00:00:00.200Hi, I'm Clare Mitchell, QC. Welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.
00:00:05.220I'm a lawyer who specialises in miscarriage of justice cases,
00:00:08.740and we're bringing you this podcast because we want to tell you about the women who were accused,
00:00:13.800prosecuted, convicted, and ultimately executed as witches in Scotland.
00:00:18.780I'm Zoe Vendetotsi, and I'm a writer who's always had an interest in the witches,
00:00:23.040and I feel that this dark mark against Scotland needs a reckoning.
00:00:26.500The campaign Witches of Scotland wants three things.
00:00:29.600Firstly, a pardon for all those convicted of witchcraft.
00:00:33.240Secondly, an apology for all those who were accused as witches.
00:00:37.420And finally, a national monument in recognition of all those who were affected by this terrible miscarriage of justice.
00:00:44.420Over the forthcoming weeks, we'll be talking to a whole host of experts about the history and the modern day connections to the witches of Scotland.
00:00:53.880Hello and welcome to the Witches of Scotland podcast.
00:00:56.620this week we're on to episode 34 i know i say this every week but it's really quite remarkable
00:01:02.500that we've recorded this many it's a lot it is and we've also got about 15 other people at the
00:01:09.620moment who were trying to get round to getting all the ducks in the row so we can get everyone
00:01:16.400interviewed at times that suit everyone great i know that we obviously we're doing this primarily
00:01:21.340for the campaign but i do think this is such an amazing resource for anybody that's interested
00:01:25.960in the witches of scotland you know because we have literally put together an amazing resource
00:01:32.360of not us being the amazing resource i mean like i mean that we've got together amazing resources
00:01:37.500in the form of other people that are actually experts to talk to us so it's an enormous like
00:01:43.200array of info on everything so i would if you've got if you know somebody's into the witches or
00:01:49.200is just getting into it and wants more information then please point them in the direction because
00:01:53.720that's a really big thing for particularly for me I think it's really important that people
00:01:57.240have got access to knowledge so I think that's a really important thing so please do tell people
00:02:03.360about it not just for the campaign but just so that they can find out facts from people that
00:02:08.300really know what they're talking about and that's not that face hands act wash your hands that's a
00:02:14.700different type of fact no I mean like true facts but also face and knees and toes and all that jazz
00:02:23.040shoulders knees and toes as well but ultimately i don't really care that much because people won't
00:02:27.280touch us because it's a podcast player that's true that's true it's a safe form of entertainment
00:02:32.440during a pandemic please don't touch us even if it wasn't a pandemic and we were doing a
00:02:37.920face-to-face thing i don't wouldn't want people to touch me i just want to be really very very
00:02:42.740clear about my boundaries okay for the avoidance of doubt for listeners just imagine that i'm like
00:02:50.340the ready break man it's like a force field you have to be a particular age to get that reference
00:02:56.280claire you may be too young but that's something i want everybody to be thoughtful of sadly i get
00:03:02.220it all too well do you not remember he starts off because he has his breakfast he starts off with
00:03:07.640that glow and like the charge and the phone in your battery it slowly would go back down again
00:03:12.560during the day that's me except instead of it being like a dried out and then reconstituted
00:03:18.940breakfast good mine's more charged by rage and then over over the day it goes down a bit but
00:03:27.160then it gets back up again it's not healthy it's what propels you from bed in the morning and keeps
00:03:31.960you going all day yeah the rage is spent and then yeah overnight you build it up again that's
00:03:37.760yeah i'm not actually that angry i give people the impression that i'm absolutely furious all
00:03:42.540the time i'm not really i'm not you know honestly i'm nice i can be nice anyway right sorry back to
00:03:51.620business so welcome to this the 34th episode of the witches of scotland this week we're going to
00:04:01.440be traveling outside of scotland but more of that in a little bit but first of all we're going to
00:04:06.220talk about some women that were accused so we can you know humanize these people again and we're
00:04:13.360going to be going to Denmark this week and we're going to be thinking about the fact that the first
00:04:19.520witchcraft executions in Denmark were of Karen Grotis and Bodil Lauretson in 1540. In 1543 there
00:04:28.840was a large witch trial in Malmo which was centered around Gide Spandemager and that was a huge thing
00:04:35.340that attracted a lot of attention across Denmark I would just like to say a little caveat here which
00:04:40.640is that I'm probably pronouncing these names incorrectly and I would like to apologize to
00:04:45.180any people that are Danish or speak Danish for any mangling that's entirely down to me not
00:04:50.200not knowing how to speak Danish just like all the programs I've watched. I adopt that apology as well
00:04:56.420in whatever I'm about to say. Okay good so the first person we're going to look at really is
00:05:01.360guida spandermaker so in 1543 the king who was christian the third of denmark equipped a war
00:05:07.920fleet to hunt an imperial dutch fleet away from the coast of norway to the netherlands
00:05:13.060outside helsingor the fleet was stuck in a cam and the whole project failed so it was about 40
00:05:18.540ships there so they all came to a stop and the failure was blamed on spandermaker who was said
00:05:24.400to have gathered a group of witches in a valley outside the city and enchanted the ships i mean
00:05:29.700again this is quite a strange thing how did they come up with the idea that it was her fault if
00:05:33.200they were stuck with these ships off the coast there apparently she was the wife of a merchant
00:05:38.300ah right it was beef yeah so you're wondering whether or not there's a background there
00:05:44.300of some sort of beef there there must have been some sort of connection because yeah it was said
00:05:50.280that she had enchanted the ships of his majesty so as to prevent it from getting any wind so this0.95
00:05:58.420poor woman going about her business wife of a merchant one day is told we believe you're a witch1.00
00:06:05.240because our maritime exploits didn't go so well. And she was tried by the royal governor Eskabild0.99
00:06:13.700and unsurprisingly while she was tortured she confessed her guilt and she pointed out several
00:06:20.860people men and women including vicars which led to the expansion of the witch trial as her words
00:06:26.120were taken very seriously as they were in every every case that we've read about that as soon as
00:06:30.520the accused named somebody else it seems like that just seemed to be it it didn't really matter if
00:06:35.520there was evidence obviously they just went okay well they're part of it then so she named these
00:06:40.700people and it broadened the trial and then she said that the enchantments would never disappear
00:06:47.540unless she was allowed to remove them personally so meaning that she'd I suppose that means that
00:06:53.260she could cast a spell and that the only way to undo the spell was that she had to go to the place
00:06:57.740and do it herself i wondered whether or not that was an idea for kind of keeping her alive like if
00:07:04.240people wanted to undo whatever bad they'd said she had done they couldn't kill her you know it
00:07:10.260might have been a way of trying to save herself remember when we talked about the witches and
00:07:15.520remember the woman who kept herself alive in order to look after her daughter by giving them
00:07:21.860geese meal information do you remember i wondered whether or not it was a bit like that by saying
00:07:27.020if you kill me now the enchantments will stay i just wonder quite sensible yeah that would make
00:07:32.860sense and so the people that she had accused were arrested and tortured and there's a really
00:07:38.080unpleasant quote here that says they were tortured so hard their limbs were separated
00:07:42.480but despite that actually nobody other than guida confessed there was a merchant's wife from
00:07:47.920helsinger who was released after she was given an alibi by the citizens of the city saying that
00:07:52.820she was somewhere else at the time when she was supposed to be with the witches performing the
00:07:56.120enchantment so they obviously the danish obviously didn't have that american spectral thing to get
00:08:01.860around the actual you know alibis yeah uh to get around the fact you couldn't be in two places at
00:08:07.400once in salem they just said oh that's more proof of the fact that they're in cahoots with the devil
00:08:12.540because not only are they a place where they've got all the witnesses but they're also committing
00:08:17.080these acts of witchcraft not a shame and then in november 1543 the king demanded for the rightful
00:08:25.440old principle of the witches to be burned and it says here that she seems to have been interrogated
00:08:30.600for a while after this until she was executed which is very sad what a shame yeah it's really0.74
00:08:37.820grim so the next person then claire is the next person that we're going to remember is a woman
00:08:43.540called Anna Holdings she was famously in Denmark one of the main suspect in the Copenhagen witch0.72
00:08:50.840trials which are parallel to our North Berwick witch trials. Just to put that into context it
00:08:57.960was 1543 that Gide was well over 43 to 45 that Gide's trial was so this is a good chunk of time
00:09:06.300later so it wasn't within the same sort of you know a high panic it's like what 47 yeah by mental
00:09:13.780maths years later which is quite amazing that's right the first person that we've spoken about
00:09:18.760she was about in the time of mary queen of scots when the act was brought into force
00:09:24.360and when anna coldings was being dealt with by the danish the link there is that it was her
00:09:30.320mary queen of scots son who was involved in this whole issue that brought about the north
00:09:36.080Berwick Witch Trials and also the Copenhagen Witch Trials and the reason for that was in 1589
00:09:42.660Princess Anne of Denmark left Copenhagen to marry King James of Scotland. Now I'm not going to go
00:09:49.340into this in much more detail because we hear about that in more detail with our expert but
00:09:54.660briefly what happened was there was a storm, the ship almost sank and in fact it got turned back
00:10:01.420from Scotland and had to stay in Norway. James VI joined her there and their wedding took place
00:10:08.920there. What has this got to do, you imagine, with anybody in Denmark and why has this got anything
00:10:15.240to do with witchcraft? Well, in the summer of 1590, a great witch hunt was instituted in Copenhagen.
00:10:23.420The Danish Minister of Finance was accused by Admiral Pedder Monk of having equipped the royal
00:10:29.120ship so insufficiently that it had been unable to withstand the weather. He, the Minister of Finance,
00:10:37.360defended himself saying that it wasn't anything to do with him not having paid up enough money
00:10:43.440so the ship had enough resources but in fact that the storm had rather conveniently been caused by
00:10:50.720witches and he attributed these witches as being the witches of Karen the Weaver and he had said
00:10:58.560she had sent little demons in empty barrels who had climbed up the keels of the ship and had caused
00:11:05.440the storm that sounds so bonkers come on now is it possible that a man has failed to properly pay
00:11:14.780for a ship or is it more likely that small demons were sent in empty barrels to climb up the keels
00:11:21.680of the ship and cause a storm so you tell me which is more likely well i tell you what i find quite
00:11:26.980interesting about this this is going to sound like it's comical but I'm actually making a serious
00:11:30.700point here it's a man who's failed to do something and he diverts attention away from himself by
00:11:38.400blaming a Karen now look at modern politics look at the decoys of Karens that are used
00:11:45.540to divert attention away from lackluster should we use that word instead of the real word that
00:11:51.380like to use politicians and other men of power it's interesting well it's strange that the name
00:11:57.260of karen has has persisted through the centuries how did she get the empty barrels on the ship
00:12:02.740like what if she's the weaver like what i don't understand where that's going from i mean like
00:12:07.380even if karen had been you know a merchant of i don't know grog or something i don't i don't know
00:12:13.500if that's what they would call it in denmark but something more ship related like how would she
00:12:17.120get empty barrels on oh zoe you're such a practical person i know i know i just it's just silly what i
00:12:25.200like about it is you're worrying about how they get the empty barrels in the ship but i'm more
00:12:28.940thinking how did they get the demons inside the empty barrels oh that i'm not so worried about i
00:12:33.680mean like you know demons are actually quite biddable probably once you've bewitched them
00:12:37.360if you've got that level of power i'm sure it's fine i think we're focusing on different areas
00:12:41.360here. But the background to all of this was a confession given by a woman of the name of Anna
00:12:47.440Coldings. In May 1590, Anna Coldings was imprisoned in Copenhagen and she had already been judged
00:12:55.600guilty of witchcraft in a case completely unrelated to this case. So she was found guilty of witchcraft0.98
00:13:03.120under completely different circumstances and was just sitting waiting her execution.
00:13:07.680there was a lot of folklore that had grown up around Anna Coldings and she was considered to0.97
00:13:15.120be a very dangerous witch there was reference to her given as in wikipedia quote-unquote mother
00:13:23.180of the devil apparently she was given celebrity status while she was in custody and people were
00:13:29.800allowed to visit her to see this woman that was a witch so the finance minister who was being0.58
00:13:37.740blamed for the fiasco that had occurred in relation to the royal fleet in this naval embarrassment0.98
00:13:43.460asked the mayor of copenhagen to question foldings to see if she had been involved in the bewitching
00:13:50.500of the fleet now i don't imagine it went like this i wonder if you can tell us if you were involved
00:13:57.200in the bewitching of a fleet and she just said yeah you're right here's what i did with my little
00:14:02.780demons in a barrel but anyway she was tortured it was during torture that coldings came up with0.92
00:14:09.360karen's name supposedly yes uh-huh right it was colding who described a group of women had gathered
00:14:15.480together in the house of karen that's karen the weaver where they had caused the storm and they
00:14:22.120had sent small devils up the keel of the ship. So that is where that has come from. Coldings was
00:14:28.520executed by burning in July 1590. And I understand in Denmark, we'll hear more about this again,
00:14:36.200that that was the method of killing. It was burning rather than strangulation and burning.
00:14:41.700She, when making her confession, had said that other people were involved. Her accomplices were
00:14:47.440arrested. She named, in fact, five other women, among them the wife of the mayor of Helsinger.
00:14:55.600Sorry, we don't know her name, but another woman's name was Margareth Jacob Scribers.
00:15:01.900The women were all arrested and charged. Scribers' husband tried to defend her and get her out of
00:15:09.720the charges, and unfortunately for him, he himself was arrested and charged with witchcraft for trying
00:15:16.700to help her. Karen, Karen the Weaver was also arrested and she once again under torture most
00:15:23.800likely confessed to having been one of them who together with Holdings attended and caused the
00:15:29.860storms. In total 12 women aside from Holdings were executed for their involvement in the witch trials0.94
00:15:38.120and as we know about and have heard about before that wasn't an end to the matter because James
00:15:45.800the sixth and first, then took it upon himself to investigate whether or not there were any
00:15:53.180witches on his side of the water. And that's where the North Berwick Witch Trials came about.
00:15:59.120So we've got one more person to tell you about their story.
00:16:03.580And this time we are skipping forward in time for this one. So that case that you've just
00:16:08.860been talking about there was in 1590 or thereabouts. And then going forward, now I think
00:16:14.880that this was maybe the last witch trials we're talking about here and this was forward in time
00:16:20.600again quite a jump in time to 1637 so i mean you know you couldn't even have the excuse of well
00:16:25.960they were all clustered together and it was just like one crazy moment you know it's a really big
00:16:29.960amount of time later and here we're talking about marin splood right and i think i'm saying that
00:16:35.100correctly and again i'm really sorry if i've got it wrong so the first trial was for marin thomas
00:16:41.380Stater Splood, who originated from Grimstrup, which is a village in Esbjerg. She was the wife
00:16:46.680of a wealthy and successful tailor in the Tower of Reeb in Jutland. Is it Jutland or Jutland?
00:16:52.080Jutland. Jutland. And she ran in in one of her husband's houses. Now it says here that she was
00:16:58.640an independent woman with a sharp tongue. I don't know anybody like that. Diedrich the tailor was an
00:17:04.620unsuccessful professional competitor to her husband and he accused her of sorcery in 1637
00:17:10.780now i think that's quite interesting i just want to pause there for a second again because we've
00:17:14.580talked about this phenomenon of women being executed for being independent having sharp
00:17:19.460tongues but then looking at maybe the broader reasons i don't want to say real reason but
00:17:24.140maybe the more sort of accurate driver is often about money or about power and so here you know
00:17:29.960the fact that it's a competitor of the husband that's making the accusation i think that really
00:17:34.160speaks volumes. So he accused her of sorcery in 1637 and he claimed that one night he'd been
00:17:39.780awoken by three witches. Two were unknown to him but the third was Marin. They'd held him down and
00:17:45.920Marin blew into his mouth. The day after that he was sick and vomited up an object that he thought
00:17:51.060was moving. The object was brought forward and observed by priests and the bishop who declared
00:17:55.580it to be unnatural but her husband stood by her side and managed to have her acquitted of the
00:18:00.100charges so that was her first trial but then there was a second trial when Diedrich gathered
00:18:05.000witnesses to support his cause and he went straight to the king who now is Christian IV of Denmark
00:18:10.620in 1639. The king declared that the case should be opened again so this is two years later
00:18:16.320right so the king declared that the case should be opened again and that Marin should bring 15
00:18:20.640character witnesses to swear her free from the charges. I thought that was really interesting
00:18:24.940because in scotland you have 15 of a jury it's just it's just interesting 15 of a number but
00:18:31.660you'll remember when we looked at the shetland witches we had the six oaths which was if six
00:18:38.960people got together and spoke to someone's good name then that would avoid them being convicted
00:18:45.740as a witch now that didn't find its way into scots law i think that must be related to norse law
00:18:53.380but right interesting if shetland you were accused of being a witch you could bring six people to
00:18:59.760speak to your good character but in denmark you needed to bring 15 people and i just wondered
00:19:05.640about that number of people simply because in a scottish jury unlike many others across the world
00:19:13.140the amount of people is 15 i just thought that was interesting yeah i wonder what the thinking
00:19:18.740for that was i mean obviously in scotland we have majority verdicts and a jury of 15
00:19:25.480makes it easier to have yeah a majority split obviously um what number but i just thought it
00:19:33.360was interesting that it would be 15 character witnesses i wondered if there was any relevance
00:19:38.620to that anyway she managed to get 15 people together though so she was therefore judged
00:19:43.400guilty of the charges in 1640 but she was freed by the higher court which is interesting again
00:19:50.180the matter was now brought before the highest court where the king was a judge like this guy's
00:19:55.460really determined to get her done for this look at what happens the king refers the case to a
00:20:00.240secular court so the merchant goes to the king and says i really want her done king says okay
00:20:05.980i'll take up the case and refer it to the secular court the secular court deals with it and on
00:20:11.920appeal she's acquitted or she's let go but then it's appealed to the next court of which the king
00:20:18.980who has been the person who's instigated matters is the head so it's perhaps unsurprising that
00:20:25.480given he was the one of the drivers who instigated matters that her outcome at that point was you
00:20:32.240know yeah well he then had her brought to Copenhagen and tortured her despite the fact
00:20:39.680that the law forbade torture prisoners before they were judged. So the king just broke the rules and
00:20:44.880just said, well, we're just going to torture anyway. And the torture, again, unsurprisingly,
00:20:50.180made her admit guilt, and she then accused a number of other people as witches. And the
00:20:54.760judgment was, because Maren splood personally and here before the court, as well as in earlier
00:21:00.140confessions, said that she had used sorcery and thereby misused the holy sacrament of communion,
00:21:05.580we found her as a sorceress and on her life suffer fire and stake so in Denmark she was it was often
00:21:12.740the case that witches were burned at the stake so the day after the verdict Marin was executed
00:21:17.900outside of Reba so many people had come to see it that the priest could hardly get to her she was
00:21:23.520given a half bottle of alcohol to steady herself and a bag of gunpowder on her back to make the
00:21:29.360death quicker oh that's so sad then she was tied to a ladder and the ladder was thrown into the fire
00:21:34.960god it's so inhumane it's just oh i don't understand like how people could think they
00:21:41.020were doing god's work and then do such a horrific ungodly method it's just and think what that was
00:21:47.960that was a woman who was no more than someone who was married to a business rival yeah yeah just
00:21:57.680crazy totally crazy and that's how it ended but i think is it correct to say that she was the last
00:22:04.620person to be executed as a witch in Denmark. Yes I think so and I think we might hear more about that
00:22:10.820now. We are absolutely delighted today to have a guest with us all the way from Copenhagen
00:22:24.720so we're going to be talking about the Denmark witch association with Scotland and maybe
00:22:31.280disabusing a few myths that we held ourselves. So I would like to introduce to the podcast,
00:22:37.780Associate Professor of Early Modern History, Louise Newholm-Kellistrop, who is going to
00:22:43.920be our fantastic guest for today. So welcome, Louise, to our podcast. Thank you for having me.
00:22:49.320Oh, thank you so much for coming to speak to us, Louise. Our association with one another started,
00:22:54.560didn't it when I saw a tweet by you about something perhaps about the North Berwick
00:23:00.800witch trials and I said something like wasn't it Denmark that taught our King James VI
00:23:07.920about witchcraft and you said no it was the other way around is that right? Yes I think that might0.62
00:23:15.460be a bit me provoking it a bit the other way around peace but I think that is a myth and I've
00:23:21.060come across it quite a lot of times now that our king taught your king to hunt witches our king
00:23:26.940was 11 12 13 years old at that time so i'm not sure he actually taught so many things but anyhow
00:23:33.140there was a lot of people around him and interested in this so so i think that james might have been
00:23:38.260inspired by people and then not but but i think our king was very much inspired by what happened
00:23:44.800in scotland with his brother-in-law afterwards inspired at least he was i think it was a formative
00:23:50.180time and period in his life our king's life yes just imagine a young boy of that age be a king
00:23:57.480he's still just a young boy and hearing stories about witchcraft etc it would have an effect on
00:24:04.000you I'm sure can you just tell us first of all what was the connection between Scotland and
00:24:11.480Denmark you've made reference to brothers-in-law can you explain the connection in Denmark at this
00:24:16.920time. We're talking about 1589, 1590. The king, Christian IV, was actually not yet crowned king.
00:24:24.340He was chosen to be elected to be a king, but he was underage. He was only born in 77. So he's,
00:24:30.660well, 12, 13 years old. So he was schooled to be a king. He was met with the obligations of being
00:24:36.740a king, but Denmark was ruled by a group of noblemen from the high nobility. But he was
00:24:42.440included in these events. And the connection between Scotland and Denmark is that the king
00:24:47.960had two older sisters, Elizabeth and Anne. Anne was the one to marry James VI. And that wedding
00:24:55.180was arranged, that marriage was arranged during the spring and summer of 1589. And they were
00:25:02.180married in August by proxy in Copenhagen. There was a Scottish diplomat in Copenhagen marrying
00:25:08.080them because James was in Scotland. So she was to travel to Scotland to meet with him officially
00:25:14.140and to sort of consummate the marriage, of course, and she was to be crowned Queen of Scotland.
00:25:19.120And they were to leave Denmark around the 1st of September 89, 1589. And before the ships sailed
00:25:26.760out from Copenhagen, they were met with accidents. There was a sailor that was killed by a cannon,
00:25:32.900And there were all sorts of accidents even before they were out of the Danish waters.
00:25:38.340And when they came into the North Sea, they were on several occasions met with this hard weather, tempests and storms,
00:25:45.200sort of throwing them back and not making it possible to reach the shores of Edinburgh.
00:25:50.480And can I check, this was Anne coming across to meet James, whom she'd already married.
00:25:55.940But was James still in Scotland at this time?
00:25:58.180Yes, they were married in Denmark, you would say by proxy.
00:26:00.900There was a sort of a diplomat there marrying her, but of course, she would not meet James
00:27:51.480And the story is that he insisted on them being married right away.
00:27:54.860So after the wedding in Norway, they went to Denmark and they stayed in Denmark from maybe early November.
00:28:02.060I haven't got the dates quite present, but in the autumn.
00:28:04.980And then they didn't leave Copenhagen until I think about 1st of May and April 1590.
00:28:12.760So they were there for quite some time.
00:28:14.640And that's where he met with Tuko Bar, you know, the astronomer.
00:28:18.400And he met with Niels Hemmings, the famous theologian.
00:28:21.860theologian. I think we can talk a bit about him later, because I think that's maybe where he got
00:28:26.760his ideas, or at least the Scottish myth about him getting the ideas from that conversation.
00:28:32.200And then afterwards, the witch trial started in Copenhagen.
00:28:36.220Okay, so we have it that Anne didn't make it across, that he managed to get across,
00:28:41.840got to Norway, married her, and then they're back in Denmark, and they spend something like
00:28:48.960maybe six months in Denmark at least four or five months yes six months yes and it's during this time
00:28:56.500somehow that we get the myth that our king came to learn or become obsessed with the idea of
00:29:04.720witchcraft over there and it might be you said as a result of interactions he had with theologians
00:29:12.200would that be right you had to at least acknowledge that he met with Nils Hemingson and Nils Hemingson
00:29:18.020was one of Europe's most prominent theologians. And he was respected internationally. He published
00:29:25.580internationally, and he also published in Danish. And he was sort of the teacher of Denmark,
00:29:30.560the master teacher of Denmark he was referred to. And Nils Hemingsen has written about witchcraft.
00:29:37.680But Nils Hemingsen, when you read the writings of Nils Hemingsen, he's not a witch hunter.
00:29:42.540He is very much aware that witchcraft is a cause, a crime, a sin, but it also is a very complicated offense and only the most skilled judges can deal with it.
00:29:57.820So Nils Hemmingsen is very cautious about witchcraft and very attentive not to sort of spread a panic.
00:30:05.560Nils Hemmingsen is also very much aware that the kind of witchcraft that's spreading in villages, you know, where fear is sort of spreading like an avalanche, more or less.0.98
00:30:16.560That was the sort of witchcraft of simple folk.0.98
00:30:19.280And that is why skilled and educated judges were always the ones to take care of witchcraft, because that could not be trusted with the simple folk.0.99
00:30:31.820The other part of it is that this is a time of the Reformation in Denmark still, where the king and church, of course, is still working to make people understand that they're now Protestants.
00:31:42.220You should actually succumb to Protestantism instead.
00:31:44.940So I think that's why a lot of people have misread some of the Danish theologians to thinking that they actually are warning about witchcraft when they're actually warning about Catholic rituals that people practice because they call them witchcraft.
00:32:01.560And of course, they have some way of thinking about this as witchcraft, but it's not witchcraft in the village type of form of witchcraft.
00:32:08.260So it was effectively a way of discrediting Catholicism to change people's perspectives on it.
00:32:14.940Yes, because I think the two most problematic things in real life in the Reformation of
00:32:20.240people were the saints, because where could you go when you cannot go to the saints anymore?
00:32:24.640If you were to pray to saints, that was named idolatry.
00:32:34.280And when you practice Catholic healing rituals and protection rituals, well, that's witchcraft.0.52
00:32:39.400But of course, it's not village witchcraft, but it's named in that way.
00:32:42.680Some people could understand this is actually illegal.
00:32:45.340And Hemmings and also his predecessors were very active in spreading this message
00:32:50.860to make people understand that they were to stop practising these castling rituals.
00:32:57.000And in Denmark, at the same time as we had the Witchcraft Act,
00:33:01.200which was 1563 when our Witchcraft Act came into force,
00:33:06.320at the same time in Denmark, was there also legislation that outlawed witchcraft?
00:33:12.020Not much. And there were not many trials for witchcraft. We have an old medieval law against witchcraft. Actually, it's from the 13th century. And it only refers to witchcraft as doing harm to people or cattle or livestock.
00:33:28.340And then we have, during the 16th century, a few procedural laws, some regulations on procedure, and they are all for the benefit of the accused person.
00:33:39.960For instance, you cannot use torture before or after a verdict has been pronounced.
00:33:44.160So you cannot torture a confession out of people and use it as evidence against a person.
00:33:49.760And also from 1576, you have to bring all trials for witchcraft in which there has been a guilty sentence.
00:34:00.140You have to bring it to the second level of court.
00:34:04.100So you have to try a trial at the appellate court as well.
00:34:08.920Does that mean that you had a trial and then once you had a decision in the trial, you appealed it to the appeal court?
00:34:14.760Or does it just mean that the appellate court did all the trials?
00:34:18.460So the trials were done at a very high level.
00:34:23.560And that would also mean that if you, because we have that system where if you are harmed by a witch, you bring her to court.
00:34:33.260You are the one or your husband will bring the witch to court.
00:34:37.700And then they would negotiate on whether this is a kind of accusatorial system where you would negotiate in court whether who has the best case.
00:34:47.400and if the witch is found guilty you would appeal the case but if she's acquitted at the second
00:34:54.160level then you will have to pay the costs of the trial so you have to be pretty certain that the
00:35:00.280verdict will actually also be be strong enough in the appealed case. Wow so there was an automatic
00:35:07.860appeal if someone was found guilty? Yes but you would as an accuser you would have to bring it
00:35:14.400actively to the next level in order to have the sentence executed or the punishment executed.
00:35:24.080So if you're a finding of being a witch in the lower court, you were the prosecutor and you got
00:35:29.180your finding, that didn't actually do anything unless and until you went to the appeal court
00:35:35.400and the appeal court affirmed it. Wow. I mean, that is...
00:35:40.580And about 50% of them were acquitted at the appeal court.
00:35:46.140When the case was upheld, did they then execute the witches?
00:38:27.400I think there are very many similarities to Scotland on that part.
00:38:31.380We have a number of sermons and sort of manuals for pastors and also all these pamphlets talking about how the devil is awakened and present in the human world.
00:38:44.520And he's here to tempt people before the final battle with God.
00:38:48.000So all this apocalyptic thinking about in a minute or two, the world will end and we have to make sure to do penitence before this and not to be tempted by the devil, because then we will not be saved in the afterlife.
00:39:02.320So it started off, just to get this clear in my mind, it started off in Denmark to dampen down people's interest in Catholicism.
00:39:09.400But then at the same time, people did have a real fear of the devil in this imminent apocalypse.
00:39:15.600so they started to kind of gather momentum with those two things coming together is that what
00:39:21.720happened yes but it's a bit complicated because what actually takes place in Denmark is that you
00:39:26.880have all these messages from the reformers about the the devil and the human world and you should
00:39:32.760not be tempted by him and they are very intense in the second half of the 16th century and we
00:39:39.100have those trials and we can get back to the trials connected to the bridal journey in the
00:39:44.420end of the 16th century. What we will usually refer to as the Danish witch hunt is not before
00:39:51.2201617 to 1623 or 1624. Throughout the 16th century, witch trials are on a low in Denmark.
00:40:01.400And actually what happens, and that is peculiar, and I'm researching on this right now,
00:40:07.420is that whereas it explodes in Scotland. And you could imagine that would happen in Denmark too,
00:40:14.000but there are 13 people executed in Denmark after this bridal journey.
00:40:20.060And then it's more or less toned down for two decades or so,
00:40:24.740three decades almost, barely any trials.
00:40:27.840And then it explodes and then it's connected to the Lutheran celebrations in 1617 instead
00:40:34.020and a whole new religious environment that you have, an atmosphere you have.
00:40:39.020And was anything else happening in Denmark at that time as well that might have led people to become so involved in accusations of witchcraft?
00:40:48.540I think you have to look very much into the religious atmosphere where we enter a period in Danish history, usually referred to as the Lutheran Orthodox period,
00:41:01.560where theologians are obsessed with eradicating Calvinists and obsessed with proving that they're
00:41:09.420actually Lutheran. They're not just Protestant anymore. They're Lutheran now. And they are very
00:41:15.820convinced that people are sinful, as Luther sort of promoted, and that God is no longer the merciful
00:41:23.180father he is the sailor's god that will punish collectively with uh war and epidemics and and
00:41:31.340hunger and these kinds of things so these this kind of when you sin then god will punish the
00:41:36.900entire kingdom and it's the you know the godly state if we can refer to julian the good earth
00:41:42.200book where he discusses the goddess state we have that those um at that atmosphere and that
00:41:47.680environment of the king and that's the same king because he's king for almost 60 years
00:41:53.440christian the fourth he's very keen on promoting himself as this godly lutheran king
00:41:59.900must have been a very frightening time for danish people very sort of uncertain time if if there was
00:42:06.700this sort of idea that god could smite you it wasn't sort of a loving god it was a vengeful
00:42:11.660and an angry god people it must have been a very heightened atmosphere of accusations i mean it's
00:42:17.060perfect conditions obviously for for there to be accusations of witches to so to keep yourself safe
00:42:22.840from God's coming and punishing you find somebody that God would definitely want to punish and then
00:42:28.200all our eyes are on that person I suppose yes and I think it's really complicated to sort of
00:42:33.320get into people's heads here because I don't think that they went around you know with their heads
00:42:39.960bent over and and in shame and fear i think people were happy and celebrating and living life as they
00:42:47.960do but of course they were reminded that they were sinful and they had to do penitence i'm not quite
00:42:55.840sure what you would call it in in english but in denmark it's something that you do it's not
00:43:00.620something that you give or but penitence is yeah yes all the time they are warning people about
00:43:09.300hell and the devil and sin but they also offer the positive path this sort of saying well you
00:43:17.180should refrain from sin and then you should do penitence because that will save you so they have
00:43:24.300a way of dealing with this and acting in this just of interest what would penitence be not in the
00:43:31.520Catholic way, not penitence in that way. It's a very emotional and a very almost bodily
00:43:38.800experience. You can translate it into convert, to convert and give yourself to God and give
00:43:45.940yourself to Christ. And by doing so, you must open your heart and you must open your mind
00:43:52.880and take in the word of God. It is kind of a spiritual way of doing penitence. And then at
00:43:59.220the same time, you must confess and that you can confess to the pastor before receiving the
00:44:04.940Eucharist. If you have sinned openly, you shall confess openly in church. So that's kind of a
00:44:10.680shaming ritual. But you are not saying prayers, you know, I've worked quite a lot on Italy as
00:44:16.240well. And a way of doing penitence is when you have to say 15 Ave Maria's and you have to do
00:44:22.680rosaries and all these kinds of things. It's not like that.
00:44:25.420Can I just go back a second and talk about figures? You said that during the time of James VI, right after he came, there were only 13 people killed as witches at that time.
00:44:40.980Was that directly in relation to James VI's attendance? Was that about that? Is this where the connection is between Denmark and Scotland and the witch trials?
00:44:50.900Yes, first of all, 13 people is quite a lot in a Danish context. So I can get back to that for the same offense of witchcraft or incidents of witchcraft. What happens is that in April 1590, there's a woman imprisoned for witchcraft. And she's not imprisoned for performing witchcraft against the royal ships. That's something else. But she's imprisoned in Copenhagen.
00:45:16.760Then James and Anne are traveling back to Scotland in the end of April.
00:45:20.720There's another royal wedding in Copenhagen in the end of April, and they travel back to Scotland after that.
00:45:26.580Elizabeth, the other sister, is married to a German prince.
00:45:30.400So they travel back, and then after that, going back to Scotland, this woman imprisoned for witchcraft confesses that she was actually part or leading society of witches that had cast the storms on the royal ships.
00:45:45.860So this happens after they're back, that they left Copenhagen. And then it starts. And throughout the summer, about 10 women are accused of witchcraft. And throughout the autumn, these trials are led in Copenhagen.
00:46:02.480I think we can count 13 people, maybe more, because the problem is that the sources are so fragmented and we haven't got the protocols from the court.
00:46:11.420We have fragments from other trials and then we have three confessions there and we have a description there.
00:46:18.020And then we have there are a lot of accusations of illegal interrogations of the first witch.
00:46:23.920And I think she was forced to confess that she had passed the storms.
00:46:28.000she was an easy target because she was already already imprisoned and she was to be executed0.98
00:46:32.960the next day so she might as well you know get her last five minutes of fame there and do you
00:46:39.160think it was I mean it's fame now I suppose that we're talking about are all these centuries on
00:46:44.120you say that she was forced to confess now if she was forced to confess that would strike me
00:46:49.460that people were making her confess and the people who were making her confess must have had
00:46:57.980uh intention to do so i.e they must have thought will get hard to confess to this particular type
00:47:06.180of witchcraft because otherwise why would you be talking about the ships why would you be talking
00:47:11.680about it do you think and i know that we're we're only surmising here but do you think
00:47:16.980it's possible that they went in with the intention of finding someone to blame
00:47:21.080for the weather so that there would be a scapegoat for that.
00:47:25.000Yes, but I also think that, and we cannot say much about this on the Danish side,
00:47:30.360but I know from colleagues' recent work, she's been digging into the Scottish archives,
00:47:37.060that there were suspicions of witchcraft quite early on on the Scottish side
00:47:42.220because they were in correspondence between officials.
00:47:46.480They will refer to the storms as kind of witchcraft or suspicious storms.
00:47:52.260But we haven't got any evidence of those sort of discussions on the Danish side.
00:47:57.340But we have in Denmark a number of cases in Malmö, which is just on the other side of Orison, in those years.
00:48:05.640And we do have some recognition of witchcraft against the Danish royal ships from the king's grandfather in the 1540s.
00:48:14.480So this is not a new thing, casting witchcraft or using witchcraft towards the king's ships.
00:48:21.080There are also a myth in Danish history that the king's father, Frederick II, that his ships were also victims of witchcraft, the targets of witchcraft.
00:50:01.800But she was also imprisoned after this.
00:50:03.960So the witchcraft trials in Denmark didn't start until after James had left.
00:50:07.660But I'm pretty certain that there's been a lot of talking.
00:50:11.480And also the second sister, Elizabeth, the man she was marrying, was a German prince,
00:50:17.300also quite familiar with witch trials.
00:50:20.700I'm writing about this in my book that I'm working on now, because I think that's a part
00:50:25.780of the story that we have completely ignored, the German connection to this, to Braunschweig.
00:50:32.840Because, of course, in Germany, there have been some attention to Trier. You've probably heard about the Trier trials that are the most brutal in the entire Europe. And these trials, there were news about them, reports about them in Copenhagen after the king's ships and the incidents with the king's ships.
00:50:50.520And so we know that there were a lot of transmission of knowledge in these times.
00:50:55.480So there were reports circulating about brutal trials in other parts of Europe so that people
00:52:10.720They got people to confess that they were involved.
00:52:13.020And that was that was about 13. In your later trials, how many people in your actual satanic panic, as we call it this many years later, how many people were involved in those trials?
00:52:27.300The total figure we have in Denmark for the entire period of the witch trials is about 2,000 cases, and half of them were executed.
00:52:37.400But that's including Norway, because Denmark and Norway are together at this point.
00:52:41.500But usually, and about 60% of these cases were dealt with from 1617 to 1623.
00:52:49.920So it's a very short period of time that it was very intense.
00:52:53.000But usually it's not more than maybe two, three, usually women linked to each other, sometimes a bit more, sometimes maybe 10, 11, but that's quite rare.
00:53:09.040So we have this maybe a handful of incidents where maybe a bit more where you have more than 10 people connected.
00:53:17.520So there wasn't really that. I mean, in Scotland, we had quite a lot of large scale panic.