ABSTRACT
In 1686, Appolonia Mayr, a jilted servantwoman, confessed that she had murdered her newborn baby. The Devil had promised that if she killed her child, her lover would marry her. She had strangled the infant at a little hill beyond the Lech bridge, just before the small town of Friedberg. She still knew the place and could find it. There was a tree not far away and she had walked into the fields, and it was midday that it happened.1 Describing the birth and murder, she said ‘The Evil Spirit left her no peace. It was only a moment, the Devil touched it [the child] as if he were a midwife, it happened quite quickly that the child came out. She strangled it immediately with the hand, and she felt no pain in the delivery.’2 Then Appolonia walked on: ‘She left it lying quite naked, uncovered, and unburied…. The Devil did not go with her, but remained staying by the child, and she did not look back.’3
