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Here, a cauldron is simmering. It is literally a witches' cauldron. How so? I'll tell you, the true story of Anna Muggen.
It is May 1608. Anna Muggen lives here in Helmsteeg. Anna has been behaving somewhat strangely lately. She has just lost her husband in the Eighty Years' War. She is probably depressed. But that word didn't exist back then.
On that spring day, Anna gets into an argument with a shoemaker. She does not agree with the price he charges and shouts something like 'Get the...' The cobbler takes this as a curse and goes to court. There, as many as six charges of cursing come in from 'that crazy vrouw'. She confesses. And adds that the devil promised her 200 guilders for everyone she cursed.
The straight...
Here, a cauldron is simmering. It is literally a witches' cauldron. How so? I'll tell you, the true story of Anna Muggen.
It is May 1608. Anna Muggen lives here in Helmsteeg. Anna has been behaving somewhat strangely lately. She has just lost her husband in the Eighty Years' War. She is probably depressed. But that word didn't exist back then.
On that spring day, Anna gets into an argument with a shoemaker. She does not agree with the price he charges and shouts something like 'Get the...' The cobbler takes this as a curse and goes to court. There, as many as six charges of cursing come in from 'that crazy vrouw'. She confesses. And adds that the devil promised her 200 guilders for everyone she cursed.
The judges were convinced. Anna is a witch and must be burned at the stake on the Grote Markt. As the last witch of the Netherlands. Just before her execution, she shouted that it would rain forever in Gorinchem. And indeed, as soon as she is on the pyre, it starts to rain. First gently, then louder and louder. Bystanders panic and run away.
Of course the rain stops sometime. 300 years later, Anna got it right after all. Since then, water has been splashing on the Grote Markt forever. But in the fountain that stands there in honour of Queen Wilhelmina.
According to some, the ghost of Anna still haunts the Grote Markt. Want to know how that is? Then listen to the whole story, as told to Radio Rijnmond by our city announcer and theatre maker Roy Grünewald.