The execution of John Huss

Online bookshop Bol.com delivered me a harcover copy of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, a 'history of the lives, sufferings, and triumphant deaths of the early Christian and Protestant martyrs'. Amazing book, with sobering stories. I'm currently reading the 'accounts of the persecutions in Bohemia under the Papacy':

When the fagots were piled up to his very neck, the duke of Bavaria was so officious as to desire John Huss to abjure. "No" said Huss, "I never preached any doctrine of an evil tendency; and what I taught with my lips I now seal with my blood." He then said to the executioner, "You are now going to burn a goose" ('Huss' signifying 'goose' in the Bohemian language) "but in a century you will have a swan which you can neither roast nor boil." If he were prophetic, he must have meant Martin Luther, who shone about a hundred years after, and who had a swan for his arms.

The flames were now applied to the fagots, when our martyr sung a hymn with so loud and cheerful a voice that he was heard through all the cracklings of the combustibles, and the noise of the multitude. At length his voice was interrupted by the severity of the flames, which soon closed his existence.

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I am so grateful for those who have gone ahead of me. And I am grateful for the freedom to preach the gospel. May the Lord protect it.