The Nordic countries were not immune to the hysteria of the European witch trials.
While laws against witchcraft had been on the books in each country since the Middle Ages, the executions began in the 16th century in the period of the Reformation, when there was a new focus on weeding out heresy with the move to Protestantism.
Here is a brief look at how the witchcraft trials unfolded in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland.
Norwegian Witch Trials
The Scandinavian witch trials were most intense in Norway. Official records record that 860 people were tried between 1561 and 1760, with 277 confirmed executions, but the real number is believed to be closer to 1,400 trials and 350 executions.
While laws against witchcraft that injured another person had been on the books since the 13th century, the trials began in earnest in 1584 when King Frederick II of Denmark and Norway, following the recommendation of the Bishop of Stavanger, became concerned about people relying on the serving of “cunning people,” or folk magic practitioners.
Initially, bailiffs could bring charges against people with three separate accusations, usually linked to folk magic practices. They would then try and prove the charge of witchcraft, on the Christian basis, by getting them to admit to making a pact with the devil or participating in the witches’ sabbath.
They often used torture to extract relevant confessions, even though this was illegal under Danish law. However, after a guilty verdict, they could be tortured to identify their accomplices, which caused the trials to grow and spread. The usual form of punishment was being burned at the stake.
Around 80% of the accused were women from marginalized sections of society, including widows and cunning folk. One famous case was Anne Pedersdotter from Bergen. She was first accused of witchcraft in 1575, with some claiming that she used magic to murder the local bishop so that her husband could have the position, but she was acquitted with the help of her husband.
Nevertheless, the rumors continued, and she was accused again following her husband’s death in 1590. She was accused of killing five or six people by making them sick through magic. Her servant of 20 years claimed that she had seen Anne flying through the air to attend the witches’ sabbath. Others claimed to see her with various demons, including a creature without a head. She was burned at Nordnes on 7 April 1590.
Lisbeth Nypan from the Trondheim region was in her 60s when she was accused in 1670. She was a known cunning woman who worked as a healer using a mixture of Christian beliefs, back arts, and natural medicine.
One of her methods was reading salt, which is known to be a folk tradition. She would say a prayer over the salt, which was then eaten by the patient. Some of her verses are recorded and are consistent with the Merseburg charms found in medieval manuscripts.
Despite people admitting that they felt better thanks to her ministrations, there were fears that she could also make people sick, not helped by her husband, Ole Nypan, reminding people who his wife was when in arguments.
She admitted to her folk practices but claimed that she never hurt anyone and called on the help of God and not the Devil to heal. Neither she nor her husband admitted to Christian ideas of witchcraft under torture, but both were sentenced to death, she by burning and he by beheading in 1590.
By the 1670s, laws around acceptable evidence and what was considered witchcraft were made tighter, and there were fewer trials.
The last confirmed execution was of Johanne Nilsdotter in 1695, accused of renouncing baptism, religion, and God to embrace Satan in exchange for a personal demon called Knut and the ability to do magic. She admitted to having caused sickness and death, including affecting the weather to capsize a boat.
The last person convicted was Brigette Haldorsdotter in 1715, accused of having cursed Hans Ernst Stenback on his wedding night by placing a bag containing ashes, straws of hair, and fingernails in his wedding bed, probably because he had broken a promise of marriage to her to marry someone else. She was judged guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment in the workhouse.
The Witchcraft Act was formally revoked in 1842, meaning that there could be no more executions on this charge.
Swedish Witch Trials
Around 400 people were executed for witchcraft in Sweden before 1704, the majority during a hysteria between 1668 and 1676 known as the “Great Noise.”
As in other Scandinavian countries, laws against witchcraft had existed in Sweden and Finland since 1350, but there was only a death penalty if the act was combined with murder.
There were early trials on this basis, with Eric Clauesson executed for consorting with the pagan god Odin in 1492, as the pagan gods were considered demons.
The law came to be interpreted more broadly following changes in 1608, which followed a series of around 100 witch trials in the late 16th century.
This was also encouraged by the visit of Bishop Abraham Angermannus in 1596/7, who intended to root out anything not in accordance with Protestant practices.
This is when we see the first trials based on Christian demonology, rather than folk magic. In 1597, three women in Halsingland were accused of flying over mountains and valleys to participate in the witches’ sabbath and have sex with Satan. But because no one was hurt, they were fined rather than executed.
The 1608 legal change meant that these acts of witchcraft alone would be enough for execution.
In 1611, Eiln i Horsnas of Smaland, who had long been considered a witch, was tried. As far back as 1591, she was tried when she slapped another woman in an argument, and she died shortly after. She was subject to trial by ordeal with two other women, but while they failed and were executed, she passed and was freed, reportedly because she offered sexual favors to the executioner Hakan.
In 1611, when she was accused again, he was called on to retry her. He claimed that he had seen a devil’s mark on her breast, seemingly confirming they had previously been intimate, and its presence was confirmed by an examination by a group of women.
She was convicted of doing love magic on her sister’s fiancé, murdering her first husband, and the woman she had slapped, making cattle sick by sorcery and then charging to heal them, and enchanting hares to steal milk for her.
Elin was tortured, and while she confessed to killing her first husband with arsenic, she never admitted to witchcraft. She was beheaded in 1611.
The “Great Noise” started in 1668 when a local pastor interrogated a little shepherd girl, who claimed that Maret Jonsdotter had abducted her and taken her to the witches’ sabbath.
This was followed by further accusations, and 17 people were executed for abducting children to Satan.
Sadly, the children were also punished for communing with Satan, despite being kidnapped, being whipped, or forced to “run the gauntlet,” which was running through two rows of people as they were hit.
Similar accusations quickly spread across the country in hysteria. The worst phase was in 1675 when 110 people were executed in Angermanland and Gastrikland.
In the Torsaker witch trials in Angermanland, 71 people, 65 of them women, 2 men, and 4 boys, were beheaded and then burned.
The same year, the hysteria reached Stockholm with the arrival of a traveling child witness known as the Gavle Boy, who had testified against his own mother and others.
Eight women were executed in Stockholm’s Katarina Parish in 1676.
However, these trials showed authorities that trials had gotten out of control, and when one child victim admitted to lying, the evidence of the child victims was no longer accepted. This largely caused an end to trials across the country.
One of the last executions was in 1693, of a Sami shaman named Lars Nilsson, who was accused of consorting with the demonic Sami gods. The death penalty for witchcraft was abolished in 1779.
Danish Witch Trials
We know less about the witch trials in Denmark because they are poorly documented, but they were probably as extensive as they were in Norway and Sweden.
Again, witchcraft had been criminalized in 1170, linked with the death penalty when combined with murder. While there were sporadic cases, the trials began in earnest with the Witchcraft Act of 1617, which made sorcery itself a crime.
Those who used magic without consorting with the devil were to be exiled, and those who also associated with the devil were to be killed.
Between 1609 and 1687, there are records of 494 witchcraft executions in Jutland alone, suggesting that there were many across the country, but the documentation was destroyed.
One of the most notable Jutland cases was Maren Splids, who was accused of witchcraft by one of her husband’s competitors in 1637; he was a tailor.
He claimed that one night, he was awoken by three witches, two of whom were unknown to him, and one was Maren. They held him down, and Maren blew into his mouth. The day after, he was sick and vomited up an object that the local priest declared unnatural.
She was acquitted, but then brought to trial again in 1639, and when she failed to produce 15 character witnesses in her favor, she was declared guilty. She was then sent to Copenhagen, where she was tortured and forced to accuse others. In 1640, she was tied to a ladder with a bag of gunpowder tied to her back, and the ladder was thrown into the fire.
Between 1639 and 1642, the Rosborg witch trials saw a wealthy landowner named Niels Munk accuse 12 people in his territory of bewitching and ailing children through witchcraft, and he tried them himself as a private individual. He executed three of them by burning at the stake, and one more committed suicide in prison.
In 1686, laws became stricter and limited the power of local courts to issue executions, reducing the number of cases. The last major trial was the Thisted trial of 1698, in which several women were convicted of having fits caused by sorcery. The accusation was later proved to be false, and the authorities became reluctant to accept any more charges.
Sporadic death sentences continued, such as Johan Pistorius in 1722 for a Satanic pact, and two craftsmen in 1803.
There were also lynchings, with Dorte Jensdatter accused of causing death by magic by her neighbors, who tied her up in her own home and burned it down in 1722. Two people were later arrested and executed for her murder.
As late as 1800, Anna Klemens was beaten following the accusation of a cunning woman, under the belief that spilling her blood would remove her magic. The cunning woman was later executed, and the men who participated were banished.
Icelandic Witch Trials
In Iceland, the practice of folk magic continued to be common well into the Middle Ages, and practitioners were respected for their power. There was little desire to prosecute anyone for practicing magic. But the witch trials began when Danish authorities decided to impose their rules in Iceland.
Initially, trials were conducted in line with traditional ideas about sorcery, which was defined as either helpful white magic or bad black magic.
Still, black magic was only punishable if it injured another person. For example, in 1554, a priest lost his position and was exiled in punishment for using black magic to entice a girl to sleep with him.
But when the Danish authorities brought the witch trials to Iceland, they brought Christian ideas of witchcraft and pacts with the devil, spread through the first witchcraft book written by Gudmundur Einarsson in 1627 and Pall Bjornsson in 1630, and the Danish witchcraft act of 1617.
One of the first victims was Jon Rognvaldsson. There was a rumor that ghosts had made a boy ill and killed several horses. Authorities assumed that an unknown witch did it and needed to be exposed. The sick boy pointed out Jon. During the search of his house, they found a paper arch of Icelandic runes, which Jon admitted to writing. He was killed in 1625.
Between 1604 and 1720, there were 120 trials in Iceland, with 22 confirmed executions, with the most intense period between 1667 and 1685.
The Icelandic trials were different from those elsewhere in Europe because they were mostly directed against men, with 20 of those killed being men.
This was because the magic that was practiced openly in Iceland was associated with men, so they were more exposed to accusations.
The trials in Iceland stopped in 1686 following the changing rules in Denmark.
The last person burned to death was Sveinn Arnason in 1683, convicted of having caused the illness of the archdeacon’s wife.
