of huts, quarters and fires, which
made the fields look like a wilderness, it was thought that the winter
seed was lost in the ground. Nevertheless, there grew from these burnt
huts and ditches so thick a crop, that in the same year, there was a
superfluity of winter food. A miracle! Thus my wedding could take place
on the Tuesday after the _Exaudi_, and was celebrated at the Town Hall.

"For five years there was rest in the land till 1632, except that
several Imperial corps, consisting of two, three, or more regiments,
passed to and fro, who often took up their quarters in the township of
Heldburg, and exhausted it. I wanted for nothing at Poppenhausen. I
could wish that I was now as well off as I was before the war. As,
however, the fury of war at last arrived, the neighbouring bishops
began to reform vigorously; sent Jesuits and monks with diplomas into
the country, and examined the ecclesiastical benefices and monasteries.
The princes had their militia here and there, who now and then pilfered
in the neighbouring Papal states, and stirred up the hornets there.
Every intelligent person could discover that things would become worse.
The noblemen also fled with their pastors, bailiffs, and all belonging
to them, to our little towns and villages, hoping for greater security
there than in their own places.

"In 1631, at Michaelmas, King Gustavus came from Sweden suddenly
through the wood, just as if he had wings. He took Koenigshofen and many
other places, and went on very flourishingly. Our nobles enlisted
people for the king, who were as bad as the enemy in pilfering and
robbing. They more especially took from the neighbouring Catholics
their cows, horses, pigs, and sheep; then was there a great sale; a
ducat for one cow, and a thaler for a pig. The Papists often came
hither and saw how and who bought their cattle, and frequently redeemed
them themselves. They were however so often taken, that they wearied of
redeeming them, and it went ill with the poor neighbouring Papists. We
all at Poppenhausen preserved for those in the neighbourhood, their
bits of property in churches and houses, as far as we could. But when
in the year 1632, the tables were turned, and the three Generals, the
Friedlander, Tilly, and the Bavarian prince, took possession of Coburg
and the country, the neighbouring Papists helped to rob and burn, and
we found no faith or safety with them.

"When on the eve of Michaelmas, all the guns were heard f