DINKELSBÜHL, GERMANIA—Stressing that he simply found the boorish displays to be beneath him in every respect, pretentious peasant Hans van Leden repeatedly insisted Friday that he never stoops to watching beheadings. “Frankly, I’ve always thought there was something a bit crass about frittering away your time in the churchyard with the rest of the masses, gawking at the decapitation of some heathen or other,” said van Leden, noting that he far preferred the intellectual rewards of listening to the “true majesty” of Gregorian plainchant to the lowbrow fare of flayings and impalements that his fellow field laborers somehow brought themselves to enjoy. “In fact, if another villager starts telling me how he just spent the whole eventide binge-watching witch drownings, I’ll usually just cut him off. Look, I’m sorry, but my idea of a good time involves something a little more culturally stimulating than standing in front of a scaffold and waiting for a sorcerer to be boiled alive.” Van Leden went on to brag that even if he had an interest in going to an execution, he was usually far too busy reading a parchment containing the single word he knows.


From the Creators of The Simpsons, Disenchantment is now streaming on Netflix.