The Witch’s Cap of Tienen

On the road to Tienen lived a woman who always wore a striking cap. The neighbours regarded her with suspicion, but nobody dared to say anything openly about the strange lady.

One day the woman had travelled to Leuven by tram. On her return it began to rain heavily. Soaked through, she sought shelter in a nearby house and asked the residents if she could leave her cap there so it would not get wet.

The residents agreed. The woman placed her cap on top of the kitchen cupboard and went home. Nobody thought anything of it.

That night, as the residents lay in their beds, they heard a strange noise from the kitchen. The lid of the Leuven stove was rattling violently, as if someone were striking it with great force.

The people were terrified and did not dare go downstairs. The next day they asked an uncle to spend the night in the house. But when darkness fell, the lid began to rattle again.

The uncle put some paper in the stove and tried to ignore the noise. At some point the residents realised that the woman who had left her cap with them was probably a witch. The cap must have been enchanted.

When the lid began to rattle for the third night in a row, the residents took a drastic decision. They grabbed the cap from the kitchen cupboard and threw it into the stove fire.

The flames consumed the garment, and with one last loud rattle the kitchen fell silent. The lid no longer moved. The spell was broken.

The witch never came to reclaim her cap. Whether she knew what had happened, whether she felt the power of her cap fading as it burned — that remained a mystery. But from that night on, peace returned to the house on the road to Tienen.