Jeremias Gotthelf: The Black Spider

About the darkness in a sunny mountain village, about the evil that we carry within us. Otakar Brousek reads from a novel by the leading Swiss novelist of the first half of the 19th century. Jeremias Gotthelf (1797-1854), by his own name Albert Bitzius, is considered the most important Swiss novelist before Gottfried Keller. In addition to his short stories, his shorter novel The Black Spider (1842), about the horrors of a Swiss village several hundred years ago, is also highly praised. Although the entire plot is set in the peaceful ritual of a child's baptism and the lavish feast that follows, the narrative is full of frightening imagery and symbols that will still evoke feelings of fear. Moreover, behind the veil of fantasy there are some real facts.