wo other sisters, Magdalen and Catherine, died in peace
in the year '49, when the plague was raging: my mother went first, and
as my sisters were weeping bitterly, she said to them when dying: 'Why
do you weep? pray rather that God would in his mercy shorten my pain.'
Some days after, my youngest sister Gertrude died: although my eldest
unmarried sister Magdalen was herself nigh unto death, she rose from
her bed, and laid out not only Gertrude's shroud and winding-sheet, but
her own also, and desired that when Gertrude was buried, the grave
should be left open, being only lightly covered with earth, that she
might be laid next to her; she then returned to her bed, and lived till
the next day after Gertrude was buried: so she died, the tallest and
strongest of all my sisters, an excellent, clever, and industrious
housekeeper. This was written to me by my sister Catherine two days
before her own death, who added, that it was even so with herself, that
she was about to follow her mother and sisters, and that she did yearn
for it, and she did admonish me not to grieve thereat.

"Now my parents when they were first married were comfortably
established; their buildings were finished, they were prosperous, and
possessed plenty of feathers, wool, honey, butter, and corn; they had
their stately mill and brewery; when suddenly all this happiness
changed into sorrow and misfortune: for in the same year 1523, George
Hartmann, the son-in-law of Doctor Stoientin,[48] bought of my father a
quarter of butter, and they came to angry words thereupon. Hartmann,
who was going to carry a sword to Herr Peter Korchschwantz, went on his
way to complain to his mother-in-law: she, who was haughty and very
rich, had married a doctor, councillor to the prince, and looked down
upon smaller people; she put an axe into his hand with these words:
'See, I give you a trifle, go to the market and buy yourself a heart.'
He then met my father, who was without arms, and had not even his
bread-knife with him, as he was going to have a pot of honey weighed at
the weighing-place in the streets where the locksmiths lived. Hartmann,
armed with sword and axe, fell upon him; my father springing into the
house of one of the smiths, seized a spit; the boys tore it away from
him, and also prevented him from using the ladder which was standing
near the gallery; but he tore from the wall a hunting-spear, and
running out into the street with it, called out: 'Where is he