Most Peculiar Sorcery

The Dačice town chronicle contains this entry: “It was in 1797 that Ján Leixner found a book of sorcery among old junk in the loft. He read strange tricks in it, including how a person could become invisible, small, large or so invulnerable that no shot, however powerful, could harm him. On Good Friday during the Passion reading, Leixner went to the Franciscans’ hill by the three crosses. There he performed the book’s hocus-pocus, pricked a finger of his left hand and his right foot, wiped the pistol with blood, mumbled from the book again and loaded a ball. Cursing before the three crosses, he began invoking evil spirits and making the strangest signs of the cross. Once this performance was finished, he took the pistol to test the magical invulnerability acquired through the ceremony, aimed at his heart, fired with a bang, fell and remained so fixed that he never rose again.”