She was Else, the Hausedrache, the house dragon, and today her fiery breath had finally earned her immolation.
Stripped of all dignity, she stood in the coarse burlap undersmock, its rough weave chafing her skin. The thin fabric offered no modesty, clinging to her gaunt frame. Her breasts, small and saggy from years of childbearing and meager sustenance, were shamefully visible, two pathetic mounds of flesh exposed to the winter air and a thousand mocking eyes. Her feet, calloused from a lifetime of labor, were bare on the frozen earth, the cold seeping into her bones. Her arms, thick with a lifetime of kneading bread and scrubbing pots, were bound tightly behind her back, leaving her utterly defenceless.
Jakob, her husband, stood at the front of the crowd, his face grim but unyielding. He had suffered her barbs for too long, endured her public criticisms, and today, he had finally broken. Her sharp words had sliced through his authority, his very manhood, in front of the whole village. This was his reclaiming.
A collective gasp went through the crowd as two men, burly farmers Else had once shamed for their short measures of milk, grabbed her roughly by the arms. They began to drag her, pulling her forward. The cold bite of the ground beneath her bare feet was agonizing, each tiny stone a fresh lance of pain.
The procession began.
Through the narrow, muddy lanes of the medieval German village, Else was driven. Neighbors, armed with sticks, not thick enough to break bones, but enough to sting, jabbed at her legs, her back, her exposed calves. Each jab was accompanied by a hissed insult, a whispered condemnation.
"Harpy!" "Silence your tongue now, old witch!" "See how humble you are!"
Village dogs, usually timid, sensed the fear and vulnerability emanating from her. Their yellowed teeth snapped at her ankles, their snarls tearing at the muffled silence within the mask. One dog, a scruffy cur she’d often kicked from her stoop, actually drew blood, a sharp sting searing her calf.
But it was the children who delivered the cruellest blows. Their voices, high-pitched and clear, rose in a mocking refrain, a song crafted just for her:
"Else the dragon, scales of rust, Her tongue of fire turns all to dust! No more shouting, no more bite, Lost in shame, in pure, dark night!"
Their laughter, shrill and unburdened by empathy, pierced the iron cage of her punishment. Inside the mask, tears streamed down Else’s face, hot and humiliating. The salt stung her cheeks, already raw from the iron. She tried to cry out, to plead, to curse, but only choked, rasping sounds escaped. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth, woodsmoke, and her own profound terror. The world spun in a dizzying blur through the narrow slits, a kaleidoscope of jeering faces, waving sticks, and hungry dogs.
Each step was an eternity. Each jab of a stick, each snarl, each mocking lyric chipped away at her defiance, replacing it with a bone-deep humiliation. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her heart hammering against her ribs. She wanted to fall, to collapse, to simply cease to exist. But the hands on her arms kept her upright, forcing her to endure every agonizing moment.
The sun began to dip, casting long, distorted shadows. The air grew colder, and the pain in her bare feet became a throbbing numbness. She saw her own house in the distance, a small, dark shape that had once been her sanctuary, now the ultimate destination of her degradation.
As they reached her doorstep, the crowd hushed, their anticipation palpable. Jakob stood there, framed in the doorway, his silhouette stark against the fading light. His face was unreadable, a stone tablet on which her fate was being etched. He looked at her, at the hideous mask, at her exposed, trembling body, at the smears of mud and blood on her bare feet.
The silence stretched, broken only by her ragged breathing. Her entire being yearned for his nod, for the familiar creak of the door opening, for the darkness and solitude it promised. But he did not move. He simply watched her, waiting.
No escape. Not yet. Not until Jakob, her husband, was satisfied that the Hausedrache was truly broken, that Else, the sharp-tongued woman, had paid her penance, and was ready to cross his threshold once more, a truly penitent and reformed woman. The cold wind bit at her exposed flesh, and the heavy iron mask pressed down, a constant, crushing reminder of her shamed, silenced existence. Her ordeal, she knew with a sickening certainty, had only just begun.
