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…I had left the candle lit in the chimney of the kitchen. Suddenly it went out and I felt immediately something like a mortal shiver, which froze my blood.

There was a tug at my blanket and I heard a little voice say, 'I am Camilla, your stepmother. I am cold, dear heart. Let me join you under your blanket.' Then another little voice said, 'I am Inesilla, let me come into your bed, for I am cold, so cold.'

Then I felt an icy hand grasp me under the chin. I drew together all of my strength and said aloud, 'Get thee behind me, Satan.'

Then the little voices said, 'Why are you driving us away? Are you not our dear little husband? We are cold and we are going to light a little fire.'

And indeed a moment later I saw a flame appear in the kitchen hearth. It gradually grew brighter and I was able to make out not Inesilla and Camilla but Zoto's two brothers hanging in the fireplace.

These apparitions drove me out of my mind. I sprang from my bed, jumped through the window and begun to rush about in the open country. For a moment I flattered myself with the hope that I had outrun all these horrors, but then I turned around, only to see that the two hanged men were pursuing me. I broke into a run again and soon saw that I had left Zoto's brothers behind. But my joy was short-lived. Those foul creatures began to cartwheel towards me and were on me in a flash. I went on running , but in the end all my strength deserted me.

Then I felt one of the hanged men seize my left ankle. I tried to shake myself free but the other one cut off my escape. He loomed up in front of me, staring at me with terrible eyes and poking out his tongue, which was as red as iron straight from the furnace. I pleaded for mercy but in vain. With one hand he grasped me by the throat, and with the other he tore out my eye, the one that I am now missing. He darted his burning tongue into my eye-socket and licked my brains, which made me bellow with pain.

Then the other one, who had grasped my left leg, decided to use his claws. First he tickled the sole of the foot he was holding, then that monster tore off my skin, separated out all the sinews, laid them bare and tried to play a tune on them as though on a musical instrument. But as my sinews did not give out a sound which pleased him, he stuck his claw into my calf, pinched the tendons and began to twist them round as one does in order to tune a harp. Eventually, he began to play on my leg, which he had turned into a sort of psaltery. I could hear his diabolical laughter. As the pain made me groan horribly the screams of hell chanted in chorus. And as I listened to the wails of the damned it seemed to me that every fibre in my body was being crushed in their teeth. Eventually I lost consciousness.

The next day a herdsman found me in open countryside and brought me to this hermitage, where I confessed my sins and where I have found some relief from my suffering at the foot of the cross.




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