BERLIN - A feisty 90-year-old German woman chased away three would-be burglars from her rural farmhouse with her cane, police said on Monday.

The retired farmer was moving around her house with the help of a walking frame and spotted the intruders -- two men and one woman.

She grabbed her cane and started beating the burglars with it. The trio fled the house in a town outside Muenster.

"It was quite courageous of her," a police spokeswoman said. "But on the other hand it was also quite dangerous. She was quite fortunate that nothing serious happened."