Rädern Lyrics

A great number were clustered together
There was a prisoner to be broken upon the wheel
Idle gazers did press to gape upon him
Guilty of murdering his infant daughter with an axe
Great multitudes flocked to the place of execution
Be came on foot with a priest
And his executioners crossed the drawbridge
Ascending a mount of earth
That all may see the execution a mile round
The hangmen take each a small halter
Holding the prisoner upon his back
Then the Arch-hangman
The greater Master of this mighty business
Took up a prodigious wheel
Lifting it by the spokes
A mighty stroke beat the poor wretch's limbs into pieces
Four main blows on his breast,
Burst all his bulk and chest in shivers,
Lastly he smote his neck, and burst his jaw to mammocks
The broken mangled corpse, spread on the wheel
A post thrust into the wheel,
And fixed it to the earth,
There the carcass lay to be consumed
By ravening fowls