The Vardø Witch Trials

How did Norway’s deadliest witch hunt finally come to an end? In the series finale, Professor Liv Helene Willumsen and I follow the last cases and what brought the trials to a stop.

Salem’s witch trials are known all over the world, but few people have ever heard of Vardø. So how does a small town live in the shadow of a past like this?

On the headland where many of the accused were burned at the stake now stands the Steilneset Memorial. The team behind it tell me how it was made and what it has meant for the town. I hear how the renowned architect Peter Zumthor approached his long, dark corridor, a space for the victims alone. At the end of the corridor, Louise Bourgeois created her last major installation, a chair that burns day and night. By then she was in her nineties, working from her New York flat. I hear about the letters she wrote to Liv Helene, and how that chair came to be.

The final word goes to Liv Helene, who has dedicated her life to bringing these voices out of the archives and into the world.

This series is dedicated to all the victims of the Finnmark witch trials.

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vardowitchtrials

Sound design by Craig Edmondson.

With thanks to:
Professor Liv Helene Willumsen, UiT The Arctic University of Norway
A special mention to the late Solbjørg Ellingsen Fossheim, former state archivist in Tromsø, who in Liv Helene’s words read “all these pages, all these words, all these letters” of the original court records with her.
Professor Jennifer McNabb, University of Northern Iowa
Historians Rune Blix Hagen and Johan Morken
Author Anya Bergman
Isa Maline Isene, Vardø Museum
Reidun Laura Andreassen
Trine Kanter Zerwekh, Norwegian Scenic Routes
The National Archives in Tromsø
Mark Stenersen, UiT

Voices by Anne Mali, Sven, Klara, Olivia, Ingrid, Jon Erik, Anne Elisabeth, Marianne and Gry.

The court records in this episode come from Professor Liv Helene Willumsen’s source edition, translated into English by Katjana Edwardsen.

Anya Bergman’s novel The Witches of Vardø: https://anyabergman.com/the-witches-of-vardo

Written, hosted and produced by Lisa Williams.

It’s spring 1663, and we’re in what Professor Liv Helene Willumsen calls "the most cruel of the panics in Finnmark". An intricate web of denunciations threatens to engulf the women of Vardø and the neighbouring villages.

In this episode, I go searching for what happened to a woman who vanishes from the court books, and I ask Liv Helene and Anya Bergman, author of The Witches of Vardø, what might have driven Anna Rhodius.

Then Professor Jennifer McNabb explains what happens when a witch hunt goes too far.

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vardowitchtrials/

Sound design by Craig Edmondson.

Featuring Professor Liv Helene Willumsen of UiT The Arctic University of Norway, novelist Anya Bergman, Professor Jennifer McNabb of the University of Northern Iowa and Isa Maline Isene of Vardø Museum.

Anya Bergman’s novel The Witches of Vardø: https://anyabergman.com/the-witches-of-vardo/

The court records in this episode were transcribed by Professor Liv Helene Willumsen.

Voices by Olivia, Anne Mali Sæther, Ingrid, Anne Elizabeth and Jon Erik.

Written, hosted and produced by Lisa Williams.

When a new governor, Christoffer Orning, and a well-born Danish exile, Anna Rhodius, arrive in Vardø, a darker idea takes hold: once the Devil has a foothold in a family, he will not let them go. Now the young daughters of accused women are brought before the court.

I finally go to Mount Domen, long believed to be the entrance to Hell, where the women were said to hold their witches’ gatherings. Then I visit the long-feared witches’ hole.

Along the way, Professor Liv Helene Willumsen guides us through the court books to find out how the chain of accusations came to reach the girls.

And I talk to Anya Bergman, author of The Witches of Vardø, about her own reading of Anna Rhodius.

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vardowitchtrials/

Sound design by Craig Edmondson.

Featuring Professor Liv Helene Willumsen of UiT The Arctic University of Norway, novelist Anya Bergman and Isa Maline Isene of Vardø Museum.

Anya Bergman’s novel The Witches of Vardø: https://anyabergman.com/the-witches-of-vardo/

The court records in this episode were transcribed by Professor Liv Helene Willumsen.

Voices by Olivia, Anne Mali Sæther, Ingrid, Anne Elizabeth and Jon Erik.

Written, hosted and produced by Lisa Williams.

In the winter of 1654, a young woman called Karen Jonsdatter is a long way from home, in a fishing village near Vardø. As well as working as a maid, she has a little business on the side, selling potions and charms to the men in the community.

But in these small villages, everyone is watching and listening, and for a woman, gossip and slander are a constant threat. Once she had been called a witch, what could she do to fight back? And when it came to it, would the men who bought her wares protect her?

Back in the archive with Professor Liv Helene Willumsen, we find Karen’s case in the court book. Professor Jennifer McNabb weighs in on the legal realities for women in the 17th century.

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vardowitchtrials/

Sound design by Craig Edmondson.

Featuring Professor Liv Helene Willumsen of UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Professor Jennifer McNabb of the University of Northern Iowa and historian Rune Blix Hagen of UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

The court records in this episode were transcribed by Professor Liv Helene Willumsen.

Voices by Klara Blooma Mohn, Anne Mali Sæther, Sven Conradi and Marianne Gathe.

Written, hosted and produced by Lisa Williams.

In this episode, we go straight into the courtroom. The records describe women turning into ravens and wolves to meet for witches’ gatherings on mountains and at a mysterious place called Ballvollen. And the women keep saying the same thing, that they have a leader who is their master and admiral.

Most of the accused in this wave were Norwegian women. Professor Jennifer McNabb explains the Malleus Maleficarum, the most famous witch-hunting manual, and how it helped turn the hunts against women.

I’ve tried to stay as faithful as possible to the court records. Although their words were written down by the men who tried them, I think we can still hear something of their lives, who they were, their imaginations and their fears. And I wanted you to hear them too.

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vardowitchtrials/

Sound design by Craig Edmondson.

Featuring Professor Liv Helene Willumsen of UiT The Arctic University of Norway and Professor Jennifer McNabb of the University of Northern Iowa.

The memorial texts at Steilneset quoted in this episode were written by Professor Liv Helene Willumsen.

Research draws on the original trial records and the work of Professor Liv Helene Willumsen and historian Rune Blix Hagen.

With thanks to Isa Maline Isene, conservator at Vardø Museum, and historian Rune Blix Hagen.

Voices by Anne Mali Sæther, Klara Blooma Mohn, Sven Conradi, Marianne Gathe and Gro Strøm Engebretsen.

Written, hosted and produced by Lisa Williams.

Who brought the Devil to Vardø? I follow a trail Professor Liv Helene Willumsen calls the witchcraft triangle. It runs from Germany to Scotland, through a royal wedding, storms at sea, and women who confessed to sending devils after a Danish princess's ship.

In Tromsø, Liv Helene opens the surviving 17th-century court books of the Vardø witch trials for me. Written in a Gothic hand, they take us back to a coast of widows where a Scottish sea captain has just arrived as the new governor.

From there, we follow the case of Karren Edisdatter, a young healer whose confession would set off the first great chain of witch trials.

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vardowitchtrials/

Sound design by Craig Edmondson.

Featuring Professor Liv Helene Willumsen, historian Rune Blix Hagen and Professor Jennifer McNabb of the University of Northern Iowa.

Research draws on the original trial records and the work of Professor Liv Helene Willumsen and historian Rune Blix Hagen.

With thanks to the National Archives of Norway in Tromsø for access to the original court books.

Voices by Klara Blooma Mohn and Sven Conradi. With everything the accused say, I've tried to stay strictly faithful to the original records.

Written, hosted and produced by Lisa Williams.

I go to the edge of the Arctic to find out why 91 people, most of them women, died in Norway’s deadliest witch hunt, which lasted more than 70 years.

Vardø is a small island town closer to Russia than to Oslo, a place long shadowed by fears of witchcraft. Who were the women who came here, and why would they come somewhere so remote, at the far end of a kingdom?

And then, one Christmas Eve, 40 men row out into the polar dark. They never come back.

Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vardowitchtrials/

Sound design by Craig Edmondson.

Featuring Isa Maline Isene of Vardø Museum and historian Johan Morken.

Research draws on the original trial records and the work of Professor Liv Helene Willumsen and historian Rune Blix Hagen.

The memorial text heard in this episode is one of 91 written by Professor Liv Helene Willumsen for the Steilneset Memorial.

A note on the numbers: Steilneset commemorates 91 victims. Rune Blix Hagen's research records at least 92 deaths among 138 people formally accused of witchcraft in Finnmark. Not all court records have survived, so the true toll may be higher.

Voices by Klara Blooma Mohn, Anne Mali Sæther and Sven Conradi.

Written, hosted and produced by Lisa Williams.

Inside the Arctic witch hunt that lasted 70 years.

Everyone knows Salem. Almost nobody knows Vardø. On an island at the very top of Norway, 91 people died in the country's deadliest witch hunt, most of them women.

The Vardø Witch Trials. A historical documentary from Lisa Williams.

Launching 1 October, with new episodes weekly.