My Mother the Witch by Hanns Heinz Ewers

My Mother the Witch is a story about a grown man that discovers his mother is a witch and tries talking his brother out of getting married because his children might become witches as well. This story has never been translated into English before. Here is the link:

My Mother the Witch

Here is a short excerpt:

If that isn't amazing enough, there is something else she finds just as interesting. What can a person say about her collection of brooms?

In the dark narrow passage that goes between the other rooms into her bedroom mother has no less than forty three brooms, new and old! I believe there is an example of every kind of broom ever made in our house. They are all resting like retired civil servants in rows and files on both sides of the narrow passageway. You can't see them from the stairs because of the curtain that blocks the view.

There is certainly a much better place for such a collection. The great loft next to the kitchen that leads to the garden is almost completely empty and would be a good place for such a collection. You could hang hundreds of brooms there quite comfortably. But no, she presses them tightly together in the small narrow passageway that leads to her bedroom! There are more. One or two brooms stand by themselves in her bedroom behind a small curtain in the corner where her dressing table stands.

You know what a very capable and talented healer mother is. People are always coming and going from the house. She does not treat them as a professional but as a friend. Indeed, mother always tells them that she does not know much but they ask her for every little bit of advice and then follow it faithfully.

She has absolutely no tolerance of quacks and charlatans. Instead she uses herbs. Never on herself, but on the entire neighborhood and she has a loyal following. She is very limited to what she does. She only cures corns, barleycorns, warts and freckles.

For the corns she prepares a brown paste. When you smear it on you must pray the paternoster. The paternoster doesn't seem to help with the barleycorns though, and the cure for them is somewhat complicated and requires the Ave Maria. She caresses the barleycorn with her wedding ring while slowly saying three Ave Maria's. It works best when done by moonlight.

Removing warts takes longer. The person with warts must come every other day for two weeks and get a greenish ointment put on the wart. While this dries, preferably in the sun, they must pray profoundly. This cure works beyond any question. I have seen half a dozen splendid warts disappear with my own eyes.

Even more remarkable is her cure for freckles. She only makes it in the spring. The young girls during the last three weeks of April must smear the bluish ointment on their faces in the mornings and in the evenings and then say the Regina prayer a few times. I haven't heard of any young boys taking the cure.

Mother counts among her patients not only devout Catholics but the daughters of Protestants and free-spirited elders as well. She has learned their beautiful prayers and uses them at times like she uses the paternoster and Ave Maria's.

On Mayday the young girls must get up very early without saying a word and go straight to the garden. There they must throw themselves on the ground and rub their faces in the grass, bathing in the beautiful morning dew of Mayday. After that is another three weeks of ointment and Regina prayers, then the freckles are gone! I tell you, dear brother, they are really gone, just like the barleycorns, warts and corns.

Little Lotte, the doctor's daughter, swears that mother can do more than her papa can, that he doesn't know how to remove freckles. She gave a very lame speech about how he is only a medical doctor and not a corn and wart doctor! The doctor himself is very happy with his daughter's smooth face and takes the competition gladly declaring that he recognizes mother's work and takes the Regina prayers and other foolery into the bargain as well.

Mother has an entire chest full of dried seahorses. They are to be sewn into the petticoat or trouser bottoms as an excellent cure for hemorrhoids. Unfortunately, it appears that this remedy is not widely used in our city. I can't even think of any case that might be in need of a seahorse except for the old washerwoman. She freely maintains that it is an excellent remedy.

All of that is child's play. There are other things much less harmless. Mother never tells fortunes; she never reads palms, never reads cards or other things. When the prophecy comes to her she always calls it stupid stuff; at least that's what she wants us to think.