Scenedoku
Witches’ Sabbath
The bald hill above the town · Walpurgis Night · one at the cauldron in every clearing · Difficulty: Inspector 7 · 10×10
Walpurgis Night, the last night of April, on the bald top of the hill above the town. As every year the coven gathered in its eight clearings, a cauldron or two simmering over the embers in each, and three guests from the village had been let in: a fiddler for the dance, the midwife and the charcoal burner who feeds the fires. The coven keeps one old custom that nobody breaks: wherever anyone is, exactly one of them tends a cauldron – never two, never none. Shortly before midnight, when the fiddle fell silent, Valéria, the eldest witch, was found dead beside the cauldron of the Stone Circle. Nine people were still on the hill. Who was alone with her?
Rules
- In every area where anyone was, exactly one person was beside a cauldron.
- Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
- “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. Squares with objects (the cauldrons, the fir, the owl, the standing stones, the pond, the reeds, the campfire, the hut, the well, the pile of bones, the rock and the herb beds) cannot be occupied; the logs can. A corner of an area is a square of that area that borders the outside (another area or the edge of the board) on one horizontal and one vertical side.
- “Right beside an area where nobody was” = on a square that touches an empty area directly – left, right, above or below, across the border.
- The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.
Statements
- Annuska (the eldest’s apprentice): Made no statement.
- Boriska (the weather witch): She was the only woman beside the campfire.
- Ciprián (the coven’s only warlock): The pile of bones was somewhere in his column.
- Dorka (the milk witch): She was not in a corner of her area.
- Emerencia (the potion witch): She was right beside an area where nobody was.
- Flóra (the herb witch): She was in Bone Hollow.
- Gergely (the fiddler): He was beside the hut, and so was somebody else.
- Hedvig (the village midwife): There were exactly two other people in her area. A log was somewhere in her row.
- Illés (the charcoal burner): Somebody else in his area was beside the campfire. The pile of bones was somewhere in his row.
- Valéria (the eldest witch): The victim. She was found in the Stone Circle, beside a cauldron – alone with the murderer.