The Roses in the Pillow

A woman from the area of Maasmechelen had already lost seventeen or eighteen animals. One after another died without anyone finding a cause. Moreover, her young son had been lying deathly ill in bed for a long time. The child grew weaker by the day, and no doctor could say what was wrong.

The desperate mother decided to go on pilgrimage to Tongeren to ask a friar for advice. The friar listened to her story and gave her relics to hang above every door of the house.

The friar had also said something strange: “The boy will die. When he has passed, you must cut open the pillow on which he sleeps.” The mother did as the friar had asked. After her son’s death, she cut open the pillow and found to her astonishment small roses inside it.

On the friar’s advice, the roses were burned. The fire destroyed the enchantment hidden within them. The friar had also said: “The woman responsible lives near you. She will come one more time to borrow a loaf of bread.”

And so it happened. Shortly after the roses were burned, a neighbour indeed came by to borrow a loaf of bread. The mother recognised her as the woman the friar had described. After that visit, the neighbour was never again seen near the family.

The mother never dared tell her husband the true story, for she knew he would have killed the witch if he had known the truth. The grief for her son remained, but the curse over the family was finally broken.