On January 17, 1606, the land of Ząbkowice was wrapped in a dark mantle of the grim reaper, who came to this area to collect a bloody harvest. One has to admit to Death that she is always fair and no matter if you are young, old, poor, or rich - when the mighty air comes, he does not look at his life but takes everyone he meets with him.
Probably the first inhabitant to be infected with this terrible disease thought it was just a more severe flu because the initial symptoms were the same - fever, headache, cough, and general weakness. He had never imagined that soon the choking cough would turn into hemoptysis, and his lymph nodes would grow to the size of a giant nut, making it difficult for him to breathe.
Only three days was enough for the patient's face to turn blue, black gangrene appeared on the skin, and his eyes became foggy, announcing the impending end. Finally, the last breath escaped from the lungs collapsing under its own weight.
- Call the gravediggers - said the local doctor, covering his mouth with a dirty rag - Let them take the corpse out of here immediately and bury it as soon as possible.
The news of the deceased, along with the messenger, reached Wacław Förster's house like wildfire. A tired old man sitting by the hearth, his hands as hard as a rock, was just adding more wood to the fireplace when a knock on the door filled the hut.
He knew what awaited him, after all, no one stayed here. Unfortunately, the work of the gravedigger, although well paid, carried a burden that not everyone could bear. He could. He'd been dealing with this disgusting thing for twenty-eight and he had gotten used to people avoiding him as he walked through the city streets. Well, the gravedigger is always associated with death, and with it to anyone on the way.
The old man got up, stretched his aching back, and walked to the entrance. He listened calmly to the messenger's story of the unfortunate man, who died in terrible convulsions three days after noticing his symptoms. His hunch told him that it wouldn't be the only corpse he would have to bury this winter. He was right.
The black death decimated the town's inhabitants shortly after the burial. First, the family of the first victim died, then several neighbors came to help the sick in need, and then the neighbors' neighbors. The plague spread at a rapid pace, taking someone to the other world every now and then. Fear seized the streets - cautious merchants closed stalls, and taverns so far full of buzz, singing, and drunken gibberish fell silent. They all hid as one in their homes, trying to escape from the Kostucha's merciless gaze.
Only the gravedigger, who had always died for your brother, worked like never before
- Which one is it today? - he said to his helper, rubbing his aching hands - you say the tenth? If it goes on like this, I'll have to bury the whole city. We have to hire someone to work, I can't do it alone. - added
Soon, eight gravediggers were working on the transport of the bodies and the burial. Despite so many hands to work, there was no shortage of work. Winter passed, a gloomy spring, and an even worse summer, during which the corpses deteriorated even faster, forcing them to work even harder. The gravedigger has finished counting the number of corpses he has buried since winter.
Not that he didn't want to know, but he just lost count after another hundred. At first, regret crushed his heart when he was hiding the youngest, but after some time and another guilty victim, he got used to it. As he himself stated one evening looking at the cracked mirror - he solidified. He no longer felt the sadness and fear staring into the next blurry eyes, he grew used to it.
"It's just a job," he said to himself as he fell onto his bed, exhausted, in the evening. After which he fell asleep a stone dream.
- Your associates organized a drunken brawl - the city guard said to the gravedigger at the beginning of September 1606 - They did not want to pay for the drunk spirit. Will you pay for them? The gravedigger frowned and replied without thinking for a long time.
- They drank themselves, they pay themselves - then he slammed the slightly rotten door of the hut shut and returned to his warm bed. At the time, he could not have known that refusing to pay would trigger an avalanche of slander and rumors about him, which would eventually lead him tied up to the place of his execution.
- He did not pay for us - said the sobering assistant of the gravedigger to his companion with whom he sat in the inn not long ago - they will win over us like nothing, as long as something worse awaits us. I told you it would be so. We have to bully him, and he only drinks the cream. He had filled the pannier with our hard work, and now he regretted the penny.
- Cham one. He would regret it again - then spat the green goo on the stone floor.
- You say the plague is the fault of the gravedigger Förster? - the investigator looked in disbelief at the dirty, smelly coppole helper smelling of weathered alcohol
- Are you sure of your words? Yes? The peasant clasping his hands nervously nodded his head slightly
"Well," the investigator continued, "we'll check it, although I doubt we'll find anything."
- What's in these containers? The guard armed with a musket frowned, asking Wacław a question. A shiver ran down the experienced gravedigger's back, and a cold bead of sweat ran down his temples. He looked nervously at the faces of the people gathered in his household, staring at him suspiciously.
"It's nothing," he said, forcing a smile, "it's nothing ... I swear!" He tried as he could to explain what was in the containers, but the words stuck in his throat. How to explain that he made some extra money on his side by creating drugs based on corpses. He fell silent.
One rumor was enough, like a small pebble dispersing a huge rock avalanche, which caused rapid development of unfortunate events resulting in a series of arrests. As you can guess, the first to fall into the hands of the executioner were Wacław Förster and his assistant Jerzy Freidiger.
Then, the gravedigger from Strzegom with his assistant, indicated by his companions, appeared in front of the torturer. The latter, in turn, while being burned with an iron, revealed other participants of the evil practice, and finally, the prison rooms were filled with seventeen people among whom they were - grave-makers, helpers, and beggars.
Glowing tongs tore the flesh of the accused, and their demoniacal screams echoed throughout the city. It did not take long for the scribe to write down a few pages of testimonies in which the gravedigger and his assistants admitted to deliberately poisoning the inhabitants with the help of prepared potions.
It was with the help of the foundation powder that they spread the plague in the city of Frankenstein. They spread it on the thresholds of houses, lubricated door handles, and knockers. In addition, during the torture, they confessed to stealing the property of the plague victims, desecrating their corpses, cutting out the fetuses of pregnant women, and eating their hearts, as well as robbing church tablecloths and two clocks that were to be used for magical ceremonies.
The picture of the macabre in which the accused were to participate was terrifying and after a quick trial, which took place with the cheering of the surviving inhabitants of Ząbkowice, a sentence was issued
- Death!
The newspaper Newe Zeyttung, published in Augsburg, reported on the execution:
First, they were all shown around the city. Then they have torn apart with red-hot pliers and their thumbs were torn off. The elderly gravedigger and one of the helpers, 87, had their right hands cut off and nailed to the pillory. Then they were both chained to this pole, fire was lit from a distance and baked.
A male member was torn out of a new gravedigger from Strzegom with red-hot pincers. Then he and the others were chained to a pole, cooked and baked. The rest of the people were put on the stake and burned.
But what do Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, made of sewn bodies, have to do with it?
There is a legend that it was this process that indirectly contributed to its creation. The meeting that gave birth to Dr. Frankenstein took place in the summer of 1816. It was a strange period, full of weather anomalies - it was snowing in July, the frost was destroying the crops, and the sun was hidden behind a thick layer of clouds practically all the time.
Summer without sun, as it was called, was not conducive to wandering, so everyone was looking for another job to combat the blandness caused by the lack of vitamin D. A group of friends came up with the same idea as the others, who decided to organize a ghost evening in a rented villa on Lake Geneva. tales from the crypt.
This noble group included Georg Byron, Mary Shelley, and her husband Percy, as well as the young doctor John Polidori. According to the rules developed by Byron, each of them was to prepare and tell the most terrible story they know and then create their own story based on them.
It was then that one of them pulled out a yellowed scroll of the Newe Zeyttung with engravings depicting the alleged crimes committed by Ząbkowice gravediggers, which stuck in the memory of Marya Shelley so much that she immediately started implementing the idea about the meeting.
Ten months later, Mary Shelley put the last dot on the manuscript that would soon conquer the world.
Frankenstein's monster has come to life!
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