MUMMY IN SOFA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13235, 21 July 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

MUMMY IN SOFA.

GRIM STORY OP SUPERSTITION IN A

GERMAN VILLAGE. •; A curious circumstance is ; reported from the Wurlemherg village of Schafhausen, near the town of Weilderstadt: This little out-of-the-world ; district ! is ; ; impregnated with superstitious ideas, for at Weilderstadt itself the mother of Kepler was, in the year 7 1620, - condemned ; to be burnt as a witch, " and the great astronomer had V hurry home to prevent the accomplishment of the awful crime. ;> It was also at Moettlingen, in the immediate vicinity, that Christopher ; Blumhardt, 70 years ago, fought his famous fight against ; "Satanic powers." In the village of Scbaifhausen lived Frau Widmaier, -who periodically fell into an ecstatic condition, during which, according to her husband, her spirit left her body, to return sometimes after "the expiration of several days. She acquired great fame as a soothsayer, and apparently did a good business. 'In 1880 she suddenly disappeared," and several persons avowed they saw her being carried off by the devil during the night in a carriage and four. The local clergy had on many occasions condemned her proceedings from the pulpit, and it is all the moire curious that l the authorities made no inquiries as to what might have happened to her. Her husband died in 1888, and the daughter has now revealed strange facts concerning her decease. ': Fraiu Widmaier, it appears, must have died suddenly, but her husband l believed ', that her spirit was' only absent, and would return aigain. He laid the bodyinside the sofa, and it remained there a whole year in the family's living ■■'* room, and, though the • daughter slept close to it, she - never noticed any smell proceeding from it. The body merely dried up, and when it had been preserved two more years in another room , the husband evidently concluded that the spirit would never return, and, being now afraid to make the' affair public, had the body passed through the kitchen window, and buried it behind the house. ' Several outsiders knew of the existence of the mummy, but snnerstition prevented the saving anything about it. An exhumation by the orders! oi the authorities has, says the Morning Leader, disclosed the truth of the story.-