Story of what happened in Regensburg.

Two builders worked in the house of a Jew in the Jewish street. During their work they noticed a large quantity of silver and gold in one of the rooms. Accordingly they plotted to get into the chamber while the Jews were absent in the synagogue and take everything away. And so they did. They entered the chamber and took many articles of silver and gold. Then one of the builders said to himself: "What do I want a partner for? I can do the job myself." So he took a hammer and when the other fellow was getting out of the hole, he knocked him on the head and he fell back into the chamber dead. Then he took all the silver and the gold from the dead man and ran away. All the while the Jews were in the synagogue.

When they returned home, the master of the house found the dead body in his house. They were very much frightened and wanted to remove the corpse outside the gate of the town, for they feared that a crowd might gather, as indeed happened. For the rumor spread in the Christian street that the Jews had murdered the Christian. Thereupon a large crowd of Christians came running into the Jewish street and were about to begin rioting.

Then R. Judah the Pious came along and went straight to the mayor of the town nod said to him: "Sir, what are you going to do? Will you allow so many people to be killed for the sake of one man, when you know well enough that we are not guilty? Two men were working in the house, and I can prove to you that one of them killed the other."

Then the mayor said: "If you can prove what you say, no harm will befall any of you."

And he gave orders that the people in the street should remain quiet.

Then R. Judah said: "Close the gates, so that the murderer shall not be able to escape." This was immediately done. Then the pious man wrote a charm with holy names on it and placed it in the hands of the dead man.

The dead man rose up, turned around and saw the murderer hiding behind another man. So he ran up to him and said: "You murderer, you killed me so that you should have the stolen property all to yourself. You struck me in the head with a hammer and I fell back into the chamber."

The murderer was arrested, thrown into prison immediately, and condemned to death and executed.

Then the pious man said to the mayor: "You see, if I had not stopped you, you would have shed much innocent blood."

The mayor replied : "Quite true; therefore, my dear master, forgive me for such a thing. It shall not happen again. In the future I shall first try to find the true facts."

The man who had been killed had many rich friends, who offered a great deal of money to R. Judah and begged him to let the man live. But R. Judah had no such intention, for he said he was not allowed to do it. He took the charm away from the man who had been killed and he fell down again and lay dead like any other corpse. The mayor was very good to R. Judah after that.