Krabat (German: [ˈkʁaːbat] ⓘ) is a 1971 fantasy novel about the eponymous Sorbian folk hero, written by Otfried Preußler.
Set in the beginning of the 18th century during the Great Northern War, the story follows the life of Krabat, a 14-year-old Wendish beggar boy living in the eastern part of Saxony.
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 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.
Marco Kreuzpaintner's film adaptation of Otfried Preußler's book, also named Krabat, was released in Germany on October 9, 2008.
The 1975 East German television film Die schwarze Mühle is based on a different novelization of the same folk tale by Jurij Brězan.
It aired on Fernsehen der DDR starring Polish Actor Leon Niemczyk, dubbed for the GDR tv viewers by Norbert Christian, Monika Woytowicz, Herbert Köfer, Uwe Kockisch, and Ernst-Georg Schwill.
Krabat is also the main character of three novels, written by the Sorbian writer Jurij Brězan, published in 1968 (adapted into a film by East German state television in 1975), 1976 and 1993.