Sidonia von Borcke (1548–1620) was a Pomeranian noblewoman who was tried and executed for witchcraft in the city of Stettin (today Szczecin, Poland).

[3] After the death of her sister in 1600 she took residence in 1604 in the Lutheran Noble Damsels' Foundation in Marienfließ Abbey which, since 1569 and following the Protestant Reformation, was a convent for unmarried noblewomen.

[4] While living in Marienfließ, Sidonia engaged in several private and judicial conflicts with her (mostly younger) co-residents and with the administrative staff of the abbey.

[7] The new Commission did not succeed in calming the dispute, and Jost von Borcke described the situation at Marienfließ as one of chaos, mistrust, name-calling, and occasional violence.

[8] In July 1619, a dispute between Sidonia and Unterpriorin (sub-prioress) Dorothea von Stettin escalated out of control during a mass, and both women were arrested.

[7] Wolde Albrechts made her living from fortune-telling and begging after she lost her position at Marienfließ (this loss was a consequence of the death of Johannes von Hechthausen).

[6] According to contemporary law, the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, two eyewitnesses were sufficient to convict both Sidonia and Wolde.

Although he presented a defense showing that those allegedly murdered had died natural deaths, he also dissociated himself from statements of Sidonia which had incriminated Jost von Borcke and other officials.

[18] A Gothic romance,[19] Sidonia von Bork, die Klosterhexe, was written in 1847–1848 by Wilhelm Meinhold, a Pomeranian priest and author.

[23][nb 2] The English translations achieved a popularity in Great Britain that was unmatched by any other German book in British literary history.

[19] Especially in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, whose members included William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Edward Burne-Jones, enthusiasm for Sidonia as a Medusa-type femme fatale was widespread.

[27] Other authors who wrote novels based Sidonia's life were Albert Emil Brachvogel (1824–1878) and Paul Jaromar Wendt (1840–1919).

[28] The character also appears in the Aleksander Majkowski's novel Żëcé i przigòdë Remùsa (The Life and Adventures of Remus) published in 1938, considered to be the most important work of Kashubian literature.

[29] In 2010, Polish heavy metal band Crystal Viper included a song dedicated to Sidonia titled Sydonia Bork on its studio album Legends.

[citation needed] The fate of Sydonia and her portraits is one of the themes of Leszek Herman's 2015 debut novel titled Sedinum.

[31][32] On the anniversary of her death, members of the Szczecin Historical Society lay flowers near the site of her execution.