FOLLY STORIES
AGNETA’S STORY
Agneta Wytchirche
Autumn sometime 1483
By day a cook and maid for a well to do family but at night a practicing alchemist
I thought I had kept my night pleasure a good secret. I had been taught by my good church friend how to read and write and was now doing mixtures and prayers to try and find the philosophers stone. I put a lot of time and effort into this and sometimes would get no sleep at all before a days work. This went on for some time and I began to get terrible headaches and fall asleep everywhere. One day I didn’t get to my job on time and someone came by to see where I was.
They caught sight of my apparatus and writings and me fast asleep on the table.
It didn’t take long for the village to hear about my obsession and I was summoned to have my head examined. So I let them pick away at my skull. When they had finished they had brought out this brilliant blue stone. Upon seeing it I wept and laughed with joy as I realized the stone I was working so hard to find had been in me all this time. My folly was out of me! I had some rest after my surgery and then I could go on being a good cook and maid and find me a good husband. I didn’t need to read no books or write no more now as I could see what a folly that had been.
