The Master (Krabat)

 "What do you want to learn? Miller, or the other thing too?"

- The master

The Master is the main antagonist in the German novel Krabat.

He is a German miller and a master in black magic. The people who want to learn both, being a miller and black magic, have to grind the corn in the mill, but the corn seems to reprodicing, because it doesn't become less. It's revealed that the master has a deal with the Grim Reaper to stay alive forever as long as he offers someone every year to die in his place. If one of his students tries to escape, he changes the enviroment to force them to come back. He doesn't tolerate love, because if a girl would beg her friend free at the night after Sylvester, everyone would be free and he would die. That's why he kills the boy Tonda who he stalked in the disguise of an old woman and promises to set the one free who will bring him the love of one of the boys (Krabat), but the master doesn't know which of them it is. It fails, another boy guides her to the mill, where she has to pick out Krabat who was transformed into a raven from all the other transformed students. At the end, she succees. The master wents into a room, not speaking a word, then the mill burns. The boys, including Krabat and his girlfriend escape and the master dies.