The Statue the Sculptor Carved in Prison

In the Lesser Town there once lived a poor widow with her daughter Brigita, with whom a young sculptor fell in love. Before the wedding, however, he had to go away somewhere, and when he returned he questioned an old woman in the neighbourhood out of jealousy about how his bride had behaved in his absence. He heard ill things from her, murdered his sweetheart and threw the body into the Stag Moat. The body was found there only after some time, already gnawed by various animals. The sculptor then confessed and before his death asked leave to carve a statue of his sweetheart as she had been found, disfigured. He made that statue in prison, and when he had finished it he was put to death. Ruth himself remarks that the tale probably arose from the fact that in 1748 the Italian artist Spineti stabbed his sweetheart, the daughter of the castle gardener; he was led out to the scaffold but was pardoned and swept the streets for three years.