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''Krabat'' is a fantasy novel by Otfried Preußler, a German-speaking author born in Liberec (Reichenberg), Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). It's a story based on a Wendish legend. The book was first published in 1971. The English translation first was published as ''The Satanic Mill'' from 1972 to 1991, then republished in 2000 as ''The Curse of the Darkling Mill'', in 2011 as ''Krabat'' and in 2014〔(NYRB Classics publication page )〕 as ''Krabat and the Sorcerer's Mill''. It is the basis of the 1978 Czech animated feature film ''The Sorcerer's Apprentice'' and the 2008 live-action ''Krabat'' (the 1975 television film ''Die schwarze Mühle'' is based on a different novelization of the same folk tale). The book deals primarily with black magic and the lure of evil. Other themes include friendship, love, and death. It won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (''Prize for Literature for Young People'') in 1972. ==Plot== Set in the mid 17th century, the story follows the life of Krabat, a 14-year-old Wendish (i.e. Wends) beggar boy living in the eastern part of Saxony. For three consecutive nights, he is called to a watermill near the village Schwarzkollm through a dream. Upon heeding the call and arriving at the mill, he begins his apprenticeship as a miller's man. He soon joins the secret brotherhood, composed of journeymen and apprentices, and discovers that the skill he is meant to learn through this apprenticeship is Black Magic. The first magic powers Krabat acquires are rather harmless, such as the ability to turn himself into a raven. Other peculiarities of this watermill include the lack of any outside visitors, including farmers who would have brought grain. The only visitor to the mill is one Goodman, who may be the devil, although this is never made explicit. The senior journeyman Tonda, Krabat's best friend and older brother figure, dies, ostensibly of an accident, on New Year's Eve in Krabat's first year at the mill. Tonda offers strangely little resistance to his own death. Krabat's suspicions of foul play are further reinforced when another journeyman and friend, Michal, dies the following New Year's Eve. He soon realizes that the master is bound in a pact to the Goodman: the master must sacrifice one journeyman every year on New Year's Eve, or perish himself. Wishing to take revenge for his friends' death, Krabat secretly trains to increase his magical strength so he can fight the master. His quest is aided by a girl from the nearby village, a church singer, “Kantorka”, whose name is never mentioned (“Kantorka” meaning just ‘little chorister’). Krabat learns that to end the spell, his lover must challenge the master for him; then whoever loses the challenge, the master or the two lovers, will die. The master offers Krabat another solution: He will retire and let Krabat inherit the mill, along with the pact to the Goodman; but Krabat refuses to perpetuate the evil pact. So the challenge goes ahead, and the girl's task is to distinguish Krabat from the rest of the journeymen, all dressed identically and standing motionless in a lineup, while she is blindfolded. She manages to pick him out by the fact that he fears mainly for her life, while the others fear mainly for their own. Ultimately, she rescues Krabat from death, and they and the journeymen escape the mill. The master is left to die in the burning mill on New Year's Eve, while the survivors lose all their magic powers and are now simple millers who have to provide for themselves through normal hard work. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Krabat」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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