In the beginning of the fourteenth century a poor widow lived just outside the Doven Gate [in Bremen] in the vicinity of Jodenberg. She occupied a cottage that had been given to her by the wealthy Frau Schwanke, the wife of Conrad von Verden. For many long years she had served Frau Schwanke's parents as a faithful and industrious maid, and for this reason Frau Schwanke provided her with various means of support, even in her old age.

To be sure, the old widow had a daughter who was married to a wealthy tanner in the city, but the daughter had a hard and proud personality, and when the council at that time gave tanners the right to have their own guild in the future, the devil of arrogance so overcame the tanner-master's wife that she became ashamed of her mother, and in the end she even forbade her to enter her house.

The old woman was slow and frail, and she could no longer manage to provide for herself, even by spinning. She would have perished had it not been for the help of others. But this help came to a terrible end when Conrad von Verden, who together with his wealthy cousins had committed a number of acts of violence, was driven from the city along with all of his relatives. The old woman could no longer take her pot to Frau Schwanke to get leftovers from their noon meal, as she had been accustomed to do for a year and a day.

Bitter necessity now drove her to turn to her daughter for charity. It was a difficult step for her. With a shaking hand she reached for the staff which for a long time now she had been forced to rely on to support her unsteady gait.

Underway she stopped several times. She feared an angry confrontation with her daughter, and reflected if it would not be better to take her problems to someone other than her own child. Suddenly she found herself standing in front of her son-in-law's house. She hesitated another moment, then took courage and stepped inside. "After all, she is my daughter, my only child," she murmured quietly to herself. "God and Saint Willhadus will soften her harshness."

She entered the parlor, where the entire family had gathered to eat their noon meal. At first she was very embarrassed, standing there in her poor clothing surrounded by expensive household furnishings and utensils, and she struggled unsuccessfully for words with which to express her plea. Having collected herself somewhat, she most movingly described in simple and unassuming language the hopelessness of her plight.

Tears came to her son-in-law's eyes, but he was a weak man who was completely dominated by his wife, and for nothing in the world would he have made an independent decision, directed only by his heart. He would have taken the helpless old woman into his house with pleasure, if it had depended upon him alone. But as it was, he cast a questioning glance toward his wife to assure himself of her approval. Fear overcame him when he saw her face. It was nothing new for him that she should become angry, even in unimportant matters, but never before had he seen such fury, such an ugly distortion of her features. It was as though upon the sight of her mother she had become possessed of an evil spirit.

The redness of her raging anger gave way to a corpse-like paleness. With sparking animal-like eyes she appeared to want to penetrate the being to whom she owed her life and existence and who had protected her with maternal nurture in her youth and had cared for her in sickness.

Terrified, the old woman looked around for a chair, for her strength threatened to leave her. For a moment the man's human feelings overcame his fear of his wife, and he rushed forward to catch the half-unconscious woman. Until now the tanner-master's wife had sat there quietly without saying a word, or without even moving. But now her anger suddenly exploded like a crashing thunder-storm that had been threatening in the skies for some time. With superhuman strength she pushed her husband aside and like a wild animal threw herself furiously at her own mother, in order to punish her for having dared to come here, although she had been expressly forbidden to do so. Striking at her with her fists, she finally drove her out of the parlor door.

The old woman lay on the hallway floor with her face to the ground. She did not move, and the daughter's demands that she stand up were in vain.

The daughter's unnatural anger suddenly dissipated at this pitiful sight. It was as though a curtain had been drawn from her eyes and that she could finally see whom she had directed her blind fury against. "Mother!" she cried, horrified at what she had done. "Forgive me! Come to your sinful and repentant daughter. Before God and all the saints, if the most tender attention and the most loving care can erase this terrible sin from your memory, then you shall forget it."

Gripped by the deepest sympathy, she bent over the unfortunate woman in order to lift her up. She wanted never again to be separated from her, never again to cause her concern. But this change of disposition came too late, and with horror she saw that she was wasting her loving caresses on a corpse.

The tanner-master's wife was spared by an earthly judge, for it was determined that the old woman did not die only as a result of the attack, but even more from fear and terror. But there is also a judge who dwells above the clouds who does not make his determinations according to earthly expectations and sophistry.

The tanner-master's wife died suddenly thereafter, and a few days after her burial, the gravedigger noticed with horror that the buried woman's hands -- with which she had attacked her mother -- were extending from the grave. And this miracle can be seen to this day, eternalized in stone in the ambulatory of the cathedral.