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Here was a person, therefore, who signed a bond with the Devil in order to be freed from a state of depression. Undoubtedly an excellent motive, as anyone will agree who can have an understanding sense of the torments of such a state and who knows as well how little medicine can do to alleviate this ailment. Yet no one who has followed the story so far as this would be able to guess what the wording of this bond (or rather, of these two bonds)¹ with the Devil actually was.

These bonds bring us two great surprises. In the first place, they mention no undertaking given by the Devil in return for whose fulfilment the painter pledges his eternal bliss, but only a demand made by the Devil which the painter must satisfy. It strikes us as quite illogical and absurd that this man should give up his soul, not for something he is to get from the Devil but for something he is to do for him. But the undertaking given by the painter seems even stranger.

The first ‘syngrapha’, written in ink, runs as follows: ‘Ich Christoph Haizmann undterschreibe mich disen Herrn sein leibeigener Sohn auff 9. Jahr. 1669 Jahr.’ The second, written in blood, runs:-

‘Anno 1669.

‘Christoph Haizmann. Ich verschreibe mich disen Satan ich sein leibeigner Sohn zu sein, und in 9. Jahr ihm mein Leib und Seel zuzugeheren.’

¹ Since there were two of them - the first written in ink, and the second written about a year later in blood - both said still to be in the treasury of Mariazell and to be transcribed in the Trophaeum.