Witches of Scotland - EPISODE 65 - ANYA BERGMAN - WITCHES OF VARDO

00:00:00.960 I am Clare Mitchell, Doctor of Laws and King's Council.

00:00:04.080 And I am Zoe Vendetotsi, Doctor of Laws, Teacher and Writer.

00:00:07.760 On the 8th of March 2020, International Women's Day,

00:00:11.120 we launched the Feminist Witches of Scotland campaign.

00:00:13.920 The Witchcraft Act, enforced between 1563 and 1736,

00:00:19.360 saw thousands of people, mostly women,

00:00:22.080 accused and executed as witches in Scotland

00:00:25.040 in the country's biggest and most brutal miscarriage of justice.

00:00:28.880 Our campaign had three aims. To get a formal state apology for those accused of witchcraft,

00:00:34.560 to obtain a pardon for all those convicted, and to get a national memorial to remember

00:00:39.360 those involved in the Witchcraft Act. On International Women's Day 2022, the first

00:00:45.040 of our aims was realised when First Minister Nicola Sturgeon issued a formal state apology

00:00:49.600 to those accused as witches. The first formal state apology ever. We are currently working

00:00:54.320 with politicians to ensure there's legislation passed to pardon those accused as witches to

00:00:59.120 change their status from convicted witches to those who ought never to have been prosecuted

00:01:04.160 we continue our work to obtain a national monument so those who suffered will never be forgotten

00:01:09.040 join us as we speak to the experts on the witchcraft trials both here in scotland and further

00:01:13.680 abroad as we explore the history of women in scotland and continue the cultural conversation

00:01:18.720 of what it means to be a woman hello and welcome to the witches of scotland podcast

00:01:25.920 quite ridiculously we are now into i think our third year and this is the 65th episode of six

00:01:36.360 claire no i know 65 i mean we should retire at this age yeah absolutely that is i think it's

00:01:44.820 67 now actually probably i'll never get to retire because i'm i'm very young obviously but i'll

00:01:50.240 never i'll never be able to retire i'm just letting you know that any any rich people out

00:01:55.080 there that would like to be our patrons but you're just going to keep going and going with work i

00:01:59.780 have to until i just die okay well that's a cheery start to the year for the listeners

00:02:03.920 sorry listeners so claire it's 2023 baby how's the year been treating you so far

00:02:10.900 it's been good so far there's only been a teeny bit of it so i've not had much to go on but that

00:02:16.120 bit has been so good because at the start of this year did we or did we not meet with filofaxes zoe 0.56

00:02:23.580 we did we are we are such classy 1980s boss bitches we are we met up with our filofaxes 0.73

00:02:32.200 claire very kindly gifted me a filofax and we sat down and we had a we had a planning meeting

00:02:38.140 which we do do occasionally I know it maybe doesn't seem like it to our listeners but we

00:02:42.980 do occasionally meet and work out what we're going to do going forward whether we follow the plan or

00:02:47.740 not sometimes is it's always nice to kind of have a plan even if nothing goes to plan in that plan

00:02:55.120 at least you can always say this was the plan yes because as any good teacher will tell you

00:03:00.960 if you fail to plan you plan to fail oh my god is this the standard

00:03:06.900 is this the standard of chat that we're going to bring to listeners in 2023 we've kicked off

00:03:14.000 talking about filofaxes so i'm not really sure we're right at the forefront of sort of cutting

00:03:18.160 edge i'm totally just ready to take over wall street at this stage with my luminous pink filofax

00:03:23.760 yeah i need to get a skirt suit a skirt suit with padded shoulders for sure and sport shoes

00:03:29.240 court heels oh i thought you said sport shoes but they did wear sport shoes as well they did

00:03:34.440 to get to work and then they changed into their high heels didn't they you have watched working

00:03:39.480 girl the same as me i have also watched baby boom it's one of my favorite films sam shepherd's in

00:03:45.420 it it's diane keaton she sort of inherits a baby from her deceased is it her sister brother or

00:03:52.700 something like that somebody dies and then she has to take on the baby oh my god it's so satisfying

00:03:57.960 she moves this small town in somewhere like connecticut she um starts making

00:04:03.560 applesauce which inexplicably americans seem to feed their babies by the gallon i never really 1.00

00:04:08.940 fed mine unless i was in america with apple applesauce but anyway she bottles like jars

00:04:13.060 applesauce makes an amazing business with that of course she does it's a beautiful big farmhouse

00:04:19.220 and then falls in love with sam shepherd who's the vet and he's just at like peak lovely sam

00:04:25.620 Shepardiness and it's it's just really satisfying lovely and Diane Keaton's so not your standard

00:04:31.760 romantic kind of character as well and I just loved it I must have watched that when I was about

00:04:36.440 13 or 14 or something like that I thought you were going to say 30 no it was too late by then I'd

00:04:41.980 already spawned my own children and I had not fallen in love with Sam Shepard sadly no but also

00:04:47.220 Sam Shepard's now dead so it wouldn't have worked out brilliantly anyway again again let's try and

00:04:52.820 maintain a positive aspect to 2023 Zoe yes I mean he was older he wasn't you know wasn't in the first

00:04:59.540 blush of youth let's move on so we achieved a lot in the last last couple of years particularly in

00:05:07.000 the last year and I think you're going to tell us some stuff well I could tell you some stuff

00:05:13.800 what so what did we do in the last year I suppose the highlight the absolute highlight must be

00:05:19.460 on International Women's Day 2022

00:05:22.180 when you and I went down.

00:05:23.960 We went down to the Parliament,

00:05:25.720 but we couldn't actually get into the Parliament

00:05:27.340 because of COVID restrictions.

00:05:29.680 Oh, and also I'm barred.

00:05:33.540 She's not barred. 0.95

00:05:35.820 She's not. 0.78

00:05:36.860 If she was barred, 0.85

00:05:37.820 it would be for raccoon-related activities.

00:05:40.460 We went down to outside the Parliament,

00:05:42.780 just us, not raccoons,

00:05:44.460 and we were actually with a BBC4 radio crew.

00:05:49.460 Yeah, yeah. With Danny Garibaldi.

00:05:52.520 Yeah, with Danny Garibaldi and she and one of our colleagues did a really good Radio 4 show called The Witch's Pardon,

00:06:01.600 which you should have a listen to because there's us live when we hear the First Minister on International Women's Day

00:06:08.280 giving the first formal state acknowledgement and apology to those people killed as witches.

00:06:14.380 It was really emotional. I wanted it to happen, but I was just really, really surprised at how emotional I got

00:06:19.020 when it happened i'm not really one given to outbreaks of emotions away that's gears tough

00:06:23.720 80s broad with my filofax yeah but it was really cool and definitely worth going and finding that

00:06:31.020 podcast if you've not listened to it yet i imagine it's on bbc sounds yeah bbc sounds still on it

00:06:37.860 yeah yeah the witch's pardon and speaking of the witch's pardon the other thing that we've been

00:06:42.900 doing is working to try and obtain the pardon as part number two of our campaign aims and we have

00:06:52.040 been in communication with Natalie Dawn who's the MSP who has brought forward the proposed

00:06:58.680 legislation and there has been a public consultation which we've been sharing far and wide

00:07:03.660 asking people to respond to and we're really pleased that various different bodies have

00:07:09.200 responded to it, individuals have responded to it, and we are looking forward really soon, we hope,

00:07:16.140 to the outcome of that. So we get to see how many people are in support of it, how many people aren't

00:07:21.280 in support of it, and we get to analyse what the outcome of that public consultation process was.

00:07:27.760 So if the public consultation process was broadly positive, then we can move forward to the next

00:07:34.240 part of the consultative process which is seeing whether or not we can find cross-party support

00:07:40.240 to bring the bill forward. Now in an ideal world Zoe I would really love for the bill to be brought

00:07:47.820 forward within a very short period of time and have International Women's Day 2023 be the time

00:07:54.260 that we could have this legislation passed but I suspect that even with the best will in the world

00:08:00.300 that is far far too short a period of time because we're already in the first week of january

00:08:04.900 and sadly eighth of march is not that far away yeah yeah but still let's hope and maybe it'll

00:08:11.860 happen we should manifest it are you manifesting this year no i'm not sure i'm into manifesting

00:08:17.820 but i don't think it hurts no positive mental attitude so we can just keep it in our 80s vibe

00:08:24.180 that would be like PMS and then that brings us on to the next thing which is the National Memorial

00:08:32.100 yeah so we are still working with various groups who have expressed interest in the National

00:08:39.460 Memorial the Scottish Government wrote back to the Public Petitions Committee saying that it would

00:08:46.760 support us in promoting the idea of a National Memorial to see if we could get assistance with

00:08:53.080 it so as you know Zoe very sadly there are a number of places in Scotland which can lay claim

00:08:58.460 to having a connection with the witchcraft trials which would mean that it could be a place

00:09:05.260 properly where we could remember people and have a national memorial so we are still working with

00:09:11.480 those with those bodies and we will keep you updated insofar as we can to find out what

00:09:17.640 happens as Zoe says we don't actually want to build the memorial ourselves we just want to find

00:09:24.260 the right place and the right people to do that yeah because I still still really feel that it's

00:09:33.120 very important that there's something that that is national that there is something that draws

00:09:38.480 together all these fantastic sort of projects and examples of work that people have done you know

00:09:43.920 not just recently but there's obviously been as we've talked about several things recently that

00:09:48.540 are amazing to see but also things that have existed for a long time like the Maggie Wall

00:09:52.780 sort of area that memorial and other areas too that I would like to see it all kind of brought

00:09:58.200 together in one place and done to a really high standard you know I really want it to be something

00:10:03.700 that is seen internationally as being you know forward thinking and unusual and quite provocative

00:10:10.000 and you know that people will come and look at it and won't necessarily know what it is they're

00:10:14.440 looking at and then they'll find out what it is and then that opens up a whole another avenue to

00:10:18.180 get people involved in knowing our history so I'm hopeful one of these different sort of areas that

00:10:25.160 we're looking into will bear fruit and then it's just a matter of I suppose getting money yeah

00:10:31.020 exactly and that is the that is the big thing isn't it getting money at the moment is difficult

00:10:37.020 I mean we're in a financially very very difficult time and I totally understand that money if it's

00:10:43.920 available should go to helping people here and now whilst I absolutely think that there's a an

00:10:49.940 important need for memorialization and it's something that definitely needs to happen

00:10:53.960 it should only be for money that's set aside for these type of things I'm not from anywhere

00:11:00.000 but i do think maybe slightly provocatively saying this that they're even at the the height of

00:11:07.280 poverty which by the way we don't need to be in that state if things were being run properly but

00:11:13.780 i'll not open that whole can of worms but there should always be money for the arts and for the

00:11:20.040 history because we need to have our identity in order to be the forward-thinking country that we

00:11:25.640 think we are so for those people that you know that would say we don't have the money to spend

00:11:31.080 on things like that just now like i get it i do get it but there's always money and there's money

00:11:36.220 that gets spent on things that aren't really that useful so i would really hope that we can find the

00:11:42.320 money or whoever takes it forward can find the money from somewhere no absolutely as you say

00:11:46.920 there are pots of money set aside for various things and of those pots of money then i think

00:11:54.320 a national memorial for those killed as witches has as good if not better acclaim as many different

00:12:00.540 things. The thing is that it would also be something which would encourage people to come

00:12:05.680 and visit it it would encourage tourism and tourism would encourage you know spending and

00:12:10.800 that sort of thing so in a practical sense that it might actually generate money too not that that

00:12:17.080 was the aim of it but I think that that would be very possible. Throughout the course of the last

00:12:21.080 year we have continued what someone described very nicely as the cultural conversation about

00:12:28.100 women's history in Scotland and it's been very very well received we continue to talk a lot

00:12:35.380 both at home and abroad about the witchcraft campaign I think lastly just before Christmas

00:12:41.640 there we had a long piece in Le Monde Zoe yeah indeed yes we were interviewed by Le Monde along

00:12:48.300 with some other people in scotland which was really great to see so people like judith langland

00:12:53.680 scott who talked about her research that her and sean have been doing in forfer and there was lots

00:12:59.500 of good background about that so we've had good interest from france for a few other things in

00:13:03.940 the past it was really nice to have that in le monde because to me and this isn't maybe quite

00:13:07.720 a filmic way of thinking about it to me le monde is like the the big french newspaper it maybe isn't

00:13:14.340 but in my mind it is so it seemed like it was that was a really important sort of point to to

00:13:18.940 get in there so that was really cool and also like there's a kind of a ripple effect from things with

00:13:22.940 the podcast so you know there have been other books that have come out this year so like

00:13:27.120 Mary Kidd's book We're All Witches she name checks in the book that our campaign was a big part of

00:13:33.140 that bringing that to the forefront of course we name check Mary Kidd and saying that her earlier

00:13:36.860 books are partly what helped us with our podcast and then we've got Heal and Harrow they won awards

00:13:42.620 for them for their fantastic work on the music that was tied with stories of witches both factual

00:13:48.820 and also fictionalized that Marie had worked with so that was really nice to see that of course if

00:13:53.220 you go back and listen to the podcast that we had with Heal and Harrow they tell you that they were

00:13:57.220 very much inspired by the campaign and they got lots of help from the podcast that's really cool

00:14:02.220 to see that so we can see kind of ripple effects with things like that which is really good because

00:14:06.460 the more things that people do and they create the more people know about the campaign and the more

00:14:12.500 we are satisfying our aims of the campaign. Yeah it's really lovely when I spoke to our speaker

00:14:19.340 that we're going to hear today and I spoke to her on Twitter I think it was and I was like oh I'm

00:14:24.120 really excited to read this and she was like oh I'm really excited because I was listening to your

00:14:28.300 podcast. It's funny when you do something that podcast because essentially it's just you and I

00:14:32.600 sitting online talking to one another you don't really compute that other people are listening to

00:14:37.600 it no it's funny isn't it it's quite an odd thing that it seems like we're just you know that we're

00:14:44.020 just talking away for ourselves just we know that we're not you know like we did we went down to

00:14:48.820 Glasgow just the week before Christmas and did an event that was a like a film kind of a witch

00:14:55.400 related film festival they invited us to come down to speak at that and that was really interesting

00:14:59.100 because again that's a totally different audience so that's been really brilliant that was great

00:15:02.980 just before christmas there so i'm really hoping that we have as many interesting things to do and

00:15:09.420 events on in 2023 i should actually mention claire at this point before we forget on i think it's the

00:15:16.320 27th of january we're doing an event at the national portrait gallery in edinburgh where it's an event

00:15:22.900 that's called i think alt burns like as an alternative rabbi burns and we're going to be

00:15:28.720 talking about like his representations of witches and i think probably looking at witches sort of

00:15:32.760 generally in the culture and that'll be really interesting there's other speakers as well that

00:15:37.260 are tackling that so they're kind of it's a bit like a Pecha Kucha maybe but it's a bit longer

00:15:41.680 it's 15 minutes that everybody's got to speak at that'll be really cool and I presume tickets if

00:15:46.160 they're not available now they will be soon from their website so that's the National Portrait

00:15:50.740 Gallery on the 27th of January. Yeah and we're also being invited down to Wigton in Spring for

00:15:57.720 a pre-book festival

00:16:00.000 book festival, I think it's a small

00:16:01.680 festival on in spring

00:16:03.220 so we're invited down there as well

00:16:05.920 and we really look forward to that

00:16:07.620 if you know of anything

00:16:09.660 which is happening in your local area

00:16:12.060 which is about the history

00:16:14.140 of women killed as witches or anything like that

00:16:16.100 please do keep us in the loop and let us know

00:16:18.020 about it, lots of works being

00:16:19.960 done by Judith and Sean in

00:16:21.960 the Forfer area, we

00:16:23.920 also have the people

00:16:25.780 who are running the Calder Witch Hunt

00:16:27.680 who are really fantastic and doing a lot of great work there.

00:16:32.260 And yeah, just keep us updated with things that are going on

00:16:35.440 so that we can tell people about it and promote it to folk that are listening.

00:16:40.380 So do remember to get in contact.

00:16:42.320 Usually best to get in contact with is via Twitter.

00:16:45.640 That's probably the best route, I think, to get us as soon as possible.

00:16:49.240 And one final thing we should say is we have contacted so many people

00:16:53.680 to ask them if they would like to be on the podcast and discuss things with them.

00:16:57.680 Zoe, we had written in our filofaxes a list of about 30 or 40 people, didn't we?

00:17:03.640 There's a lot of people.

00:17:04.880 So I don't see us retiring the podcast anytime soon.

00:17:09.620 Yeah, so there are lots of, you know, amazing people that are doing really cool work.

00:17:14.460 And there's definitely some priorities.

00:17:15.780 I really want to get Leo Egway back on again to tell us, give us some updates.

00:17:20.680 And we've got a really interesting guest from Malawi.

00:17:23.160 And we've got various writers that have got books coming out that are to do with witches.

00:17:27.680 and I think it's just sort of an endlessly fascinating topic that we know isn't showing

00:17:32.840 any signs of slowing down so that's cool it's good we've got lots of work to do we do and so

00:17:37.880 yeah we forgot to say that we became doctors last year oh yes yes yes that's how much dar

00:17:45.720 straight as the nhs is in they're now drafting in podcasters to do surgery no no we're we put

00:17:53.540 people to sleep no no no doctor you fool Claire no not medical no we are doctors of law so the

00:18:01.940 University of Dundee very kindly gave us doctors of law and when we got the honorary degrees in

00:18:09.880 fact we met someone else that was getting an honorary degree who is going to come and speak

00:18:14.120 to us about witchcraft and about the modern day problem of climate change causing people to be

00:18:23.520 accused of weather witchcraft so we look forward to um we look forward to that being on the podcast

00:18:30.060 later on if we have said we'd like you to be on the podcast and we haven't got around to speaking

00:18:36.160 to you please don't be offended it's just that there are so many people to get through and we

00:18:41.320 record in batches so hopefully all those people that we've spoken to the 30 or 40 people we are

00:18:47.380 getting to you and we're making a pledge about how often this podcast is coming out this year aren't

00:18:52.620 yes claire we are we're going to do it every two weeks just just for the for the benefit of

00:18:59.340 listeners who can't see claire at the moment claire is sitting in her house waving around

00:19:04.800 a toasting fork um presumably because she's going to actually toast something on her presumably

00:19:10.140 she's got an open fire going on it's quite discomforting claire i've got to be honest

00:19:14.580 when we're doing a podcast about witches and you're sitting there waving around what looks

00:19:18.300 like a kind of a either a pricking device or something to do with the devil it's probably

00:19:23.160 not the best to have a small extendable toasting fork but it does mean that I can make my point

00:19:29.480 by jabbing at the camera screen you see jab jab it doesn't really work in a podcast though does it

00:19:35.860 not really not really but just know that she is waving around a toasting fork I know that as soon

00:19:41.260 as I'm finished this podcast I am going to toast a slightly elderly cinnamon scone

00:19:47.160 so one last thing we need to mention though in this roundup of the year not just the last week

00:19:52.780 or two is that David poor lovely David has done obviously right mental maths 59 more episodes than

00:20:03.400 he had in fact agreed to initially so thank you so much again David can I mention again that we

00:20:10.760 are a team of two Claire and me who do this all for free and for love but David is the one that's

00:20:17.060 actually bringing technical skills to this and he's also doing it for free and for love which

00:20:20.820 is obviously it's it's not cool it's sort of taking advantage of his good nature so can i

00:20:26.180 remind everybody again that we've got the merch that we sell like the mugs and the hoodies and

00:20:30.880 t-shirts and that stuff all that money just goes the profit of that goes directly to david we don't

00:20:35.700 see any of it it just goes to david and also there's the buy me a coffee thing i think as well

00:20:39.480 so anything you can chuck towards david would be really kindly appreciated yeah in the new year

00:20:45.480 you know he's doing more of these podcasts and it would be lovely if if you do listen to this and

00:20:50.020 just think if you were to like meet him in a pub and he said oh yeah i'm the person that does you'd

00:20:54.180 go oh let me get you a drink and so that's the same idea as buying someone a coffee and it's

00:20:58.940 it's not going to change finance as much but it's a nice mind if you have enjoyed the podcast and

00:21:05.240 we'd really appreciate that thanks very much and also it's really really nice to meet people and

00:21:10.280 to see people with merch so if you have bought merch and if for example product placement you're

00:21:18.020 using your mug or something that please do send us pictures of them on twitter or on insta and

00:21:24.520 tag us in them so that we can retweet them and repost them on insta so that we can show them

00:21:30.520 to other people that might be interested in doing that yeah cool i like that sounds sounds good to

00:21:35.920 me. So thank you very much for sticking with us ladies and gentlemen since 2020. We're now as Zoe

00:21:41.440 says 2023 and let's crack on with this week's podcast. Okay so the first episode this week then

00:21:56.200 Claire you're going to give us a bit of an intro into what happened in Vardo. Yes and apologies if

00:22:03.260 I'm not saying Vardo correctly, or indeed the names of the people involved. The information

00:22:09.500 about those accused in Vardo, I'll just give you a broad idea of the witchcraft trials, because when

00:22:15.840 we speak to our expert today, she goes into a lot more detail in it. But the witch trials of Vardo

00:22:21.440 were held in Vardo Finnmark in northern Norway in the winter of 1662 to 1663. And these trials were

00:22:30.100 the biggest in scandinavia 30 women were put on trial accused of sorcery and making pacts with

00:22:36.320 the devil one was sentenced to the workhouse two were tortured to death and 18 were burned alive

00:22:43.600 at the stake can i just interrupt there briefly claire that's quite shocking because we spend a

00:22:49.000 lot of time obviously on the podcast saying in scotland we didn't burn anybody at the stake i

00:22:53.040 mean not that what we did was necessarily better but they were strangled or they were hanged and

00:22:57.980 then they were burned at the stake but the fact that here in vardo that's actually what they did

00:23:02.600 18 times is just sort of beyond belief isn't it really yeah i'm hoping zoe that wikipedia which

00:23:11.040 is good but it's not always infallible we do see that we do see a lot of times repeated that women

00:23:17.200 were burned at the stake in scotland and i'm maybe hoping that it's the same kind of thing that people

00:23:23.100 use the expression burning a witch at the stake but actually they were executed first so the caveat

00:23:29.220 is this is this has not been researched by us directly as wikipedia so fingers crossed that

00:23:34.640 wiki has got that wrong so the the varda witch trials were the third of the three big mass trials

00:23:40.680 of northern norway and it was as i said before one of the biggest trials in norway it was the

00:23:46.120 peak of the witch hunt which intensified in northern norway since the first mass trial in 1621

00:23:51.800 and Vardo was at the very centre of this.

00:23:56.500 About 140 witch trials were held in Finnmark in the 17th century

00:24:00.520 between 1601 and 1692

00:24:03.480 and what's sometimes considered as the worst persecution

00:24:06.780 in the times of peace in Norway, according to Rune Hagen.

00:24:11.440 Ninety-one people were contemned to death in these trials.

00:24:15.620 The Steelsnet Memorial is dedicated to those women persecuted as witches

00:24:19.740 and we've said before that that memorial by Louise Bourgeois and another architect whose

00:24:27.100 name I can never remember is oh thank you is one of the most beautiful examples of a memorial and

00:24:36.060 if you get an opportunity either go there Zoe and I want to go there in 2023 either go there

00:24:41.860 or just google the pictures and have a look around it because it's a beautiful artistic

00:24:48.400 memory of those killed as witches and in fact has absolutely no statues of winsome looking

00:24:56.260 women staring out to scene i mean that's absolutely what i'm thinking of when i'm

00:25:00.200 thinking about what our national memorial could be like something as imaginative and as amazing

00:25:04.300 and special as that one i think it's the best one and for my month and we we remember those people

00:25:10.760 killed as witches in vardo they were simply women and men and not witches

00:25:15.780 okay so our guest today is Anya Bergman and her new novel The Witches of Varda so the day that

00:25:30.280 we're recording this is actually the publication date so when this comes out in the next few days

00:25:35.400 it will be just hot on the shelves so you'll be able to get it I was in Waterstones Dundee today

00:25:39.880 and I saw it in there so it is definitely it's definitely out and about in the shops

00:25:43.020 and it's inspired by the witch trials on the island of Varda in Finnmark

00:25:47.620 in the north of Norway during the 17th century

00:25:49.940 and in particular the witch trials in the winter of 1662 to 1663. 0.79

00:25:55.540 Anya first came across the witch trials of Varda

00:25:57.420 and the vivid folk tales of the north while she was living in Norway.

00:26:00.920 She spent a number of years researching the trials

00:26:03.000 while also travelling above the Arctic Circle

00:26:05.540 to the steel-netted memorial on the island of Varda

00:26:08.880 in which Louise Bourgeois and Peter Zumthor

00:26:11.840 commemorate those persecuted as witches we might not realize it but there are strong links between

00:26:17.260 the history of witch trials in scotland and norway as we will discuss you'll see or you'll hear in

00:26:22.900 the following podcast anya is currently undertaking a phd by published works at edinburgh napier

00:26:28.020 university in scotland where she also tutors on the creative writing program and she also writes

00:26:33.200 under the name noelle harrison and has had 13 novels previously published and been translated

00:26:38.640 in over 12 different languages worldwide so that's Anya's other writing sort of persona

00:26:45.100 which we're mentioning because we want to tell you that she's a really skilled and good writer

00:26:50.820 so this is a really interesting book and definitely definitely worth you going out

00:26:54.300 and getting so without any further ado welcome to the podcast Anya Bergman

00:26:58.940 hi there Anya I'm so pleased to welcome you to the Witches of Scotland podcast

00:27:11.060 it's nice to meet you hello lovely to meet you too as well now you're here to talk specifically

00:27:18.120 but we're not going to limit you to that if you've got other things to talk about

00:27:20.680 about your new book that's coming out and I'm going to ask you first of all if you can tell

00:27:26.040 us the name of the book and just a kind of an overview of what the book's about. Absolutely so

00:27:30.720 the book is called The Witches of Varda and I apologise to any Norwegians if I've slightly

00:27:35.880 mispronounced that and it is inspired by and based on the real events of a series of witch hunts on

00:27:44.260 the island of Varda in the very very far north of Norway so it's as far north as you can go really

00:27:49.640 and so I was very interested in this subject matter when I was living in Norway and began

00:27:55.100 researching these trials actually about 10 years ago and then I got completely obsessed which I

00:28:00.960 think does happen to quite a few of us when we start looking into the history of which

00:28:05.900 oh yes it does totally so I really wanted to kind of raise the voices of these lost women

00:28:14.200 they were all women who were persecuted and there were young girls persecuted as well

00:28:18.380 so I wrote a version of the novel a few years ago I couldn't get spell it and then I actually

00:28:24.900 turned it into a play and put it on as a play. And it was performed in Edinburgh just before

00:28:29.800 lockdown hit actually in the Scottish Storytelling Centre. And it was during lockdown that I

00:28:36.680 decided to adapt it back into a novel and I completely changed the way I told the story.

00:28:43.340 And I really went into a complete cave and wrote very intensely. And that's how the novel came

00:28:50.940 about and then yes it was picked up by a publisher Manila Press so that's the story behind writing it

00:28:58.300 oh I'm so glad that they have because we really look forward to reading it and we understand it

00:29:03.220 comes out in the new year is that right yes it's out on January the 5th although I have been told

00:29:08.920 it might actually be in bookshops before Christmas and Blackwell's are making it book of the month

00:29:14.100 in January oh yes yes I'm thrilled about that that's fantastic well keep it updated as to the

00:29:22.400 dates so we can let listeners know on the socials and stuff can you let us know a bit more about the

00:29:28.960 story or do you want to kind of keep that under your hat or oh no I can totally I'm happy to talk

00:29:33.980 about this all day so I mean one of my challenges was I wanted to remain true to the history I'm not

00:29:41.540 writing fantasy here you know I'm not but at the same time I found when I wrote a version of the

00:29:46.900 book that was historically accurate it was 500 pages long and nobody could could actually get

00:29:54.600 through it and it was too much as a novelist I was trying to work out the way to tell this story

00:30:00.900 to activate the reader but as well it'd be true to the history of what happened to these persecuted

00:30:05.440 women so um I brought in a seam of magic realism and the way I used that was to use a sense a kind

00:30:14.900 of blurring in some parts of the book there's a blurring between what is real with what is possibly

00:30:21.200 not real but the purpose of that is to give the women agency um and to kind of liberate them from

00:30:29.080 the trauma of that's of being colonized by the patriarchy at that time so there was kind of

00:30:34.360 purpose to that but it is all based um I can in fact whittle down because the trials I'm writing

00:30:39.980 about were in 1662 and at that time I can't remember the exact number who were accused but

00:30:46.260 I do remember 20 women were executed for witchcraft and six little girls the youngest was the age of

00:30:53.760 eight were convicted of witchcraft and were to be executed but fortunately um at this stage there 0.98

00:31:00.960 been intense witch trials the whole winter long on this island the people of the island began to

00:31:06.020 kind of go oh hang on a sec they they actually wrote a letter of complaint to the king of Denmark

00:31:11.800 because Norway was governed by Denmark at the time kind of complaining about the fact that one of the

00:31:17.120 women accused Ingeborg Krug had been tortured to death and they had complained about that so

00:31:23.280 they then you know the governor had kind of had to hold back a little bit and so an appeal judge

00:31:27.960 came from Copenhagen and all the children were pardoned. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty,

00:31:33.580 I mean, it's really hard for us to believe this happened. But what is so fascinating about these

00:31:38.500 trials in Finnmark, the region of Norway, where this occurred is called Finnmark, is that all the

00:31:44.680 trial records still exist. So there's one of my main resources was this book that Professor Lief

00:31:51.380 elaine williamson who i know you've talked about on on the podcast before so she had put together

00:31:58.280 this book with all the original trial records and they had been translated and i actually also

00:32:04.160 when on one of my research trips i interviewed leave elaine as well and she's been giving me a

00:32:10.560 lot of help with the novel what's the name of her book just in case the readers i think it's called

00:32:15.700 the finmark witch trials you can buy it in english i know the publisher is called scowl

00:32:20.220 which is S-K-A-L-D. And they actually have facsimiles of the original old Norwegian trial

00:32:27.480 records and then the English translation. So you can actually see the names and all the testimony

00:32:33.220 of those accused. So it's really interesting to read that testimony. And in particular,

00:32:38.800 there's one character who features in my novel, but in my novel, I have them at an older age.

00:32:44.500 They're like about 13, 14 in real history, called Marlon Olofstadter.

00:32:50.200 And she gives these colourful tales of her journey with the devil and her ventures with the devil.

00:32:57.920 And the way she describes the devil is kind of quite a kindly, fun character compared to these kind of authoritarian figures that were on the island of Arda at the time, the governor and his men.

00:33:09.460 How interesting they've invented somebody that's a more pleasant version of being a man.

00:33:14.500 that's like the most evil man oh yes yeah i mean definitely because in and the women as well they

00:33:23.340 would they would say or the devil took us up to there's a mountain across the um straits from

00:33:29.480 the island called dorman mountain and this was where the devil was supposed to reside

00:33:34.540 and the in the caves was the entrance way to hell and when i went there one of my research trips i

00:33:41.740 went I actually found the caves to the entranceway to hell I didn't go all the way and I was like

00:33:46.960 but um the women said we went up onto the mountain with the devil and he played a red fiddle and we

00:33:55.580 danced and we had um beer and you know Margaret Jonstatter lost her shoe dancing with the devil

00:34:02.020 and they're just having a big hooli party um with the devil that's a crime you know they're not

00:34:07.500 supposed to drink beer and dance with Adele if it wasn't so utterly horrible and tragic what you

00:34:13.360 would take from all of this is the devil definitely throws a better class of party than other folk do

00:34:18.120 oh definitely I mean we you know I spoke to a lot of Norwegian friends as well when I lived there

00:34:23.580 and they were saying it was very looked down upon for women to drink beer as well at that time and

00:34:27.740 so even the fact they were drinking was you know yeah definitely the devil threw a better party

00:34:32.420 So can I ask you from all your researches, obviously, we know that your novel will, as you say, have your narrative part of it, which is creative, but you've obviously done so much research on the people themselves.

00:34:46.060 Now, we know that this particular outbreak and the trials were 1662, which was just after 1661, which was the biggest outbreak in Scotland.

00:34:57.420 So about that time, really throughout Europe, there was an enormous amount of witchcraft accusations.

00:35:04.980 Can you tell us, how did it start? Was there just one person arrested? Was there a story? Was there a spate? What kicked everything off?

00:35:13.120 Well, what kicked off on the island of Varda was actually it was a Scotsman.

00:35:21.100 Yeah, yeah. Scotland exported witch hunts to Norway, I'm afraid.

00:35:27.540 That occurred before in 1619, I think it was around 1619, was the first witch trials on the island of Varda.

00:35:35.760 and the king of Denmark Christian I think it was the fourth um he was the brother-in-law of James

00:35:44.320 the Sick and he Christian thought was pretty obsessed with witches and thought he'd be you

00:35:49.160 know he had a lot of physical ailments and he blamed it on being cursed by a witch and he felt 0.79

00:35:53.660 he had a big witch problem in the north I have this witch problem in the north of Norway one of

00:35:58.280 my kingdoms and so he asked James you know got any advice or can you help me out here and go oh I've 0.98

00:36:03.440 I've got a great fella now I'll send over from Scotland to be governor of Varda and so he kicked 0.91

00:36:09.680 off the first witch panic you could say or I don't really like that term witch panic but the first 0.81

00:36:14.620 series of witch hunts on the island of Varda and actually the first people to be accused were Sámi

00:36:19.900 men who refused to pay their taxes and Sámi shamans so there was a few of those accused but

00:36:26.520 then it quickly became more Norwegian women the wives of fishermen and there was a an economic

00:36:32.620 reason for that which i can tell you about in a second but just coming back to um the 1661 i do

00:36:39.020 think the reason that was so virulent in the whole of europe was connected to the growth of ideas in

00:36:45.260 demonology so these particular trials in varda have been kind of this particular series of trials

00:36:52.920 have been blamed on uh danish women and her husband called uh she was called arnoldius who 0.98

00:36:58.720 was exiled to the island of Varda from Denmark for being basically a pain in the ass, a kind of 1.00

00:37:04.820 mouthy, middle-aged woman who wouldn't shut up. I don't know any of those. I don't know any of 0.99

00:37:10.620 those. She was clearly very clever and she kept, she wouldn't shut up about corruption. She was in 1.00

00:37:18.260 Christiania or modern day Osla with her husband. And so anyway, she ended up exiled to Varda and

00:37:24.880 she's been blamed for stoking the witch trials and it's kind of been a a story that's been told

00:37:30.960 throughout history and i decided to look at that again i thought oh it's all very convenient to

00:37:35.740 blame anna rudious for the witch panic but she and her husband did have they were very learned

00:37:42.220 they had the biggest library in the whole of norway um so she would have been very learned

00:37:46.340 in demonology she was the one that was kind of blamed culturally over time so do people still

00:37:51.940 now sort of think of her as being the kind of the yes definitely and even in my play I kind of blamed 0.97

00:37:58.660 her and then when I wrote the novel I thought now hang on a sec I'm following I'm just believing 0.77

00:38:03.320 those 19th century male historians and they called her a kind of they said she had litigation fever 0.91

00:38:08.640 that she was obsessed with taking legal action against men in authority and kept sending 0.84

00:38:16.420 petitions to the king and in the end he just got absolutely fed up with her and exiled her along

00:38:22.020 with her husband and my novel I've kind of taken the husband out of it because I just wanted to

00:38:26.060 focus on her and I'm like okay this is interesting so I decided to have a menopausal protagonist

00:38:30.680 because she is menopausal and I thought you don't get enough of those I just started reading the

00:38:35.600 book today and she talks about hot flushes obviously she doesn't call it that and I was 0.96

00:38:40.000 like I hear you babe yeah she goes over the window and she lets she lets you know the cold air against 0.97

00:38:45.520 her skin I was like please change for women absolutely all was the same yeah yeah and she 0.96

00:38:51.860 I kind of feel that she gets a bad rap of it there's a whole like even there's a whole um kind 0.99

00:38:56.620 of trial in 1666 when she's you know her husband is trying to get her pardoned because he gets

00:39:02.660 pardoned in 1666 but she never gets pardoned and she remains there for the rest of her life

00:39:08.480 and you know the authorities on the island are going no she's a basically I can't remember the

00:39:13.140 that terminology but she's a harridan you know her diatribes are driving us mad and they just

00:39:18.660 blame her for everything and and the governor of vada at that time who was he wasn't the scotsman

00:39:24.300 now it was another man and christopher awning was his name and he you know he blamed her he

00:39:29.740 obviously got into a lot of trouble because he was going to burn little girls you know um but he

00:39:34.280 blamed her what was awful about this trial was the children their little girls you know were

00:39:40.820 convinced to testify against their own mothers which was awful you know. So when you say that

00:39:47.360 she was blamed do you mean that people saw her as being like the original witch or did she just whip

00:39:54.060 things up or you know what is it that she's supposedly done to start this all off? Well they

00:39:59.660 basically said she persuaded the little girls to testify against their mothers so because the

00:40:05.800 where the women were held in captivity on the island was there was a place called the witch's

00:40:11.080 hole it wasn't actually a hole it was like a little wee turf hut but it had no windows and 0.82

00:40:17.020 they were all crammed in there and you'd have over 20 women in there and there wasn't room for the 0.67

00:40:21.880 girls so they put the girls in anna rudius's prison which was this long house so the girls

00:40:27.100 were lodging with her and then they said she influenced the girls to testify against the

00:40:31.840 others and she had um anna had a key to the witch's hole but she also um a couple of the 0.95

00:40:37.660 women were pregnant and she was she had midwifery skills so she went in and she um helped with them

00:40:43.560 giving birth and her grandfather had been physician to the king of Denmark so she had

00:40:48.120 i have it that i kind of assumed she had a certain level of knowledge medical knowledge

00:40:52.940 but she was never accused of witchcraft herself but i think that she was probably

00:40:58.560 under danger of that because she was a middle-aged woman in the wrong place at the wrong time

00:41:04.220 with healing skills so maybe she was you know we don't quite know what went on but

00:41:09.080 trying to divert attention possibly yeah possibly but I'm not sure even sure if she did manipulate

00:41:15.500 the children I'm not sure all the written records about her and all the historical

00:41:19.860 texts about her are written by male historians and the guy writing down the court transcripts

00:41:27.300 in the employ of the governor so was there one event that kicked off this 1661 event and if so

00:41:37.500 what was that yes so um a few of the trials that have been going on were very much connected to

00:41:43.740 relations between the fishermen the Norwegian fishermen and the Bergen merchants so the

00:41:49.800 fishermen from the island of Arda and their relationship with the the merchants who came up

00:41:55.480 from Bergen and kind of they lived in the nice houses and all the fishermen lived in little turf

00:42:00.000 huts so what was going on was there was arguments breaking out because the mini ice age kind of

00:42:06.100 affected the fishing halls so in fact during the middle ages this was actually quite a wealthy

00:42:11.920 part of Europe because it was such a rich area for fishing so what would happen would be the

00:42:17.480 Norwegian fishermen would trade their load of fish for grain with the Bergen merchants but

00:42:22.880 But because the fish were going further south and the halls were getting smaller and smaller, they were owing the merchants more and more money.

00:42:29.660 And then when they started complaining, the merchants would accuse one of their wives of witchcraft.

00:42:34.340 So this is what happened. This is what triggered the 1661 trial was a woman called Toretta Loretta.

00:42:42.460 She had been accused a few years before because the husband had complained about this debt with the merchant.

00:42:51.060 and then the merchant lo and behold said your wife's a witch she managed to kind of get off

00:42:56.040 that time but then it happened again and i think there was some row over they were trying to steal

00:43:00.980 some servant and then the servant got sick the servant that worked for the merchant or something

00:43:05.080 like that these little details aren't actually in my novel um but that's what triggered the 1661

00:43:09.880 event so when poor doletta was taken in chains most of the women accused were from the villages

00:43:15.900 on the Varanga Peninsula and then they were taken across by boat to the island and the fortress

00:43:21.460 and then she would have been tortured and then she denounced someone else and then there you go

00:43:27.660 it then it started accumulating. And did the same thing happen as it happened elsewhere

00:43:33.100 someone would confess to being a witch and then they would be asked whether or not

00:43:37.840 they were witches with anyone else and then in their state of delirium or whatever would

00:43:42.420 name other people they knew. And then those people would be brought in and the whole process would

00:43:46.300 start again. Yes. And they were, I'm afraid they were more vicious on the island of Arda. The

00:43:51.280 methods of torture were really awful. So you cannot have any judgment on anyone who was put

00:43:58.140 through that. And yes, they were tortured until they named others. But the woman I mentioned

00:44:02.580 earlier, Ingeborg Krug, who was tortured to death, she was quite phenomenal because she refused to

00:44:10.160 name another woman and she said she's quoted as saying in the trial records I will not tell a lie

00:44:16.860 on any other woman or myself and she was tortured to death so incredible strength just

00:44:25.220 almost superhuman strength that someone would go through that and just not for the sake of

00:44:33.560 stopping physical pain or mental pain just say a name totally I don't I don't know how she withstood

00:44:41.040 Yeah, I mean, even though like legally in Denmark at that time, you were not supposed to torture a witch or someone accused of witchcraft until they had confessed.

00:44:51.640 And then you could torture them for other names, but they were torturing them to get them to confess.

00:44:56.140 That's interesting. So once you had confessed to being a witch, you would then, the authorities would then be allowed to say, well, she's now confessed.

00:45:05.840 so torture is admissible we we will allow torture to be used to obtain the other names

00:45:14.280 absolutely yeah whereas in scotland they said torture isn't admissible at all but for two

00:45:20.120 reasons that didn't work one the people that were seeing that were in edinburgh and couldn't really

00:45:25.780 control what was happening in the rest of the country so they couldn't make sure no one was

00:45:30.200 being tortured and two they didn't consider keeping people awake for days on end was torture

00:45:37.740 so the people were being tortured it was just that we didn't understand the calling of it as torture

00:45:44.460 yeah I mean that is a terrible torture and I'm not sure if they did the sleep deprivation I did

00:45:50.920 kind of include it in the novel because I have a Scottish character kind of inspired by that 0.73

00:45:56.020 original scottish witch hunter but they did that what was common was the war that they did do the

00:46:01.900 water ordeal up in those freezing arctic waters yeah so so they did the donking if you sunk you

00:46:11.000 were good and if you floated you were a witch yeah so they would kind of truss them up and row out 0.94

00:46:18.760 and then they'd have a pole with a hook so they would kind of troll the woman into the sea and 0.85

00:46:25.540 then if she floated they'd hook her up but she always did float it would say in the records and

00:46:30.440 she floated like a bob because like they'd be so cold and the the shift would billow up and

00:46:36.140 they'd be full of air and they would always float you know yeah I mean humans do float not very well

00:46:41.520 and not very successfully but they do float at least for for some time the air in their lungs

00:46:47.280 and so presumably they would immediately float up wonder at what point where a committee gets 1.00

00:46:53.040 together and they go right how are we going to test if these women are witches and you've got 1.00

00:46:58.680 a committee there Zoe why don't we hear me out why don't we throw them in a body of water and see 1.00

00:47:06.040 what happens let's why don't we try that like at some point somebody had that idea but do you

00:47:11.520 remember why it was that the theory was that um when you are baptized you're baptized in water

00:47:20.980 and therefore if you were thrown in water god's earth god's water would envelop you and take you

00:47:28.180 in as its own but if you are which god's water would expel you from the water and that's why

00:47:34.500 i'm not a qualified lawyer okay i'm not i'm gonna speak as if i am though

00:47:41.800 story story is full of holes right water is not it's not holy water they're throwing them into

00:47:49.060 it's just regular water it's just i guess it's considered sacred water is considered sacred and

00:47:55.060 it's the same reason why they burned them at the stake because in norway as well they weren't

00:48:01.540 this is a very dark conversation but they were they weren't strangled first they were burned at

00:48:05.620 the stake they were tied to ladders and they built up the fires and that they lowered them into the

00:48:11.460 fire attached to a ladder so they would you know they wouldn't they would definitely burn alive

00:48:16.600 and the idea was it was like oh we're doing you a favor we're cleansing you of sin 0.95

00:48:21.740 you know we're making sure you've your best chance not to go to hell by burning you at the stake

00:48:27.780 the discussion you had around the reasons for them burning them in scotland seems to be the

00:48:32.440 academics he's spoken to in scotland have said it was so there was no body left so that the devil

00:48:37.660 couldn't reanimate them so it's interesting it's really curious i'm i'm reading a book called

00:48:43.640 everyone knows your mother is a witch just now by reva galchens it's an american book but it's

00:48:48.900 about it's set in um in germany and it's it's like dealing with like the german witch trials

00:48:53.640 it's really a funny book actually it doesn't sound like it'd be funny but it is funny i don't

00:48:57.460 know if you're familiar with the book olive kittredge but she's a really unpleasant character 0.67

00:49:01.200 she's a woman just going about her business and she doesn't give a shit and this is what the 0.96

00:49:04.720 woman is like and that's why she's accused of being a witch and so they talk in that one about 0.99

00:49:09.640 burning them at the stake and one woman says to her oh I heard that in the recent ones that they

00:49:14.240 did they tied gunpowder around her neck as a kindness and we've we've heard academics talking

00:49:20.380 about that that it was a kindness that the gunpowder would blow up immediately before they

00:49:26.260 actually burned to death themselves it's just like again people sat and went well what's the best way

00:49:32.320 to do this what are we going to do and somebody said yeah that's a good idea and somebody else

00:49:36.100 went yeah that's a great idea and then they went ahead and did it it's just remarkable to me you

00:49:40.900 know we sort of joke about it being committees but it is committees yeah it would be of men that are

00:49:46.500 sitting with the bible or sitting with legal books that are saying right this is this is the way we're

00:49:51.440 going to deal with this problem it's just completely bananas I mean I think that they considered like

00:49:58.120 when I was looking at some of the terminology in the trial records as you're saying I could try

00:50:02.980 trying to get my head around this state of mind of this society and the way that the governor of

00:50:09.380 Arda talks about the witches for me it was very reminiscent of how world leaders talked about the

00:50:18.400 war on terror do you know what I mean it was like they viewed witches as terrorists and even he's

00:50:24.300 saying the governor of Arda is saying they've threatened to blow up the fortress they are going

00:50:29.680 to get to the King of Denmark

00:50:31.560 and destroy him. So they felt they

00:50:33.680 were on a war against terror.

00:50:35.940 They genuinely thought that.

00:50:37.660 What were these women accused of

00:50:39.760 then? So you're mentioning that they

00:50:41.560 threatened to blow up the king. Had

00:50:43.540 anybody threatened to blow up the king?

00:50:46.260 So this was

00:50:47.660 on the basis of what people's

00:50:49.880 confessions or

00:50:51.120 they must have been accused of something first before they

00:50:53.600 got to the confession state, I suppose.

00:50:55.940 So what were they accused of?

00:50:57.800 Well, they were blamed for

00:50:59.680 the fishing yields being low so he said so and so was seen uh with legs of seaweed chasing the

00:51:06.300 fish away running along the beach legs of sea that was that was a common one legs of seaweed

00:51:10.700 running along the beach chasing the fish another very common one of course was there would have

00:51:14.600 been a lot of you know hazardous journeys and ships going down so if a merchant's ship went down

00:51:20.500 then they were accused of weather magic they were also accused a lot of the time of turning into

00:51:25.520 other animals um so they were accused of turning into birds and so let's say you know modern

00:51:32.060 sigvildstatter and margaret jonstatter were accused of turning into a crow and a swan and

00:51:38.700 they were seen sitting on the mast of this ship and then the ship sank and they killed all the

00:51:42.800 people on board you know because they turned into birds and actually that i was quite interested

00:51:47.300 the bird theme is very big up in vada they're always being accused of turning into these

00:51:51.840 birds that cast bad magic bad spells and then when I was up there in the summer um with the 24

00:51:59.080 hours daylight you can't sleep for the unending screech of seabirds and I thought oh right okay

00:52:06.600 I got I got why they were so you know and it's like screaming women in a way or you could say

00:52:12.580 that's so interesting and it would drive you a bit mad what time of the year did it all kick off

00:52:18.100 was it during the the really long sunlight or was it in the depths of winter it was in the depths of

00:52:23.520 winter in the dark dark winter yeah I mean you can see it time and time again the trials happen

00:52:30.140 in the winter you know I made a kind of a like a sort of a joke but it's not a joke about when you

00:52:36.220 and I met the other week when when we were doing Mary kids um launch in Edinburgh the Portobello

00:52:41.580 bookshop and I said why is Scotland you know so involved and so good in this is it because the

00:52:46.900 winter is really grim and people had nothing to entertain themselves and then this was something

00:52:52.400 tremendously exciting I mean it must have been if you were on the the side of good then that people

00:52:57.800 must have thought you know if you're saying there you know they were really fighting against terror

00:53:01.640 and they were saving people's lives and people would have that very high level of drama I think

00:53:06.820 that they were on the side of good and that they were doing a wonderful thing you have to wonder

00:53:11.160 if it was more temperate if things would have been would have gone that way you know I think

00:53:16.440 people were grim and depressed and that's got to be why partially why these accusations were so big

00:53:22.200 in cold crummy countries I don't know I think as regards Varda I mean because it's so far north

00:53:28.400 it's above the arctic circle so we're talking about a place of physical extremity you know

00:53:34.220 and so you have really wild animals up there like wolves and lynx and bears and you have extreme

00:53:43.340 weather conditions and blizzards and then you have the aurora borealis which people were frightened

00:53:50.300 of the christian people not the sami people yeah um they thought they were spectrals from the devil

00:53:57.100 and also traditionally it was believed that witches came from the north that the devil's

00:54:03.340 kingdom was you know once you went as far as you could go north you got to hell you know

00:54:08.300 how interesting to have the devil being in the frozen north i immediately associate the devil

00:54:13.920 with heat and warmth the idea is that you go into his mountain into the and then this little girl

00:54:20.120 and marron all of stater i mean her story is quite if it wasn't so awful it's actually quite

00:54:24.240 jolly she's kind of her jolly story of how the devil leads her into the heart of the mountain

00:54:29.200 into this valley with a and there's a boiling lake with all the people screaming and then he

00:54:33.500 gets a leg of ham and he cooks it for her in the boiling lake and they eat ham together

00:54:37.260 um but yeah it's a hot inside the earth but yeah the outside is freezing cold and snowy and

00:54:44.080 oh so he he hides in a snowy layer a bit like a bond villain and burrows underneath the earth

00:54:51.040 i do think the christians kind of i think we have to mention the psalmi because the christian

00:54:56.880 society viewed the psalmi as in league with the devil as well and that you know i don't know if

00:55:03.140 you know anything about sami culture uh it's so fascinating and so they have um part of their

00:55:08.740 mythology or part of their their religion they would have a shaman who um plays a drum with

00:55:14.880 lots of symbols on it and then he goes into a trance i'm probably not explaining this i'm

00:55:19.420 explaining this to you simply but he basically goes into a trance and like can astrally project

00:55:24.440 but people at that time believed that the sami could spell cast and and so merchants would

00:55:30.600 actually buy spells off them called guns to kind of shoot at their enemies and also the Sami

00:55:37.100 tradition of yoiking which is when they kind of do this very special kind of singing they would say 0.96

00:55:41.700 they were they were the sounds of the devil and things like this so the Sami culture is all

00:55:46.220 entwined and actually the last person accused of witchcraft and who died while in imprisoned was a

00:55:53.780 man was a Sami man and they still have his runabum I'm probably pronouncing that wrong but

00:56:00.300 his special drum with the cymbals that's it you know I think it's in a museum in Norway I can't

00:56:05.800 remember exactly where in Norway but yeah it still exists. So were they seen as being you know like

00:56:11.680 the same way in Scotland we'd see people as being charmers you know so initially it's it's not bad

00:56:17.560 it's not like a bad thing that they're doing it's something that people will sort of at some point

00:56:22.000 have tapped into as kind of folk magic that it was helpful to them to kind of live on the land

00:56:27.180 and so on and so forth and then at some point that turned or were people always suspicious of

00:56:32.820 the sami i'm not quite sure i mean i know they did integrate with the community because they

00:56:39.220 did intermarry the norwegian women who were accused of witchcraft consider themselves christians and

00:56:44.620 i don't think they would have followed sami religion i think the samis that integrated

00:56:49.960 became christians rather than the other way around right okay um i'm not 100 sure though

00:56:55.700 But yeah, so I don't think it was viewed as folk magic or folk healing that they would use.

00:57:04.120 After the witch trials finished, was there anything close in time after that to say, we're sorry, we realised we got it wrong?

00:57:13.400 Or did they have to wait hundreds of years for the beautiful memorial that now exists? 0.76

00:57:19.140 I think they had to wait hundreds of years.

00:57:21.820 But again, I'm not completely sure.

00:57:24.080 but I mean that memorial is astounding and and I feel very passionately that Scotland needs

00:57:30.680 something like that I'd like to see something like that something that's just really unusual

00:57:36.340 and striking and amazing can you describe it to yes yes I've been twice I've been once in the

00:57:43.520 winter and once in the summer so the winter time was the most powerful so there's two parts to it

00:57:49.060 So one part designed by a Swiss architect called Pieter Zumthor,

00:57:54.360 and it looks like it's based on these Norwegian fishing racks.

00:57:58.720 So in the culture, the fishermen would have these kind of racks

00:58:02.140 that they would hang their dried fish on, which they would then sell.

00:58:05.580 So from the outside, it looks like these giant dried fishing racks,

00:58:09.380 and it's right on the edge of the peninsula,

00:58:11.580 right where the women would have been executed.

00:58:14.920 And you open a door and you go inside,

00:58:16.900 and it's this very narrow dark corridor and it's only lit by um light bulbs that are all at

00:58:23.860 different heights and as you walk down on the walls is the story of every single person who

00:58:29.980 was executed so in total during 100 years i think there was 110 executed i could have that figure

00:58:37.300 wrong which was a lot for a population of 3 000 yeah yeah all the all the stories are done and

00:58:44.120 Professor Lee Vellin-Williamson wrote those stories so you go down this and when I went in

00:58:49.000 the wind is blowing so it's kind of it's shaking and it's it's very powerful and then you come out

00:58:53.800 of that and you walk across to this installation this little building that um Louise um and I'm

00:59:00.720 going to pronounce it certainly wrong is it bourgeois bourgeois made um it was her last

00:59:06.560 commission and she was I didn't know that amazing and she was like I'm doing that

00:59:13.380 um and it's you walk in and it's like these giant mirrors all around you in a circle and you see

00:59:21.180 yourself reflected in them a little bit like Alice in Wonderland and then there's a chair in the

00:59:25.060 center with this flame burning so what you see is yourself in the flames it's really intense

00:59:31.020 that's amazing yeah it's amazing I really I think Zoe we need to go we have to that's that's one

00:59:39.840 actually I mean I'd love to go to Salem I think it'd be really interesting to go to Salem but I 0.96

00:59:44.600 really really really want to go first to the Norwegian one I just think from the beginning

00:59:49.460 that was the most striking to me because they've got I think such a parallel to us I don't know if

00:59:55.200 it's just um for the for the people that don't know what I look like I'm blonde haired and blue

01:00:00.600 eyed and pale skinned so I've always thought you look Scandinavian I feel I feel Scandi in my soul

01:00:06.880 And when I went once to Denmark, I was like, I feel like these might be sort of my people.

01:00:11.980 You know, I felt kind of like, you know, there's no evidence in my family and in the recent, you know, bits of the tree that we've done of our family that we are Scandinavian.

01:00:19.740 But I hold on to that feeling in my heart. So I just I feel like that's somewhere I'd really like to go. 0.79

01:00:25.580 And I just, you know, there's so many similarities.

01:00:28.540 It's different, obviously, in lots of ways, because it's specific to what you're saying about fishing and then with the Sami culture and so on.

01:00:35.400 that's there's different aspects to it but just this idea about life being hard and people being

01:00:40.880 really fixated and dogmatic about you know doing God's work you know and it just is so fascinating

01:00:47.740 to me and I'm already a huge fan of Louise Bourgeois's artwork so to go and see something

01:00:52.140 like that I think she was such a brilliant and inspired choice of artists to take for it

01:00:56.640 and I always forget the man's name Peter Zumthor yeah yeah Peter Zumthor I think that's right

01:01:03.420 and it was I mean the queen of Norway was very much involved in that project and very much behind

01:01:09.520 it yeah I mean the Norwegian people are very proud of it and they should be it's a huge acknowledgement

01:01:14.640 of what happened and it is when you go there it's when you go to to Varda it's not hard to imagine

01:01:22.240 what you know it's such a an extreme place and and so remote it can't have changed much no it

01:01:30.060 hasn't changed much really put your feet in their shoes i've been to salem as well a different

01:01:35.260 experience and it's quite interesting because i was a little bit when i was going there i was like

01:01:39.520 oh is this going to feel like you know a bit tacky they've made it into a theme park and

01:01:43.780 when i went there it's i i actually loved it obviously you get the history but you don't get

01:01:48.620 it you don't feel like you're doing vada that you're actually going back in time however it

01:01:53.080 felt like a celebration of all those different you know when you're getting the train to salem

01:01:57.500 there's people sitting there with pointy hats so there's people who identify as different from

01:02:03.760 your mainstream American culture and I thought that's okay you know that's good and that's

01:02:10.120 something that we sort of you know we discuss and that comes up and and that we talk about a lot

01:02:15.440 whenever Claire and I do events we always say to people we ourselves are not witches we completely

01:02:20.640 support anybody's idea of what they want to identify as and if you're a witch modern day

01:02:25.760 witch that's totally cool with us and we have the support of lots of modern day witches obviously

01:02:30.340 well maybe not obviously but we have the support of lots of modern day witches but we're always at

01:02:34.760 pains to say to people that these women in scotland were not witches you know there might have been

01:02:40.140 one or two or some that that saw themselves as practicing magic but they weren't witches in the

01:02:46.200 construct legally that they were accused of and often executed for being yeah i think that's the

01:02:51.380 that's the huge difference about it what was the name of the last event you went to Zoe what was

01:02:56.540 it called we are all witches right she's talking about listeners when I went to Mary Kid's book

01:03:02.020 launch which is which is where I met Anya which is her book is called we are all witches but she

01:03:07.000 Mary is very much making the point that we are all witches in the sense that none of these women

01:03:12.640 were witches and we're all precarious and that any of these ordinary people ordinary women for

01:03:18.420 the most part could be accused therefore any of us could be accused absolutely no I totally agree

01:03:24.980 I'm only only kidding on with you but it was it was Mary that in fact said right at the very very

01:03:30.100 start a phrase that I remember when she said the history of witches in Scotland is the history of

01:03:36.240 women in Scotland and that really struck me that that's such an amazing way to have looked at our

01:03:44.400 history as we have to look at it through these accusations. I mean certainly there were no

01:03:50.640 Norwegian men or Danish men accused of witchcraft. Oh really? No it was all it was predominantly

01:03:57.860 Norwegian women and they were they were younger there as well they were mothers with young

01:04:03.160 daughters yeah which is quite interesting. Was there anything that you discovered during your

01:04:08.420 research that was surprising to you that you hadn't anticipated? I guess I had that opinion

01:04:14.000 like most people that lots of midwives and healers and cunning women were accused I thought that's

01:04:20.600 what it was going to be and it wasn't that at all it was just regular people who were really poor

01:04:26.800 and trying to survive and then when they tried to stand up for themselves this is what happened

01:04:31.960 I think that's something I'm I'm really really pleased about our campaign is that I think that

01:04:38.100 that's one of the things that we've been able to redress a bit is that is that story because

01:04:42.600 I mean it's an alluring story isn't it you know to think that these were women that were

01:04:47.360 they were standing up against the man and that they had this ancient knowledge that men didn't

01:04:51.720 like but I think that really it does it does the women that were accused a disservice because it

01:04:57.240 obscures the truth and I'm all about the truth historically so I think that it's it's really

01:05:01.980 it's great to see the change in that and to also see now I would say in the last year or two I'm

01:05:08.100 not saying it's directly about our campaign but i think it is that now witches is always in um

01:05:13.720 speech marks and it didn't used to be like you know you would people wouldn't even have questioned

01:05:18.360 it and i think there was this idea that these women were witches that they had done something

01:05:23.720 to deserve it in some way even if people didn't say that out loud so i think the fact that now

01:05:27.980 people are able to kind of say well these were like you're saying these were often poor people

01:05:33.080 that were just trying to survive and they got caught up in a ridiculous idea that they'd taken

01:05:39.120 hold of their country is really fascinating I mean there is though there I would say there is

01:05:44.900 and it's something that I pick on in my novel because I think it's quite interesting for the

01:05:48.640 reader to explore there were cases of women who kind of said actually I do have that power but

01:05:55.780 their motivation was to kind of protect themselves so there was a case of a woman down in Bergen

01:06:01.800 called Anna Pader's daughter and she was an older woman they kept accusing her of different things

01:06:07.800 and she just kind of joked about it and she said yes I can kill kids and you know she was trying

01:06:13.100 to protect herself but it backfired so they'd leave her alone if they persisted with accusing

01:06:18.940 her that um that she would then do bad magic to them sort of thing yes yeah kind of a protection

01:06:24.960 um it's kind of a way because they and I thought about that in the writing of the book so there is

01:06:30.720 this girl Mara Nolofstadter who does say all these things that she did I do have a kind of

01:06:36.480 claiming a sense of power because it's a way of protecting herself or a way of giving herself and

01:06:42.960 the other women some agency. Margaret Atwood wrote a fantastic poem about that very thing called 0.96

01:06:49.460 Half-Hanged Mary if you haven't read Half-Hanged Mary dear listener please go and do it it's 0.75

01:06:55.840 absolutely amazing what happens is it takes a innocent woman and she's hanged for witchcraft

01:07:00.900 and it's based on a true story of a woman called mary webster who was accused and hanged as a witch

01:07:07.440 but they didn't get the hanging right and she hung from her neck but survived overnight and

01:07:15.520 margaret atwood heard this story and then does the poem as mary herself and the story that she tells

01:07:22.840 of Mary is of Mary hanging there overnight and them taking her down her still being alive

01:07:30.020 and her saying I wasn't a witch when you put me up there but I certainly am now and the story is

01:07:36.520 that that woman lived out her life because they couldn't hang her for witchcraft again she lived

01:07:41.600 out her life and although I would love to think that she lived her life happily I imagine people

01:07:45.760 were just very scared of her and socially isolated her but it's that great idea of when you have

01:07:52.040 nothing else left to say yes i am i have got all the power that you attribute to me i think that's

01:07:58.280 why some of the cases there's a case um that actually what i'm mentoring a writer who's

01:08:04.540 writing about elspeth rioch on orkney and she confessed without being tortured i believe

01:08:12.680 but i think she had such an awful life that it was her first chance of having agency over her life

01:08:20.720 you know absolutely but also is the prospect that if you know exactly what's going to happen to you

01:08:26.920 some people just go I'm a witch okay I'm a witch because you think do I want to be tortured and

01:08:33.700 then killed or just killed yeah so we know that your book takes place all around this period

01:08:41.200 we know that you have obviously one or two protagonists is there somebody who is your

01:08:46.480 favourite in the book that you want to tell us about? Well, I love Maren. The story is told from

01:08:51.780 two different points of view. So I also love Anna Rudis in a strange way, even though she's a,

01:08:56.840 in inverted commas, a baddie. Part of the book is told from her point of view in letters to

01:09:01.020 the king, who has exiled to Tivada. And she goes through quite an interesting journey through the

01:09:06.600 novel. And then the other narrative is from the point of view of Ingeborg, Iverstater, the daughter

01:09:11.640 of a woman accused of witchcraft but her kind of help her helper is Mara Nolofstater and she's

01:09:18.620 just such a unapologetic feisty young woman yeah she's very I just love her personality

01:09:24.740 and you think when you read the book you're thinking oh my god she's definitely going to

01:09:29.120 don't get taken down but I don't want to spoilers no spoilers there no spoilers

01:09:35.400 and just one very last thing we've taken up so much your time we're so grateful for you

01:09:43.140 speaking to us one thing that obviously all the way through this is the women take their mother's

01:09:49.420 name and not their father's name it's always the daughter of we've spoken about that in earlier

01:09:55.040 episodes is that was that for Norway but it's the daughter of the father so let's say yeah yeah so

01:10:02.540 i think it's slightly different for iceland yeah i'm not sure about iceland but so um yeah it would

01:10:08.820 be ingeborg eva's daughter and her father would be called eva okay so they still have a starter

01:10:15.580 her father would be olaf yeah oh so they still manage oh damn it i thought it was i thought it

01:10:22.460 was true because we we spoke before about how i would be clear delia's daughter i think that's

01:10:27.700 quite a nice name sorry dad i'm not sure if dad's listening to be honest it's probably not his thing

01:10:32.980 what's your dad's first name jim james could be james daughter might be david's daughter

01:10:40.000 i'd rather know the email names are more exciting aren't they oh but yeah i'm afraid that was no it

01:10:46.620 was after yeah so which was quite helpful in terms of researching who was related to who 0.99

01:10:52.580 because i just i could see by looking at first most of the women accused were from the same

01:10:58.420 series of villages on the varanga peninsula so from a village called vadso agree and yeah those

01:11:05.400 were the two main villages actually in kyberg kyberg yeah um so they all knew each other and

01:11:11.560 were kind of cousins and aunts and sisters and daughters can i ask one one more question have

01:11:17.980 you had any um feedback from your Norwegian friends about the book or have any of them read it yet

01:11:23.760 yeah they love it they they love it they've you know they've been a champion of it since I first

01:11:30.400 started working on it so they're really excited and yeah it's it's quite nerve-wracking writing

01:11:35.240 about a place you're not from but I did live there for years so I felt I could and and um

01:11:41.660 I felt it was a very important story to tell and actually what uh one of the things that

01:11:47.380 professor Lee Valen Williamson said to me gosh I really hope she likes the novel I'm really

01:11:52.560 stressed she might not but but she did say to me she said um please raise the voices of the women

01:11:59.120 with tenderness and that's kind of been my motto the whole way through yeah that's amazing from

01:12:05.600 what I've read so far I've got a sneak preview that I have to read and then pass along to Claire

01:12:09.840 I think you're you've definitely done that you know I'm already completely hooked into it it's

01:12:14.640 fantastic so far and what a perfect time of the year to be reading it so at least these days we

01:12:20.660 can sit in and read an amazing gripping yarn instead of going out and accusing women in our

01:12:25.520 village of being witches so I think things have moved on quite nicely it's good. So thank you so

01:12:31.480 very much for coming to speak to us Anya we really appreciate it and we really look forward to having

01:12:36.660 to read your book oh thank you so much for having me um I've loved talking to you both and I just

01:12:42.860 believe so passionately in this campaign so thank you it's really good I think it's it's just

01:12:49.100 wonderful to read these as a writer myself I love reading these fictionalized versions of of what

01:12:54.640 life was like because it's it's the clearest way of you know as you said earlier putting your feet

01:13:00.100 in somebody else's shoes you know and seeing what life was like and then making that connection

01:13:04.620 that these were real people with real lives so thank you so much thank you

01:13:09.740 thank you for listening to this the 65th episode of the podcast the witches of scotland

01:13:20.880 we hope you've enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed recording it and talking to anya

01:13:25.100 we will of course be back in two weeks with another episode we are contactable on our social

01:13:32.000 media probably as claire said at the beginning the best place to get us is probably on twitter

01:13:36.640 and because we tend to be on there more frequently but we're also on instagram and on facebook and

01:13:42.480 on tiktok tiktok tiktok i feel is the the year for us on tiktok zoe we've only done two tiktoks

01:13:52.540 so far and they've been well received inverted commas and bunny rabbit ear well received

01:13:58.020 quotations there. I'm not sure if people

01:14:00.260 talk about TikToks being well

01:14:02.180 received. It's more really about

01:14:03.940 clicks, isn't it? Yeah, I suppose

01:14:06.420 so. Oh, yeah.

01:14:08.000 TikToks being well received.

01:14:10.660 Maybe this year we will make

01:14:12.320 a TikTok, but I don't know.

01:14:14.860 I don't think so. I am definitely

01:14:16.540 going to make more TikToks. It's whether or not I can

01:14:18.480 persuade you into one or just

01:14:20.540 sneak doing...

01:14:22.340 There's a lot of raccoons on TikTok, Zoe.

01:14:26.100 Yeah, but, you know.

01:14:28.020 we'll see we'll see about that if you cannot if you cannot persuade her onto tiktok because of

01:14:34.160 the raccoon content then there's probably no chance of getting there she's saying no

01:14:37.240 little chance altogether never mind never mind so we look forward to hearing from you please

01:14:43.000 get in touch with us if you've got anything you'd like us to promote or inform people about that

01:14:47.620 you're doing that's to do with the witch trials get in touch with us if you've got any pictures

01:14:52.260 of yourself in your merch that's always nice to see and please do get in touch with us it's nice

01:14:56.640 to hear from you yeah also get in touch with us if you've got any photographs of yourself and

01:15:00.380 raccoons i would love that i would quite love that yeah that'd be quite cool happy 2023

01:15:06.400 if you'd like to learn more about the witches of scotland please subscribe wherever you get

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Witches of Scotland - January 14, 2023

EPISODE 65 - ANYA BERGMAN - WITCHES OF VARDO

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