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165. The Vardo Witch Trials · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

0:00
Speaker 1: Hell, Little delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
0:04
Speaker 1: The history podcast That's not your history class with me,
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Speaker 1: your host Katie Charlewood, History Harlott and reader of books,
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Speaker 1: who is starting this episode with a corrections corner because
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Speaker 1: it is really bloody important. Accountability is where it's at. Lad's. So,
0:22
Speaker 1: I was contacted by a domestic violence prosecutor after my
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Speaker 1: North Berk Witch Trials episode who was absolutely dismayed in
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Speaker 1: my description of manual strangulation as a difficult and drawn
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Speaker 1: out process. So here's the thing about manual strangulation. I'm
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Speaker 1: talking like with your hands, not with a garrote or
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Speaker 1: any other implement which can quicken the process. You can
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Speaker 1: be unconscious in ten seconds, you can be dead within
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Speaker 1: a minute, but you'll definitely be dead within five. And
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Speaker 1: here's the thing. Manual strangulation is the most lethal form
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Speaker 1: of domestic violence short of murder. Right, strangulation then murder,
1:06
Speaker 1: Like that's the jump as executions go, though, death by strangulation,
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Speaker 1: manual strangulation is very specific and weirdly intimate, you know,
1:20
Speaker 1: as an execution it is, though, But when it comes
1:23
Speaker 1: to domestic violence and strangulation, I never want to downplay
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Speaker 1: or misrepresent any of that. So I am going to
1:30
Speaker 1: put a link in the description down below, which is
1:34
Speaker 1: basically to educate you about the acute danger posed by
1:37
Speaker 1: even non fatal strangulation, that there's a strangulation training institute
1:42
Speaker 1: and they've got a really a really interesting infographic on
1:46
Speaker 1: the physiological consequences of strangulation. So check that out. And
1:51
Speaker 1: now that I've done that, now for something completely different.
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Speaker 1: There were so many things happening out in the world
1:58
Speaker 1: that every now and again I am incredible tempted to
2:01
Speaker 1: do a how's doing what now? Like bonus thing and
2:05
Speaker 1: just like tell people, like I'd really love friends to
2:08
Speaker 1: be involved in this, and just tell them when we
2:10
Speaker 1: talk about news events that are happening now, like Exodus
2:15
Speaker 1: eight happening in Portland, like what what? Like? What is happening?
2:22
Speaker 1: And also you can tell I was a cradle Catholic,
2:25
Speaker 1: can't you? And also like the heist a host in
2:30
Speaker 1: broad daylight in the louver, how dark is our timeline?
2:36
Speaker 1: That a major jewel heist of historical historical gems, right
2:45
Speaker 1: artifacts even, and we're just like, oh, what delightful Sunday news,
2:51
Speaker 1: Like everything else is so horrible and terrible and the worst, right,
2:57
Speaker 1: and then this happens and we're like, uh, jolly old show,
3:01
Speaker 1: Like what oh, but there's so much I want to
3:05
Speaker 1: talk about, but we have stuff to do. And I
3:10
Speaker 1: know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Kerriie, quit your jibbl
3:14
Speaker 1: jabba in fact me, in fact you I will. But
3:18
Speaker 1: first we've got to get our source on. Our sources
3:22
Speaker 1: are Witches of the North by Love Helena Williamson, Witchcraft
3:28
Speaker 1: by Marion Gibson, Female Witches and Sammy Sorcerers, and the
3:33
Speaker 1: Witch Trials of Arctic Norway by Rue Bleshagen, John Cunningham
3:40
Speaker 1: by T. J Olsen, Scottish Witches and witch Hunters by
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Speaker 1: Love Helen Williamson, the Witch Trials of finn Mark by
3:51
Speaker 1: Torbion Alm. And of course we have our old favorites,
3:56
Speaker 1: history dot com and biography dot com in coomfortably good.
4:02
Speaker 1: Then let's begin. By the seventeenth century, Scots were emigrating
4:07
Speaker 1: all over the globe, from the New World colonies in
4:10
Speaker 1: America to the Caribbean and even colonies up north of
4:16
Speaker 1: North Medieval trading posts had expanded into towns and villages
4:22
Speaker 1: with less than three thousand people spread over twenty thousand
4:26
Speaker 1: square miles, and colonists were not the only inhabitants though.
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Speaker 1: The indigenous Sami people had lived, hunted, herded and just
4:37
Speaker 1: existed on the islets of Vardo and Vadso so they're
4:43
Speaker 1: on these islets on the Finnmark region in northern Norway.
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Speaker 1: Now Norway was part of Denmark Norway. I think I
4:52
Speaker 1: mentioned this a little bit in the last episode. So
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Speaker 1: from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, the the Norwegian
5:01
Speaker 1: Union was a dual monarchy encompassing the Kingdom of Denmark
5:05
Speaker 1: and the Kingdom of Norway. Now Norway also included several
5:10
Speaker 1: overseas possessions. So you had Iceland, Greenland, the Faro Islands,
5:15
Speaker 1: and then of course there were colonies in India, Africa
5:19
Speaker 1: and the West Indies, so on and so forth. Now
5:23
Speaker 1: remember Greenland is covered in ice and Iceland is very nice.
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Speaker 1: So many colonizers who had emigrated were Catholic and they
5:36
Speaker 1: lived a rather unexcited life together. Right, They just got
5:41
Speaker 1: on with the Sami people. They just existed in the
5:45
Speaker 1: same place, which was shocking, like two people out with
5:50
Speaker 1: these societies and and you'r thinking Catholics were just kind
5:56
Speaker 1: of chilling. Yep, I'm as surprised as you are. Okay.
6:00
Speaker 1: So King James the sixth of Scotland, he was the
6:03
Speaker 1: brother in law to King Christian the fourth and he
6:07
Speaker 1: had decreed anti witchcraft laws, right, so both of them
6:12
Speaker 1: just really hated the concept of witches. And Christian the
6:18
Speaker 1: fourth he had decreed you know this in sixteen seventeen
6:23
Speaker 1: about witches and their accomplices. And this redefined like just
6:29
Speaker 1: the whole concept of witchcraft. So not only was it
6:33
Speaker 1: illegal to be a witch, it was illegal if you
6:36
Speaker 1: didn't report anyone that you believed to be a witch.
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Speaker 1: And it combined variations of demonology, you know, some of
6:45
Speaker 1: the charms and such, and the rest pact with the devil.
6:51
Speaker 1: It combined parts of the Malleus Maleficarum with James's own
6:55
Speaker 1: demonology weaved through it. And this linked witchcraft to folk magic,
7:01
Speaker 1: traditional healing, devil worship and heresy. From sixteen seventeen onwards,
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Speaker 1: all witchery and magic in the kingdoms of Denmark and
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Speaker 1: Norway was punishable by death or for like lesser offenses, exile.
7:21
Speaker 1: When the witch craze reached the extreme northern edge of
7:25
Speaker 1: the country, it was carried there by John Cunningham, a
7:30
Speaker 1: Scottish immigrant see John Cunningham. He was born around fifteen
7:35
Speaker 1: seventy five at the manor Barns in the East Nuke
7:40
Speaker 1: of Fife in Scotland, and that's also sort of in
7:43
Speaker 1: the area of Quail. So he was the illegitimate son
7:48
Speaker 1: of John Cunningham, the Lrd of West Barns. John Cunningham's
7:53
Speaker 1: senior was married at least twice, and at least one
7:57
Speaker 1: of those marriages produced a legitimate air. However, it appears
8:03
Speaker 1: he may not have had a spare anyway, and John
8:07
Speaker 1: Cunningham Junior was legitimized in fifteen ninety five, so when
8:11
Speaker 1: he's like around twenty ish and his father was a
8:16
Speaker 1: layered which meant he had a little power, a little influence,
8:20
Speaker 1: and buckets and buckets and money, which meant he could
8:25
Speaker 1: have easily forked out for a university education for his son,
8:29
Speaker 1: you know, like he did for his other children. But
8:33
Speaker 1: instead John was not given that same privilege as his siblings.
8:38
Speaker 1: And so he went to see to see what he
8:42
Speaker 1: could see CEC. But all that he could see CEC
8:46
Speaker 1: was the bottom of the deep blue CCC. I regret
8:51
Speaker 1: nothing so he manages to impress King James the sixth
8:56
Speaker 1: of Scotland, and so the seaman was highly recommended to
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Speaker 1: James's brother in law, King Christian the fourth of Denmark Norway.
9:05
Speaker 1: In sixteen oh three, James writes a letter of recommendation,
9:10
Speaker 1: a letter that implies that the king knew John Well
9:14
Speaker 1: and requested that Christian the fourth treat him with respect.
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Speaker 1: So the kings, Christian and James, they go on really well,
9:23
Speaker 1: I mean their family, you know, they're kings. They both
9:28
Speaker 1: like nice clothes, the Bible and accusing women of being
9:32
Speaker 1: witches and then killing them, you know, just king things. Anyway,
9:38
Speaker 1: he ends up treating him with the respect that is requested,
9:42
Speaker 1: because it's like James knew him personally, it appears, but
9:48
Speaker 1: I'm not going to read into that. So anyway, John
9:52
Speaker 1: Cunningham is hired by Christian and he is promoted within
9:54
Speaker 1: two years, and for what I assume was assimilation purposes,
10:00
Speaker 1: he changed his name to Hans Knnig. I mean, at
10:04
Speaker 1: least he won't get confused with his dad anymore. Anyway,
10:08
Speaker 1: he's a naval captain now and he's commanding the small
10:11
Speaker 1: fleet of his own, so he's got the ship toast
10:16
Speaker 1: which means comfort, and the ship's din road love, which
10:21
Speaker 1: means red lion, and the captain means cat. This is
10:28
Speaker 1: a ship called the cat. What's your ship called red
10:33
Speaker 1: lion comfort? You know cat? So anyway, as a captain,
10:41
Speaker 1: John is quite impressive, Like the fleet has been sent
10:45
Speaker 1: to re establish contact with Norse settlements in Greenland, and
10:50
Speaker 1: he guides the ships through very dangerous seas like he's
10:53
Speaker 1: got a really cool head on him, like what everyone
10:56
Speaker 1: else is panicking? He's like, I got this all right, chill.
11:00
Speaker 1: So some crew members, however, do find him quote a
11:05
Speaker 1: bit strange, especially after he had a tipple right. At
11:11
Speaker 1: one point he accuses two crewmen of being criminals and
11:16
Speaker 1: just leaves them in Greenland, like with some supplies to
11:19
Speaker 1: keep them going, you know, for a bit, like a bit. Again,
11:24
Speaker 1: Greenland is covered in ice with Iceland is very nice.
11:30
Speaker 1: So they're also like charting like the area, and they're
11:36
Speaker 1: naming things you know that probably already have names, Like
11:41
Speaker 1: there's a mountain called Kakatsiak. I've probably horribly butchered there,
11:48
Speaker 1: but they change it to Mount Cunningham. I like that mountain. Yep,
11:54
Speaker 1: that's Mount Cunningham now cool. So far from naming places
12:00
Speaker 1: is dumping men on the coast and making people uncomfortable
12:03
Speaker 1: whenever he drank. John also managed to kidnap for indigenous people,
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Speaker 1: which I feel like I shouldn't have to say this,
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Speaker 1: but kidnapping people, especially indigenous people, is wrong. Don't do that. Unsurprisingly,
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Speaker 1: a skirmish occurs because the native people of Greenland, they
12:28
Speaker 1: don't want them kidnapping their people. I ends up firing
12:33
Speaker 1: cannons at them. It's stock now like, and he's he's
12:39
Speaker 1: just there stealing these people because he's a dick. I
12:43
Speaker 1: guess naturally these men weren't super keen on being stolen
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Speaker 1: from their homeland, you know, and trafficked, and so they
12:53
Speaker 1: start causing problems on the ship. To assert his dominance,
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Speaker 1: John shoot one and surprise, surprise, no more issues occur
13:05
Speaker 1: on board now once they returned to Denmark. By the way, right,
13:11
Speaker 1: any information about these greenlandals just who gone. They just
13:16
Speaker 1: disappear from the records, which usually means something bad happened. Right,
13:24
Speaker 1: There's nothing anywhere at all. They're just like taken. So
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Speaker 1: John he continues his naval career, exploring around Greenland. He
13:37
Speaker 1: reaches the land that is known as Canada but becomes
13:41
Speaker 1: known as Canada at one point, and like he's just
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Speaker 1: you know, scooting around the globe. He's earning his stripes
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Speaker 1: for Denmark Norway. He patrolled the North Sea and was
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Speaker 1: a captain during the Kalmar War. And again we have
13:59
Speaker 1: to slip it to some context here. Basically, the Kalmar
14:04
Speaker 1: War ran from like sixteen eleven to sixteen thirteen, so
14:08
Speaker 1: two years. And the long and short of it is
14:11
Speaker 1: is that Sweden did not want to pay sound dues
14:14
Speaker 1: to Denmark Norway. Denmark Norway controlled the strait between the
14:20
Speaker 1: Baltic Sea and the North Sea, and it charged a
14:24
Speaker 1: toll to use it, and so Sweden decided that they
14:27
Speaker 1: were gonna try and avoid that by traveling through Lapland.
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Speaker 1: Now Lapland was sparsely populated, and that's also where Santa lives.
14:38
Speaker 1: So King Carl the ninth of Sweden declared himself King
14:42
Speaker 1: of the Lapse in Nordland. So yeah, the indigenous people,
14:47
Speaker 1: by the way, around these areas, they were known as
14:50
Speaker 1: Finns and laps, okay, And so here's Lapland and he's like,
14:55
Speaker 1: this is mine now, so he declares himself king and
14:59
Speaker 1: then he he starts collecting taxes in Norwegian territory and
15:07
Speaker 1: there was a land grab and then Denmark Norway declared war.
15:12
Speaker 1: They're like, you can't have this, this is ours. So
15:17
Speaker 1: John's involved in that. And two years after the commer War,
15:22
Speaker 1: John is sent to Spitzbergen, which is an island off
15:27
Speaker 1: the north of Norway. Right, and here's he's one of
15:31
Speaker 1: the commanders of a naval exhibition to demand tolls from
15:35
Speaker 1: foreign whalers because they're like, you can't be whaling inertsies,
15:40
Speaker 1: give us the money. And the following year he captains
15:44
Speaker 1: another ship is part of an exhibition to read Norwegian
15:48
Speaker 1: territories of whalers and pirates. Her So John slash hands
15:56
Speaker 1: here was really cementing his position as a loyal subject
16:01
Speaker 1: of Denmark Norway, a man who could be trusted to
16:06
Speaker 1: enforce the Dano Norwegian king's laws and the like John Cunningham.
16:12
Speaker 1: He's in his forties now and with his harsh personality,
16:16
Speaker 1: life experience, and of course his naval and colonial leadership
16:20
Speaker 1: made him the perfect candidate for the finn Mark governorship.
16:27
Speaker 1: What's interesting actually is that quite a lot of the
16:30
Speaker 1: royal officials of Northern Norway were typically foreign nationals. Like
16:35
Speaker 1: it was a very deliberate choice by the king, Like
16:41
Speaker 1: why probably because they were more likely to go the
16:44
Speaker 1: extra mile and prove themselves to the king, like don't
16:47
Speaker 1: get rid of his well, do the right thing or
16:50
Speaker 1: the wrong thing? More so actually, so in fifteen ninety nine,
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Speaker 1: King Christian had visited Finn and he was not happy
17:03
Speaker 1: the Sami and the Catholic settlers were living harmoniously together,
17:08
Speaker 1: like they just kind of got on with it, and
17:12
Speaker 1: so on the return journey, the fleet sails into a
17:16
Speaker 1: storm on a treacherous sea, and of course it's blamed
17:20
Speaker 1: on magic. Then they discover a member of the crew
17:25
Speaker 1: has just straight up stolen a Sami woman's cat. Naturally,
17:32
Speaker 1: they are convinced that the cat is evil and it
17:36
Speaker 1: is carrying a curse because it was stolen, and the
17:41
Speaker 1: plan is to just dump the cat overboard, but like
17:44
Speaker 1: what if that angers the witch? Is more, the King
17:49
Speaker 1: orders that the cat be sent adrift with a month's
17:52
Speaker 1: supply of food in like a raft. Right, Here's here's
17:58
Speaker 1: a horrible fact for you. The majority of people that
18:03
Speaker 1: try to ferry themselves off of an island on a
18:06
Speaker 1: makeshift raft or whatever, having much higher risk of dying
18:10
Speaker 1: than those waiting to be rescued. Right, cats, I don't
18:16
Speaker 1: know if you know this, don't have opposable thumbs, and
18:19
Speaker 1: so I'm not entirely sure how great they'd be at sailing.
18:25
Speaker 1: And so they put the cat and the raft with
18:30
Speaker 1: food and it goes into the distance. And then once
18:34
Speaker 1: the cat is out of sight, the weather gets better.
18:37
Speaker 1: So they're like, clearly it was the cat, right, So
18:43
Speaker 1: the flight does make it back home despite the evil
18:47
Speaker 1: Sammie magic. Right, there is this belief that the Sami
18:51
Speaker 1: could control the wind and stuff, and so like they
18:54
Speaker 1: made the storm happen. It's like okay, so like this
18:58
Speaker 1: is this is an event really, So less than two
19:03
Speaker 1: years later, the governor of Finnmark dies suddenly, and his
19:09
Speaker 1: sudden death is blamed on the Sami people and their magic.
19:16
Speaker 1: To be clear, King Christian was convinced that the Sami
19:19
Speaker 1: had magically murdered the previous Finmark governor. Now this isn't
19:24
Speaker 1: altogether surprising when you consider that his brother in law,
19:28
Speaker 1: like along with his brother in law, he believed that
19:31
Speaker 1: there was an international conspiracy of witches out to get
19:36
Speaker 1: kings right right in Finnmark, right. Some Sami were nomadic,
19:43
Speaker 1: trekking into the mountains following reindeer or caribou. Others lived
19:49
Speaker 1: permanently in feored villages. All of them were no stranger
19:54
Speaker 1: to Southern incomers, those who settled and those just passing through.
20:00
Speaker 1: And unlike other indigenous peoples, the Sami rarely caught the
20:04
Speaker 1: Southern European diseases like the plague. Like they're fairly hardy,
20:08
Speaker 1: you know. And they had their own culture, their own
20:13
Speaker 1: languages and their own traditions. Like there were like so
20:18
Speaker 1: many different languages and dialects, and most of them are
20:23
Speaker 1: probably just wittered away now because you know, colonization. The
20:30
Speaker 1: spirits and deities and the Sami religion were connected to nature,
20:34
Speaker 1: spirits ancestors and included divination and to the Christian King
20:39
Speaker 1: Christian this was barbaric, as if in a man in
20:46
Speaker 1: a robe leading a group to chant in unison before
20:49
Speaker 1: and after consuming the flesh and blood of an undead
20:52
Speaker 1: deity isn't fucking weird? Yeah, I am talking about the
20:58
Speaker 1: Eucharist in Christianity. You're welcome, Sammy Sears were thought to
21:04
Speaker 1: cast evil spells on others, and this leads to a
21:09
Speaker 1: bunch of ethnographers like Olos Magnus, who had never even
21:15
Speaker 1: met a Sawmi person, and Peter Klausenfries to claim that
21:20
Speaker 1: the Sammi were evil, tempered, dangerous enemies steeped in demonic
21:25
Speaker 1: paganism and witchcraft. It should be no surprise, then, that
21:31
Speaker 1: the first person to be tried as a witch after
21:33
Speaker 1: Cunningham's promotion to governor was a Sammie woman. King Cush
21:43
Speaker 1: in the Fourth Decree had made a sea of witch
21:46
Speaker 1: trials likely, but John Cunningham's leadership made it a certainty.
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Speaker 1: The King wanted this district, made up of indigenous peoples
21:56
Speaker 1: and settlers fishing and farming and just you know, living
22:00
Speaker 1: side by side, to be crushed into a good little
22:05
Speaker 1: tax paying Protestant islet, conforming to the colonial rule. As
22:12
Speaker 1: discussed in the previous episode in the North Berwick witch Trials,
22:16
Speaker 1: accusing people of magic and persecuting them was not a
22:20
Speaker 1: new occurrence. It had been happening for quite some time.
22:25
Speaker 1: So John settles right in in Finnmark. He's governing, he's
22:29
Speaker 1: raising taxes, he's watching out for pirates, building Castle Vanhos
22:35
Speaker 1: and teaching people about witches, so like, there's this whole
22:40
Speaker 1: thing with the devil. So like, in all of the
22:43
Speaker 1: previous witch trials in Norway, none of the confessions mentioned
22:49
Speaker 1: the devil. It just wasn't a thing, right, So they
22:53
Speaker 1: would mention all of these other stuff, but never the devil.
22:58
Speaker 1: But Cunningham here he's held about James's demonology and how
23:03
Speaker 1: witches cavot with the devil, so like he brings that
23:08
Speaker 1: concept here. So when King Christian's decree comes about in
23:13
Speaker 1: sixteen seventeen, which was, for by the way, the one
23:17
Speaker 1: hundred anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation, just a weird way
23:22
Speaker 1: to commemorate that. But still, like, I'm not entirely sure
23:28
Speaker 1: that when Martin Luther was nailing his treaties to the
23:30
Speaker 1: door of the church that he was like, whoa in
23:33
Speaker 1: a century's time. I do really hope they use this
23:36
Speaker 1: as an excuse to murder women. I feel like that
23:40
Speaker 1: might not be the case. So he's like, in this decree,
23:47
Speaker 1: so it's like bad witches get killed, good witches get
23:51
Speaker 1: their property seized and then get banished, banish it. And
23:58
Speaker 1: here we've got jaw with his broad demonological theory and
24:02
Speaker 1: the vague knowledge at least of the Scottish witch confessions,
24:08
Speaker 1: like he grew up just across the road from it, really,
24:10
Speaker 1: I mean he's across the river, right, And he would
24:13
Speaker 1: have been a young man, a teenager when this was
24:16
Speaker 1: kicking off, so there's no way he wouldn't have heard
24:19
Speaker 1: about it, right. This would have been very much around
24:23
Speaker 1: in his vicinity, you know, which brings me to an
24:30
Speaker 1: event on Christmas Eve in sixteen seventeen. We're more than
24:35
Speaker 1: forty men from the Finnmark fishing fleet. They were fishing
24:38
Speaker 1: off east Finnmark in their Nordlanders, which are fishing boats.
24:44
Speaker 1: So the Nordlander fishing boat is sort of a similar
24:48
Speaker 1: design to a Viking long ship. It's light, it's narrow
24:52
Speaker 1: and strong, and it's got like a shallow profile and
24:55
Speaker 1: a short keel. So if the nets are over the
24:59
Speaker 1: side and they get hit by a rough sea, they
25:02
Speaker 1: could very easily just flip over, which is exactly what happened.
25:08
Speaker 1: And these were men used to these waters with generational
25:12
Speaker 1: knowledge and experiences, and this was a freak of nature,
25:17
Speaker 1: an unexpected accident. This violent storm sinks ten ships and
25:24
Speaker 1: killed forty men, leaving grief filled villages in its aftermath,
25:30
Speaker 1: and at the time it was just accepted as horrible tragedy.
25:34
Speaker 1: But we will come back to this. The first witch
25:40
Speaker 1: trial after John's announcement as governor was that of Fund
25:44
Speaker 1: care or Carrie the Fin also known as Karen edis Data,
25:52
Speaker 1: a naming method of the colonial power. How shocking, Carrie
25:58
Speaker 1: was accused of witchcraft and using her magical ways to
26:02
Speaker 1: kill two men.
26:04
Speaker 2: He had it coming, He had it coming, He had
26:09
Speaker 2: it coming anyway. Under Bailiff Sulfren Nielsen, a ten man
26:15
Speaker 2: jury Surprising tried Carrie on the thirteenth of May sixteen twenty.
26:22
Speaker 2: She was accused of murdering Abraham Nielsen of hop because
26:26
Speaker 2: he went to take a p at sea and went
26:29
Speaker 2: over the rail of his ship and dripped. She was
26:33
Speaker 2: always accused of drowning Henrik from Mgang, which is the
26:37
Speaker 2: same village as.
26:38
Speaker 1: Carrie was from. So Carrie allegedly had a feud with
26:43
Speaker 1: Henrik because she asked to borrow a pot and he refused,
26:49
Speaker 1: so obviously she had to drown him. Abraham Nielsen, now
26:54
Speaker 1: that's a little bit more convoluted. His maid was pregnant
26:59
Speaker 1: and had been shagging a dude called Johannes, who Carrie
27:03
Speaker 1: was known to have been having a sexual relationship with.
27:07
Speaker 1: So Abraham and Johannas they get into an altercation and
27:12
Speaker 1: Abraham is demanding that Johannes Mary has made and be,
27:16
Speaker 1: you know, like a decent man. He's like, you did this,
27:22
Speaker 1: you know, have to support her and do your judy,
27:25
Speaker 1: and Johanna's is like, I will give her stuff if
27:29
Speaker 1: I find it, and he's like so noncommittal and kind
27:34
Speaker 1: of like maybe I guess. And Abraham Nielsen is pissed, right,
27:41
Speaker 1: He's so mad at this just apathy in this situation
27:46
Speaker 1: that he takes a swing at Johannes. And Carrie she's
27:50
Speaker 1: watching the whole thing, She's watching it all unfold and
27:53
Speaker 1: now she's angry. So she jumps in in the middle
27:58
Speaker 1: of this argument to pretend Johannes and then threatens Abraham.
28:04
Speaker 1: Now she says something about like a devil getting him
28:07
Speaker 1: or something, and a few days later Abraham falls to
28:13
Speaker 1: his death. And so he falls into Beat's word I think,
28:19
Speaker 1: and wee here's the kicker the boats on his hands
28:27
Speaker 1: connics boat John Cunningham. At the trial, Johannes claims that
28:34
Speaker 1: Carrie bewatched him into sleeping with her. I'm sorry what
28:43
Speaker 1: so he claims that she used her magic to seduce him,
28:48
Speaker 1: and that she knew all about the ship and Abraham's
28:52
Speaker 1: death before it had returned to port. Johannis is a
28:59
Speaker 1: sneak little shit. He cheats on Carrie, impregnates women who
29:05
Speaker 1: he abandons, and then accuses his girlfriend, all a crime
29:09
Speaker 1: that will absolutely get her killed, all because she was
29:13
Speaker 1: trying to protect him. Carrie is also accused of making
29:19
Speaker 1: Anders Rasmussen's wife have a gammi leg until she paid
29:23
Speaker 1: for repairs that she owed her. The all male jury,
29:29
Speaker 1: made up of settlers, in having no sami on it whatsoever.
29:34
Speaker 1: We're told not to give the the addict until one
29:37
Speaker 1: last test was performed. Bailiff's Suffrin Nielsen had Carrie swum
29:45
Speaker 1: in the harbor, an ordeal for the accused dunking. It's
29:52
Speaker 1: basically dunking. She's thrown into the Arctic water. So here's
29:59
Speaker 1: the thing. Swimming was not something that modest, respectable settler
30:05
Speaker 1: ladies did, right. It was seen as something peculiar in audience. Swim,
30:10
Speaker 1: They didn't float, didn't do any of that. Jatz right,
30:13
Speaker 1: And of course, by this ordeal, if she floats, she's guilty.
30:19
Speaker 1: If she sinks, she's innocent but dead, and if she
30:24
Speaker 1: weighs the same as a duck. So Carrie is thrown
30:29
Speaker 1: into the icy waters and says fuck this for game
30:32
Speaker 1: of Soldiers, and manages to thrash and kick and keep
30:37
Speaker 1: herself from sinking beneath the waves just long enough to
30:42
Speaker 1: be convicted of witchcraft. But she's not done in Norway.
30:48
Speaker 1: It's after the conviction that the torture begins. So Carrie
30:53
Speaker 1: is put on the rack and she's tortured until she confessed.
30:59
Speaker 1: She confessed to meeting a spirit as a girl. A
31:03
Speaker 1: headless ghost had given her keys that if she accepted,
31:07
Speaker 1: would make her a witch. She's a fin right. She
31:12
Speaker 1: lives in a lavo tent, which is like not too
31:15
Speaker 1: dissimilar to like a Lakota tepee, but it's domed in
31:19
Speaker 1: flatter and the fuck does she need keys for? Instead,
31:25
Speaker 1: she accepts a decorated ribbon, and now she's a witch.
31:31
Speaker 1: Her accusers tortured her into changing her story so that
31:35
Speaker 1: the ghost or the spirit was now the devil, and
31:40
Speaker 1: this this is fucking horrible. She confesses that the devil
31:47
Speaker 1: had tortured her to insanity, stretching her limbs and assaulting
31:51
Speaker 1: her till she bled until she did his bidding. But
31:58
Speaker 1: it wasn't the devil's her limbs on the rack, but
32:02
Speaker 1: her Christian accusers saw for Nielsen on behalf of John
32:08
Speaker 1: Cunningham and King Christian. At the end of this torture,
32:14
Speaker 1: after obtaining the answers they wanted, the innocent Sammy Herder
32:19
Speaker 1: was burned to death as a witch. In Norway, witches
32:25
Speaker 1: were burned alive. In France, Germany, Switzerland and Scotland, witches
32:31
Speaker 1: were typically strangled then burned, but no in Norway burned alive.
32:40
Speaker 1: But before she was executed, Carrie named two more witches,
32:46
Speaker 1: lizbed Nile's data and Maldon Nielsen and from languefiod Lisbeth
32:53
Speaker 1: was tried on the twenty eighth of April sixteen twenty one,
32:57
Speaker 1: and she quote knew which and had no second thoughts
33:03
Speaker 1: about killing a man or two. She was also tested
33:07
Speaker 1: by swimming when she was tortured. Lizbeth claimed that Carrie
33:12
Speaker 1: taught her the magic of stealing milk from animals and
33:15
Speaker 1: that the devil appeared as a goat. Now in this region,
33:21
Speaker 1: goats weren't common, right, that was something brought from down south.
33:27
Speaker 1: So this is where part of that ideology, the iconography
33:32
Speaker 1: of the goat devil, where that connection is just really
33:38
Speaker 1: reaffirmed because they've just brought up here. She even confesses
33:43
Speaker 1: to being an accomplice in the magical drownings of Abraham
33:47
Speaker 1: and Henrik. She even goes on to say that a
33:51
Speaker 1: coven had met to drink and dance into the long
33:53
Speaker 1: night at the Arctic Circle July. And so she confesses
33:58
Speaker 1: to all this, and then Lisbeth was burned alive like
34:02
Speaker 1: her stepsister Carrie. So remember the tragic fishing accident of
34:09
Speaker 1: the coast of East Finnmark Park in sixteen seventeen, Well
34:15
Speaker 1: a thought comes to pass, What if it hadn't been
34:18
Speaker 1: an accident after all? What if it was an act
34:22
Speaker 1: of malevolent witchcraft? Was witchcraft the cause of the terrible
34:33
Speaker 1: fishing tragedy in sixteen seventeen? Well, suspicion fell upon eleven
34:40
Speaker 1: women married Dragon's data, Kirsten Soren's data, gury Old's data
34:48
Speaker 1: from lil Ikeoy, Gury's old data from stove ikeoroy Raglihilda
34:57
Speaker 1: Olive's daughter Siri and Ilsa nodes data, Anne Lad's data,
35:04
Speaker 1: Married Old's data, carry Olive Stata, and Mitza Furgus data.
35:13
Speaker 1: I'm gonna apologize now for all of the names that
35:16
Speaker 1: I struggled to say. I'm very sorry. Married Drogo's data
35:22
Speaker 1: was interrogated and tortured, after which she proclaimed that the
35:26
Speaker 1: devil had led her into witchcraft, which also conveniently led
35:30
Speaker 1: to her neighbor Kirsty saw in Statu's house. Kirsty was
35:35
Speaker 1: allegedly a coven leader, originally from Helsinga in Denmark, and
35:41
Speaker 1: had worked as a servant in Norway in the town
35:44
Speaker 1: of Bergen. Shortly after marrying Andals Johansson, the couple moved
35:50
Speaker 1: to Finnmark in fifteen ninety seven. He was a merchant
35:54
Speaker 1: and had ambition, so they moved up there with thoughts
35:58
Speaker 1: of just where can till staff trading and so on.
36:03
Speaker 1: In sixteen twenty one, Andals is doing well for himself
36:08
Speaker 1: and the couple are steady. Krusty's fifty seven at this
36:12
Speaker 1: point and had previously been suspected of witchcraft, like she
36:18
Speaker 1: was accused of killing four cows, a charge that would
36:22
Speaker 1: only really come up four years later. Back to marry
36:26
Speaker 1: for a secon, though the devil bites her and turns
36:30
Speaker 1: her into a raven, and she flies to a coven
36:34
Speaker 1: meeting outside of Bergen, and all of the coven had
36:39
Speaker 1: traveled as animals ravens, foxes, cats, dogs, a duck, billed plarabus,
36:45
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. They had a sabbath and
36:50
Speaker 1: then flew back to Finnmark, all except Kirsty, who sailed
36:56
Speaker 1: for reasons. I don't know what that reason was, but
36:58
Speaker 1: apparently she did. Mary admits to this event and also
37:05
Speaker 1: magically causing the violent storm on Christmas Eve sixteen seventeen.
37:10
Speaker 1: Not only did she confess to that, but also that
37:15
Speaker 1: the women shagged other men when their husbands were out
37:19
Speaker 1: at sea. I mean, I get in for a penny,
37:21
Speaker 1: in for a pound, but like you can just stop now,
37:26
Speaker 1: you can stop. More accusations are made, and those accused
37:33
Speaker 1: are held in a dungeon in the Vado's fortress right
37:38
Speaker 1: called and I shit you not the witch's whole. Elsie
37:44
Speaker 1: Nodes Starter was accused of being seen with demons in
37:48
Speaker 1: the shapes of dogs and cats. A woman was seen
37:55
Speaker 1: with demons in the shapes of dogs and cats. Has
38:01
Speaker 1: anyone considered that maybe she was just neil dogs and cats.
38:06
Speaker 1: Maybe she liked animal Maybe she always carried bacon in
38:10
Speaker 1: her pocket. Whom's to say? She claims innocence until of
38:16
Speaker 1: course she's tortured. So at this point, at this point,
38:22
Speaker 1: so far, twelve women had been burned to death for
38:28
Speaker 1: causing the storm of sixteen seventeen. Carrie and Lizabeth, by
38:32
Speaker 1: the way, were accused retroactively, right, they were like, oh,
38:37
Speaker 1: that was also them, they were involved in this. Then
38:41
Speaker 1: we have number thirteen, Custe sourans Data, who was again
38:48
Speaker 1: allegedly'es a coven leader. She had been reported for arguing
38:54
Speaker 1: with anders Blom. Like one of the fishermen who died
38:57
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve four years earlier. Kirsty, according to her neighbors,
39:04
Speaker 1: had been assaulted by anders Blom, and so she enlisted
39:09
Speaker 1: the help of her coven to exact revenge upon him.
39:14
Speaker 1: This trial, unlike the trails of Carrie and Lisbeth, had
39:18
Speaker 1: the unfortunate point of having Hands Conning or John Cunningham present.
39:26
Speaker 1: Her trail, occurred at the Vardigo's fortress on the twenty
39:30
Speaker 1: sixth and the twenty eighth of April sixteen twenty one.
39:36
Speaker 1: New that had to be terrifying. The governor seated with
39:40
Speaker 1: the jury and the bailiff, and he took charge like
39:44
Speaker 1: they were all deferring to him. And at first Custy
39:48
Speaker 1: denied everything in that she was a victim of slander.
39:55
Speaker 1: Then the court threatened to swum her at sea. But
40:00
Speaker 1: it's April, and this woman knows the sea is absolutely Baltic, right,
40:07
Speaker 1: and so she confesses because she knows that she's dead
40:11
Speaker 1: if she's in that water, one way or the other.
40:16
Speaker 1: And she tells the illustrious hands Conning what he wants
40:21
Speaker 1: to hear. She tells him that she was HEARDing geese,
40:27
Speaker 1: but of course it's geese. It's geese that are the
40:30
Speaker 1: true agents of the devil Dun Dundunn. So she's HEARDing
40:36
Speaker 1: geese and that's when the devil appeared to her as
40:39
Speaker 1: a dog and told her to serve him. She's like
40:44
Speaker 1: sixteen years old and asks her employer. She's like a
40:48
Speaker 1: maid for an old lady, and she's like, what do
40:51
Speaker 1: I do? And this old lady's like, take the deal.
40:55
Speaker 1: While I'm assuming making an old timey world's original. Well,
41:00
Speaker 1: let's just pause for a moment and remember that John
41:06
Speaker 1: Cunningham grew up in the Quail of Fife. He was
41:11
Speaker 1: fifteen when the North Berwick witch Trails happened. And what
41:16
Speaker 1: a crazy random happenstance that Kirsty is admitting to a
41:21
Speaker 1: demon dog, just like Agnes Samson did. Kirsty claimed not
41:28
Speaker 1: to have used her magic for a whole decade, but
41:33
Speaker 1: John wanted blood under his hand. She confessed to using
41:39
Speaker 1: witchcraft on her neighbors in fin Mark. She admitted to
41:43
Speaker 1: the Sabbath to flying through the air and murder on
41:49
Speaker 1: the twenty seventh of April, right, so the trail's twenty sixth.
41:54
Speaker 1: She then is tortured on the twenty seventh, so she's
41:58
Speaker 1: on the rack. She's tortured, and on the twenty eighth,
42:06
Speaker 1: the broken fifty seven year old woman was back in
42:10
Speaker 1: court confessing to more witchy crimes. She admits to conspiring
42:17
Speaker 1: with witches and causing the deadly storm four years prior. Kirsty,
42:24
Speaker 1: like Lizbeth and Carrie, is found guilty. John ensures that
42:31
Speaker 1: she gets her punishment and Kirstie's Sorenstatter is burned alive
42:40
Speaker 1: and Kirsty was the last person to be executed in
42:43
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty one. But John Cunningham he would continue to accuse, prosecute,
42:50
Speaker 1: and burn a few witches a year to keep him
42:54
Speaker 1: in Christian the Fourth's good graces. Now, in a move
42:59
Speaker 1: that surprises absolutely no one, the saw many people started
43:04
Speaker 1: moving away from settlers, migrating north or even westward towards
43:08
Speaker 1: the New World. The colonial aspect of witchcraft would always
43:14
Speaker 1: be a threat, hanging over people who just wanted to
43:17
Speaker 1: live their lives, a minority persecuted by colonial powers. The
43:25
Speaker 1: majority of women accused were settlers, but the impact and
43:30
Speaker 1: the accusations they were rooted in bigotry and racism. And
43:36
Speaker 1: John he continued this warm witches and continued serving as
43:40
Speaker 1: governor up until his death in sixteen fifty one. Like
43:47
Speaker 1: so like at one point, actually, and I forgot to mention,
43:50
Speaker 1: this is that John Cunningham breaks his foot, right, he
43:57
Speaker 1: just breaks his foot, and he accuses witches of causing it, Like,
44:02
Speaker 1: not him, not him being a clumsy motherfucker. No, clearly witches. Right,
44:08
Speaker 1: And the women accused they say they did it because
44:12
Speaker 1: he was being an asshole. Like it's not verbatim, but
44:16
Speaker 1: that's my paraphrasing it for you. They're like, fuck this
44:19
Speaker 1: for a game of soldiers and they break his foot, right,
44:22
Speaker 1: that's that's what the other like, We did it because
44:26
Speaker 1: you're just an awful ofphan, scum of a human right.
44:32
Speaker 1: As governor of finn Mark, John Cunningham accused fifty two
44:37
Speaker 1: people of being witches, and forty one of those accused
44:41
Speaker 1: were executed. I'm no mathematician, but those are not good odds.
44:50
Speaker 1: Witch hunting and finn Mark didn't even end with his
44:53
Speaker 1: death though. The next two governors, Danish Jorgon Fries and
44:58
Speaker 1: Norwegian Christopher Orning, we're also really into finding witches and
45:05
Speaker 1: burning them alive. Over the course of the witch trials
45:09
Speaker 1: in Norway, finn Mark had one hundred and thirty five
45:14
Speaker 1: witch trials over ninety two years, and one hundred and
45:18
Speaker 1: eleven women were killed. Four point five percent of the
45:23
Speaker 1: population were accused of being witches. Finn Mark had sixteen
45:31
Speaker 1: percent of all Norwegian witchcraft trials and thirty one percent
45:37
Speaker 1: of the death sentences. Now you can bring isolation into this.
45:44
Speaker 1: You can blame religious fever. You can also blame deep
45:48
Speaker 1: wooded fucking misogyny. Right, and this is used to destroy,
45:56
Speaker 1: to overtake, to crush it like a good little Protestant
46:02
Speaker 1: region right paying its saccess, doing what it wanted, following
46:07
Speaker 1: society's rules and the colonial rule, and anyone who didn't
46:14
Speaker 1: fit in that was gone one way or the other,
46:19
Speaker 1: whether they migrated away because the land that was theirs
46:23
Speaker 1: was just taken, or they were just murdered. So I
46:27
Speaker 1: mean banishing happened to but mainly murdered. And so ends
46:35
Speaker 1: our story of the Vardo Wedge Trials. This may be
46:41
Speaker 1: the shortest episode I actually recorded on Witchcraft Trials, I
46:45
Speaker 1: think thus far. Like I was getting so angry writing
46:49
Speaker 1: this because I write it all my hand, is that
46:51
Speaker 1: I didn't realize how many words I'd skipped in pure age.
46:55
Speaker 1: So I'm just like, oh, there's supposed to be the here,
46:58
Speaker 1: there's no A, there's no whatever, and so some of
47:01
Speaker 1: this senence is I said, they might not make feel sense.
47:07
Speaker 1: Oh I know what I meant to say, and it
47:09
Speaker 1: came out right in my head, but I'm not sure
47:11
Speaker 1: if those words left my mouth correctly. If you want
47:14
Speaker 1: to hear me say things correctly and incorrectly, come to
47:18
Speaker 1: see me in London now. More dates for other places
47:22
Speaker 1: are going to be coming out soon, but London is soon.
47:26
Speaker 1: It's the closest one. It's November eighth, and it is
47:29
Speaker 1: my birthday next month. So if anyone wants to get
47:34
Speaker 1: me those American Dutchess Burgundy boots, they'd just been released,
47:38
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say no. No. That being said, I like coursets,
47:43
Speaker 1: although I'm trying to find some like fancier ones than
47:48
Speaker 1: the ones I normally get because my shape we're currently
47:50
Speaker 1: is like from what Kerry did. So recommendations please for
47:54
Speaker 1: those for like you know, sixy cool like I want
47:59
Speaker 1: them still to be course, it's like I will take
48:01
Speaker 1: burlesque of course. It's I don't mind forking out for them.
48:05
Speaker 1: That being said, ip anyone wants to treat me, I
48:07
Speaker 1: wouldn't say. Now, I use my witchcraft on you did little.
48:14
Speaker 1: So yeah, that is that, And I think it's recommendation time.
48:19
Speaker 1: Ooh for watching, like you know what, for watching? I
48:27
Speaker 1: think everyone should watch Bed Knobs and Broomsticks. I saw
48:31
Speaker 1: I actually went to see, Oh my goodness, actually went
48:35
Speaker 1: to go see Live a Solvolong Murder. She wrote, it
48:38
Speaker 1: was a really good time. I had a great time.
48:41
Speaker 1: But yeah, watch bed Knobs and Broomsticks Because Angela Lansbury
48:45
Speaker 1: plays a witch and the whole reason she's doing stuff
48:48
Speaker 1: is she's going to fight Nazis, and I think that's
48:51
Speaker 1: just a good role model for anyone. For listening, you
48:58
Speaker 1: know what I listened to this week actually tickled to death.
49:02
Speaker 1: It's like a horror movie questiono Thing podcast. It's very
49:08
Speaker 1: fun and a little unhinged and I'm absolutely here for it,
49:13
Speaker 1: So like, go listen to that. And for reading, you
49:18
Speaker 1: know what, I have a beautiful, beautiful book by Willow Winschem.
49:22
Speaker 1: It's called the Story of Witches, Folklore, History and Superstision.
49:27
Speaker 1: Go read that, okay, And with that I shall bed
49:32
Speaker 1: you good evening. Adios au revoir of Waiters. There my friends,
49:37
Speaker 1: Bye bye,