Translated and selected by T. Dusenvolt

August 31, 1645

It may serve posterity to describe Johan, for even though Father views him as merely a tool in our barn, his beginnings, or perhaps, his endings, are rather fascinating when one takes a moment to think on them.

Johan is a handsome boy, or at least he was. It looks about fifteen, though I can only conjecture. He always wears the same clothes – the beaten straw hat, the stained overalls, the filthy shirt. His hair is short and His arms are strong. In fact, he would be perfectly attractive, if he was not dead. It is those signs of death that make him repellant. He has no color in the face – all is grey, all is sunken. Everything about him is dry, like a room of still air. And he is dumb, of course; all interactions are one-sided. I tell him to fetch something, and he fetches it. He always obeys, and of course that is dull. But he does work like a wonder. All through the night, through the heat, through the snow, he works. And at such a speed!

He died, I think, from self-sacrifice for a lover, although Father thinks that is ridiculous. He theorizes that it (That’s what he calls him: “it.”) was just a common criminal who was shot for some murder or whatnot and then thrown in the bog, but that is so void of drama I just can’t accept it.

Father found him some two years ago, all shriveled and black from the peat, but he soon put him in order with some spell or something. (Really, I don’t understand his obsession with magic.) Then he used another magical fiddling to make him into a golem, and he was ready for use.

Really that is all there is to tell about the thing.

(Post Script: It is of no interest to anyone, but when he is not working (a thing he practically always does) Johan sits on top of the barn and looks at the bog. I think, and I will never tell this to Father, that “it” is just a little living.)

-The diary of Betty Vinke, New Amsterdam, NY

Author’s Note: Peter Vinke was a rather unpleasant Dutch sorcerer who focused more on necromancy and dark magic than on his daughter. His wife died in childbirth, and following the tragedy, Vinke cut himself off from society, the one exception being the hundreds of essays he published on necromancy.

Betty Vinke was fourteen when she wrote this. She eventually was forced by her father to assist him in his practice, and after his death, Betty abandoned magic completely, marrying a quiet farmer, having seven quiet children, and living a quiet life. She also had a quiet servant, who, when not working, sat on the barn and looked at the bog, and smiled.