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# Dutch barber Quirin suspected of sorcery because of a skeleton on his wall
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/adam-olearii-v-svoem-podrobnom-opisanii-puteshestviia-golshtinskogo-posolstva-v-moskoviiu-i-persiiu-v-1633-1636-i-1639-godakh-opisyvaet-takoi-sluchai/
- Published: 2024-07-17T08:03:25.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:36:11.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Books, Moscow, Science, Mores

Adam Olearius, in his "Detailed Description of the Journey of the Holstein Embassy to Muscovy and Persia in 1633, 1636 and 1639", relates the following incident:.

"...a barber named Quirinus, a Dutchman and a man of merry disposition, being in the service of the Grand Duke, kept a human skeleton or carcass hanging in his room, on the wall above the table. One day, as was his custom, he was sitting at the table playing the lute, and meanwhile the streltsy, who always stood watch in the German's yard, went towards the sound and looked in at the door. When these men noticed the bones on the wall, they were frightened, all the more so as they saw that the skeleton was moving. They therefore went away and reported that the German barber had a dead body hanging on his wall, which moved whenever the barber played the lute. The rumour reached the Grand Duke and the Patriarch, who sent other men with orders to inspect everything attentively, especially while the barber was playing the lute. These men not only confirmed the testimony of the first, but added that the dead man had actually danced upon the wall to the sounds of the lute.

The Russians were greatly astonished at this, took counsel, and decided that the barber must surely be a sorcerer, and that it would therefore be necessary to burn him together with the remains of his dead man. When Quirinus learned that so perilous a verdict had been reached in secret, he sent a distinguished German merchant, who enjoyed the favour of the grandees, to Prince Ivan Borisovich Cherkassky, to tell him the truth and prevent so cruel an act. The merchant said to the boyar: “On account of such a skeleton the barber can by no means be accused of sorcery. In Germany it is the custom for the best physicians and barbers to keep such skeletons; this is done so that, should some living person have a broken leg or a wound in some part of the body, it may be easier to know how to set about the matter and to treat it. As for the bones moving, this was due not to the playing of the lute, but to the wind blowing through the open window”. After this the sentence was revoked. Quirinus, however, had to leave the country, and the skeleton was dragged across the Moskva River and burned".