline Hasler, The Child Witches of Lucerne and Buchau, provides a moving memorial for these children convicted and executed for witchcraft.