The Amber Witch - Background

Background

Meinhold claimed to have discovered the manuscript of a 17th-century minister, Abraham Schweidler (purportedly a pastor of Coserow and known for his fire and brimstone sermons) amongst the rubbish in the choir in the old Coserow Church. The manuscript contained the story of the pastor's daughter Mary, the "Amber Witch". Described as "the most interesting trial for witchcraft ever known", church leaders had apparently urged Meinhold publish the story for its didactic value. When it first appeared almost all of the German critics believed it to have been an authentic historical document.

The work then attracted critical notice, not only for the dramatic nature of the narrative, but also for the arguments as to which parts of it were original and which ones were Meinhold's own reconstructions written in imitation of the original 17th-century style – "a literary tempest in a teapot". The author's intention had been to set a deliberate "trap for the disciples of David Strauss and his school who pronounced the scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be a collection of legends from historical research assisted by internal evidence". In a direct challenge to these "modern documentary critics" Meinhold wrote in the preface to the novel:

"I have therefore attempted, not indeed to supply what is missing at the beginning and end, but to restore those leaves which have been torn out of the middle, imitating, as accurately as I was able, the language and manner of the old biographer, in order that the difference between the original narrative and my own interpolations might not be too evident. This I have done with much trouble, and after many ineffectual attempts; but I refrain from pointing out the particular passages which I have supplied, so as not to disturb the historical interest of the greater part of my readers. For modern criticism, which has now attained to a degree of acuteness never before equalled, such a confession would be entirely superfluous, as critics will easily distinguish the passages where Pastor Schweidler speaks from those written by Pastor Meinhold."

It is only in a later edition that the author admitted that the chronicle was entirely imaginary and provided the proof. Meinhold's admission that the story was a complete fabrication was at first rejected, but it soon became obvious that The Amber Witch was a hoax. As The Times wrote in the late 1840s:

"Meinhold did not spare them when they fell into his snare and made merry with the historical knowledge and critical acumen that could not detect the contemporary romancer under the mask of two centuries ago, while they decide so positively as to the authorities of the most ancient writings in the world.

The translation by Lady Duff-Gordon was so well done that she was sometimes credited with authorship of the story and the existence of the German original denied, thus resulting in a double deception.

Writer Seabury Quinn wrote an article for the August 1925 issue of Weird Tales, "Maria Schweidler", in which Quinn, unaware of the hoax, recounted the plot of The Amber Witch as if it were a genuine historical event.