With a woeful tone I will sing about a terrible wonder.
You who hear it, pay close attention, and remember each moment.
In the village of Gibbau, on the Penne sea, in Pomerania, in Germany,
These events took place.
A poor farmer lived there, and he had so many children
That it was very difficult for him to live only on bread.
The eldest daughter said goodbye to her dad and mom and siblings,
And went out to become a servant.
A while after that, her father died,
And her mother was in a deplorable state, standing on cane and crutch.
She called upon her rich daughter to help bury her father’s body,
As should a child’s duty be.
She answered by saying not to come to her,
But to bury him however they wanted, without wasting her money.
How I am dressed is what people see, not what some dead old man has on.
It’s none of my concern.
When her kind mistress heard this, she had much nobler intentions.
She was compassionate in her mind, and she sent food and money.
The mistress gave her two loaves of bread to take to her needy mother
And to give whatever help she could.
When she had gone a little way, carrying the bread in anger,
Rejecting her mistress’s compassion and angry with her starving mother,
Along the path she came across some mud, and she thought of a way
To spare her fine shoes.
There were no stones, there were no planks upon which she could tread.
The other paths around her were all long, and she didn’t want to get dirty.
She dropped the bread into the mud so that she could walk upon it,
But punishment was the result of this journey.
Her feet immediately stuck to the bread as she stepped upon it.
In vain she pulled at her legs, and she cursed and swore,
For like a large and half-buried stone, she stood immobile,
And her legs appeared to be held firmly.
She cried, ‘I am a wretched child for rejecting my kind-hearted mother.
I have ensnared myself in the bonds of sin, but only now do I see it.’
She begs people for help, and they offer to, but no one can
Move her feet from that spot.
She had not spoken those last words with a heavily shaking voice,
Before the otherwise firm earth began to move.
She clasped her hands together and sunk down into a hole,
And all traces of her were covered up at once.
You people should bear in mind that pride is a dangerous song,
And avarice can be seen as a risky trap.
Let this maid’s journey warn you to stay away from sin and vanity,
And away from a life of conceit.