The day when Krabat is taken by his master the miller to the court of the Elector at Dresden is the only time that he sees the miller's sinister power in action on a national scale; mysteriously translated into court dress and speech, the lad discusses the course of the war with others while the Master, by his magic arts, dissuades the Elector from considering peace terms with Sweden. The Thirty Years War serves to date the story, to lend distance and to emphasise the Master's nature, but [The Satanic Mill] is not an historical tale. In its direct idiom and haunting detail and above all in its motifs it derives straight from folk lore. The Master has no Christian name, the Devil is identified by the ironic nickname of 'The Goodman', the Dark Stones and the 'sign' are terrifyingly unspecific. And at bottom is the theme of...