The Role of Helga Haldorsdottir

Flames roar into the Icelandic night A man screams as he's tied to the stake, condemned for carving magical symbols Pacticing sorcy In seventeenth century Europe, witch hunts were usually aimed at women, but in Iceland is mostly men Why did this frozen island at the edge of the world fear male witches more than female ones Ancient Norse magic, Lutheran paranoia, brrutal landscape collides This is the dark story of Iceland's witch tri fromrom the West fjords of seventeenth century Iceland. this to dark And I'm Kate And we are going to be exploring a very cold dark Dingy gloriously dingy history today. But before we do, we have to explain of course Mardie is still absent. She is fracking in the Alabama I don't know what she's doing anymore. It's getting hard to keep on top of these things. But in her stead we have, of course, the one and only doctor Kate Lister from Bwixt the She. Hello. Now you have a book coming out very shortly. Sure do. How feeling about that? At the moment, it's like that feeling just before Christmas. but you don't know if it's gonna to be exciting or if it's going to be a kick in the ts. It is exciting. it' exciting It's a beautiful book. If nothing else, it's very pretty. Ass really well written Give yourself some credit. Sctacularly well writt. Yeah. genenre defining, I would have called it. Paradig on that. Yes, yeah. Well, don't quote yourself on that doesn No, but it isoneless It's great. It says I enjoy this book myself, so actually. One of the things you did before that book, and I think you were writing the book while you did this was a documentary upon I can't believe I'm saying this because it's not something I was aware of, but Icelandic witch men. Yeah. I think sometimes when We as historians we have are areas of specialism and you obviously write histories of sex and pleasure and you know, I do certain gender stuff and whatever. But at the same time We then Find these little niches that are like, o, come on, that's too amazing to overlook. Talks me a little bit before we get into the Nitty gritty, talks me a little bit about why you were drawn to this particular history? because it is so unusual and I don't think people know about it. No, and that's why I was drawn to it. So the thing that I find really fascinating about the Icelandic Witch trials is that ninety three percent of everyone that was convicted and executed for the criminal witchcraft there was a man Which does rather go against the mold that we're often handed this kind of narrative has sprg up around the witch trials that it was a persecution of women and that it was about the patriarchy. And I'm not going to pretend that that wasn't the case in some places in England and Scotland and in the Americas, but there was plenty of other places Where more men than women were accused. It wasn't just Iceland, it was the case in Russia, it was the case in Lithuania, It was the case in Normandy. in the Burgundi area, it was pretty much fifty fifty. So it's really widespread. It's not the case that this was about targeting women. And one of the things that I find really fascinating about the witch trials, the history thereof, is every time someone thinks they've got a handle on what caused it There's a counterpoint Yeah. There's all like you can say it's about old people. Well, it's not because they were burning children in Germany. It was about women. No, it's not because in Iceland it was almost all men. it was only one woman that they executed. Is it about menopause? No, it's not. Is it mean it's really difficult to get a handle on what the hell is going on. And I think Iceland is really important because we have to write this history back in and whilst it's important to acknowledge the patriarchy and the misogyny at work, we can't do that by conveniently ignoring this part of the history. So I think that it gives us a richer understanding of what was happening at this particular period in history. and it's not as simple is let's get the women, it's just not that simple. And I think like It can still be patriarchy and misogyny and affect men, right? Yeah because this is one of the things we talk about in our own society now a lot is going, S see the ways in which that's Absolutely ruin your lives, lads. L have a look at that there as well for your own. One of the most fascinating things about this for me is the landscape in which this takes place. I know it might seem like a small detail, but I know when you filmed the documentary, which is on History at TV now You went there I remember texting you the time going, I get to go to Yorkshire where I live, you get to go to Iceland. Elor's another one. She's off in Avingon or wherever and I'm in Skegess or whatever Scarborough. Not that there's anything wrong with those places, by the way, Beautiful. But you know, it's a little bit more glamorous Give us an idea of when you're filming there In terms of this idea of landscape Darkness And then we'll lay the story, the history on top of that. It's so insanely beautiful. It's Iceol. L it's ridiculous to the point where like it's showing off really. L you can't really take it all in. I remember we would go into one of these big tourist destinations and I can't remember the name of it, but it's a huge waterfall. the most beautiful, massive waterfall we've ever seen. But on the way to the waterfall, you're passing multiple other waterfalls and glaciers and like lava streams and like things that here would definitely be a tourist destination. there you're just passing them on the way to the really beautiful thing It' it's ludicrously Stunning to the point where you're like the northern lights are overhead and there's volcanoes and there's glaciers and you're just like what is this place? This is unreal. And when you go there, or at least when I went there, I was like, I definitely don't believe in witches but like you stood underneath the northern lights and you're in this crazy landscape. A actually maybe trolls could be real. Yeah Yeah other than that. There any green lights in the sky. I don't know anything about It seems like a really magical landscape. There there's like points in the in the earth have opened up where it's like water' now bubbling up because of the lava flow underneath it and that's just they're just ten a penny in Iceland them There's something about the landscape that does seem magical and because so much of it is formed on lava flow, that there's a real unworldlyness to the landscape of it almost looks like you're on Mars, but you're not. It just' without doubt the most beautiful place I've ever been to. Yeah. When I went, it was the time of essentially Almost never ending dark. I think we have maybe an hour and a half. Go Try and go in there's daylight Yeah. So did you have daylight when you were filming? We did. We were very lucky. We went sort of September time and there was a pretty good balance between daytime and nighttime We were talking before we pressed record on this and I was like, okay, when When is this because We're talking about the early seventeenth century, I think. And what's going on in Iceland at this time. Like how is it defin? Is it the Iceland We know Or it is it a strange and magical land Iceland is it's a very isolated community at this point.'s obviously it's an island, it's off by itself. It's part of the Kingdom of Denmark Oh So it's ruled by them, but they're obviously quite a way away, but that's supposed to be where all their laws and courts coming from. It is primarily agricultural and it's fishing and you've got little dots of villages here there and everywhere with an estimated population of about forty thousand. in the early in the early be quite a lot, really? Well, it's more than you'd think. Yeah. but the majority of people they living in peat houses Very very small community. you said that like when you went, it's almost always dark. Imagine that in the seventeenth century. It's like the place is pitch black, right? See, now that really does appeal to me though. D yeah? Would you hate us So the whole time I' say obviously in summer, it's almost twenty four hours sunlight. I was trying to work out which one of those I prefer. Total sunlight or total darkness. I think I'd go for total darkness. I'd go for total darkness, one hundred percent. I wouldn't even need to think about it. I think I don't, and I don't mean to make light of people who have an actual seasonal affective disorder., but I am definitely happier in darker lurking. Yeah lurking. Yeah rotting in a corner. We're like, Don't go near me. And also there's less expectation to be socialable. Yeah, that's true.. That's true. And I know how I feel about that. I do know how you feel about that. We were supposed to go to a thing last night. didn't go We didn't go We We just We had pizz and beer And that sums up what I would be doing in the dark months. We had much more fun. We did. But in the dark months in Iceland in the seventeenth century, you would be sat around telling stories. We think that Yeah. that's what they do. They would little communities get together and people would be telling stories and you'd be around the fire and you'd be doing crafts. And it had been that way for a very, very long time. And the other thing you need to know is that it's very deeply Christian and we've got Lutheranism just starting to move in. And then obviously all of the witch trials happen against the backdrop of the Reformation of Protestant and Catholic absolutely going to war with one another, that underpins all of this. Before we even get there, because this springs from what you were saying earlier about, Oh know, the Northern lights are going mad up there, lads. and you know then we've got this like undulating lava formed ground And before we get to that kind of Christianization of Iceland, the other thing that's underpinning all of this is a belief in magic like it's quite famously Nordic or Norse folk beliefs that are coming in there that that magic is etched onto this landscape and we'll talk about how that Tension arises with religious aspects that you just talked about there This is scattered throughout this as well. So like it's not that big a leap for people to be thinking there might be magic aroundrest. No, And it's for as long as there've been people on that island, they've been practicing folklore and magic. It is steeped in Norse influence. It was colonized by the Vites who colonized. I don't think anyone else was there it turned out Irish people went apparently. We did this We to really I don't think we colonized. Did you turn it? you went No saidw this l. No, I we were just did you Oh sorry. Yeah sorry, Isid. but the Vikings turned up and around about the tenth century and then it was finally Christianized like a hundred or so years later. so it's really close. And there had always been this tradition of magic. It's everywhere, except they probably wouldn't W have even called it magic? they understood they called it white magic and black magic. So white magic is good magic and you can see like runes carved in to everything. They have runes for everything. They have runes for health, for prosperperity, for good luck, to keep the animals safe, to keep you allright on a journey, to make sure you get a good night's sleep, so protect like everything, these runic symbols carved everywhere and that just underpins that culture. It's and for the longest time, it wasn't anything weird, it was just what people did. I love that. I love this idea. They wouldn't even have seen it as magic just a thing. They didn't. In fact, I think it was in sixteen seventeen King Christian F of Denmark brings in a law that kind of kicks off the witch hunts across that region and then eventually in Iceland. and he says that they have to outlaw all magical practice and he makes a distinction between good magic and bad magic and he says, goodood magic, please stop that. I'm paraphrasing. he doesn't say exactly that. He says that you must't do it anymore. Bad magic should be punished on pain of death. So he even in that decgree, he's acknowledged that there is a kind of magic that everybody does partart of the course, it's like crossing your fingers or knocking on wood. It's just what people do. and then there's bad magic And is this where that tension that you were mentioning earlier about Lutheranism really starting to seep in? Is that what's happening here? The problem is is that when the witch hunt craze gets to Iceland this really entrenched and long standing tradition of folklore looks like witchcraft So it's something that everybody's been doing. It's knoc on wood, crross your fingers, saluting at magpies, only there're like putting down ros. Suddenly that comes into conflict with the Christian faith. We're trying to stamp all of this out. We need to get rid of it. And something that everybody did and it had been going on for centuries now looked suspicious and strange. And it's funny like you're talking about periods of time where actually there's not an awful lot of time to make these adjustments. So people are still doing still doing things that you mentioned that are ancient to that l. Maybe not even thinking about. It's like so into the culture that you would just put runes on your home, you wouldd have them on I guess, but like bits of leather and you'd keep them about your person and you might have amulets, It was just what everybody did. You you know what I'm really aware of as you're describing this and I've never thought about it like this before, but in Ireland, when because it was for such a long time, religion was so ingrained in just society, not even in religious society, but just in society in general E now, my parents' generation or even my generation even when they're not religious If they pass by religious sites, they will bless themselves. it's that kind of thing that kind of thing. It's like if you ask most people, do you believe in magic? I think most people probably say no. but if you actually like seriously sit down and think, do you have little superstitions, like weird things that you do to yourself, if you spill the salt, do you throw it, do you bless yourself? Do you touch words? do you like all of these little customs and superstitions that we all still cling on to in the year of our Lord twenty twenty six when like we still don't like most of us like, o, I'm antheist, I don't believe it at all. But for some reason, you're still not going to risk it. What do you hold on to? What are the ones that you find yourself doing? Salute and Mag pie Do you know, actually when we were in Iceland, this is interesting because I'm team non believer. I listen to the Uncanny podcast. every single time it comes out and I'm still team not believer. I'm an atheist, I'm science all the way. Yeah. We had this plan that when we're in Iceland we were actually going to do a curse. We're actually going to get a proper curse and I was going curse I was going to release a curse we were going to like put this rudic thing out. And when push cameame to shove None of us can do it. just case case. like I've almost fel mad at myself but like just can't. What if it is true? And there's this whole thing going, but it's not cate. It's not. You're just drawing something on a piece of paper. it I couldn't do it. And because you were afraid of the impact it would have on the other person or because of the idea of it returns back on again. What if it hurt? Somebody there was an experiment, I actually think it was on a Tony Robinson documentary on mononsters and it was exactly This. They got a group of scientists so the absolute non believer here rational logic. and all they asked them to do is they printed out pictures of their loved ones, of their children, of their partner, of their parents and asked them to rip it in half and say a curse on them. I wouldn't do it. None of them could do it. None of them could do it. despite all of their knowledge and all of their that this isn't real. So we still have this part of ourselves Do you know what just in case Do you know what I've done, which is slight madness and I apologize for what I'm about to Confessor H which talkks about Magpice and saluting magpies. I don't do that because I had to try and stop I physically went stop. stoped doing it. It became a bit obsessive compulsive. It became a bit obsessive comp impulsive. But now what I have done is, honest to God, this is ridiculous, I've adopted the magpie as my animal So now anytime I see a magpie, it's a good thing regardless. This all sounds very healthy. Thank you. I think I'm in a really good mental space. and But is't it're funny the way like we No it's not funny, it's mad c grave mental illness. Yeah Shn't be allowed out. But like look how we still hold on to this stuff just in case. Now imagine yourself in seventeenth century Iceland with lava flows and it's pitched black and and you believe thoroughly this stuff and someone's gone, there's a witch. I would be I hate to say but it's probably true to say I'd be like a witchfinder genereral or something because I'd be so obsessed Everybody thinks that they would be one of the people going, hang on a minute. I don't think we should do this. The truth is you probably wouldn't 'use you would believe in this stuff as much as everyone else and you'd be terrified. You'd be terrified. And speaking of being terrified There is source material That's coming out at this time. like there's a lot of printed material printed material is becoming more and more popular across the world at this point, but certainly printed material around witchcraft is now starting to really, really find homes for itself. And it's telling you Why you should be afraid of witches and that they are real they're not even arguing that they're real No they They know they're real. So tell us about the Malis Malficarum. we hear this a lot in after Dark. so how does it feed into this That fricin b idea. I think one of the things that we need to say first of all, is the Malis Malfaramum didn't invent witches. is witches have been around for a very, very, very long time. The Romans believed in witches and executed witches And I know that because Professor Ronaloldd Hutton told me. And if he says something, you can put the pot on for it. It's true. You don't need to read anything else. Don't need to read anything else. He's right. it comes to witchcraft. So he told me that and now I believe that entirely. Right. So they it's been around for a long time, but what happens is you get suddenly this belief that witches are the devil incarnates and that they are there to wreak his havoc on earth. This is a slight shift in beliefs before. The Mafus Mafacarum was an influential witch finding manual written by a maniac, right? It wasn't the only one. They probably still would have happened even if this book had never been written, but it was Big one Okay and it's written by a monk or F an arrsle called Kramer who was so mad that he got thrown out of several villages for being We creey and like creeping on women and trying to get them executed. But it's very, very clear and explicit that the devil is here and he is recruiting primarily women but men as well do his evil will and that you need to find them And it sets off just, I mean, this and other things at the time, but it sets off this paranoia and in this religious tumult of Catholics versus Protestants and we're all trying to be the most holy, suddenly witches become a way to prove that you're holy because you can find them and you can fight them and they become this real thing and you're doing God's work and you're going Get them. And it takes over and it's just it all happens over the span of like one long lifetime. It's just I know it's not as neat as this, but when I think about it, I almost think of like it starts and then it kind of ends almost as fast as if people just suddenly went, what will we do what will we do doing in that? embarrassing. Like they've just like come to in Tesco of just like, what on earth have why have I got bomfire wood with me? This is crazy stuff But it kind of peters out almost as quickly. And yeah, it took a while to get to Iceland. It was one of the later ones. It's so true about this it's snapshot in time in some ways. and I think that this this intensity of this period of time is certainly something that you know, experts on witchcraft have looked at for a lot of generations for a very good reason. By the time it gets to Iceland, as you have very neatly led us to, we have this thing then. Are you going to need to tell me about this because I'm a little bit confused about exactly what it is Beastie? Oh right, okay, so One of the things now I said at the beginning that it's hard to find constants throughout the witch trials, but one constant that you always seem to get is a religious zealot with an agenda. that he's got something to prove. You have that in Salem and have you have that in Pendle, you have that in Scotland. he will be as a fella there, right? And in Iceland, there was a few of them but this guy is called BSN And he wrote a book that translates to like the markark of the deevil, or again, Icelandic people, I'm so sorry. I'm going to butch you your beautiful language and I'm so sorry. about this it's called bestestie or Beastie and that's what it translates to. And basically it's malefus, Malficarm fan fiction You can tell that he's very heavily influenced by it because he's basically he copies quite a lot of it. so that's what the book is and he publishes his own version. He went abroad and he learnnt about all of the witches and then he brings them back Iceland and he publishes his own book on it. And so then this becomes the Icelandic specific. witchcraft looks like in Iceland? is that or is it more general? It's more It's what's going to be used in Iceland. It's what he's going to use to try and persecute witches, but it's really just the mafus Maficarum, just just repeated, basically Right. So what we're going to see is that this starts to have an effect on actual everyday lives. It does. but things have been kicking off in Iceland for a while. There's been some rumlings. There was in the sixteenth century, going back a hundred years, there were accusations of witchcraft and people being accused of witchcraft. but usually the punishment was just don't do it again. That was like even when like they've been accused of black magic, if you accused blackmagic in the fifteen hundreds, it would be a slap on the wrist and like't that's not good. donon't do that. So the things that they were really upset about were sexual crimes, like women were being drowned for adultery and things like that Then we get into the sixteenth century and suddenly the law changes and you start to get Malius Malfear and Books and Palbierson writing his own. but the first person who was executed for witchcraft was a guy called John Ragnoldviersen and he was than you. And he was arrested in sixteen seventeen for raising a zombie Yeah, and he wasn't given a trial or anything. They kept him in prison tntil sixteen twenty five and then he was burnt to death The Icelandic people burnt them to death. And this is under the Witchcraft Act? Jo, this thing is this was totally illegal. Like none of this should have been happening in Iceland because they had a law that said all of their trials should be tried by a court in Denmark, not by local magistrates, which is what happens here. So they're not even supposed to be doing this. and it takes about four years for the King of Denmark or somebody over there to go Hang on a minute that You're supposed to But they're not supposed to doing it, but they get so carried away with it, they crack on regardless. Right, Tking about cracking on, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to talk about the trial specifically As the saying goes, if these walls could talk. And on the Bwixt the Sheets podcast, we make it our business to discover what happened behind closed doors and even more importantly, in the bedrooms of people all throughout history. Kings, queens, mistresses, servants, and everyone in between. We also get up close and personal with medieval aphrodysiacs, lethal Victorian makeup routines, and look at the scandalous lives of beloved children's authors. Nothing is off limits. In other words, it's the best bits of history with me, Dr. Kate Lister. Listen to but twwix the sheets the history of sex scandal and society twice a week every week, wherever it is that you get your podcasts, brought to you by the award winning network, History Hit Now, what I find fascinating about this and the trials that we are about to talk about is. when we talk about the salem witch trials It is a number of trials, but it's one story, one time. What we're going to discover here is that this is over the course of a generation or as you said earlier, like a long lifespan kind of It's not one time, it's not one person. It's not one incident. We're talking about a collection of things here. Yeahep. So it start first guy arrested for raising zombies sixteen seventeen. I think the last fella burnt alive was sixteen eighty five So it's that kind of spread. Interestingly though, it's almost all confined to the west fjords of Iceland. almost all happens there. It's as if other people near other parishes were just looking at them like what on earth Are you doing? It was almost all concentrated up in the West Fjord So takaking to the sixteen fifties, there's a trial there. So we've gone from sixteen seventeen for raising a zombie, which is inssane. And now we're in sixteen fifties, what's this fell out Yeah. So this is called the Kirky Ball Witch T trials. and this it takes right. So the thing we need to talk about everyone's name at this period is everyone is known pretty much by their first name. and if they have a surname, it's their father's first name with son on the end if you're a man and dottier if it's your daughter, right So we've got at the center of this is a father and son who accused, who arere both called Johnhn Johnon. no gets So we'll call him Big John and littleittle John. Love it.. Right. o. And the guy who's accusing them is a local priest called John Magnuson. R? John? Another John. And he suddenly starts to he experiences feeleeling sick, he has night terrors. He says that one of the weirdder things he says that he felt a dog running across his feet's like it's quite intense or like he felt cats walking across him and things like. He's convinced that it is Big John and Little John that are cursing him, and he thinks that this is because he refused little John the right to marry one of his maids or his daughter or something like that So he really starts to pile on the pressure. They are arrested interrogated. and the first time they kind of go, no What that wasn't. And then the authorities seem to go, okay, don't do that again. And then but then he keeps being s and he keeps piling on the pressure and then he has them arrested again. And another quirk of Icelandic law at the time is your trial pretty much came to. Can you get twelve people to say you definitely didn't do it If you can get twelve people to say you definitely didn't do this, we'll let you off Oh I kind of like that. You like that? It's not robust. it's an interesting Act hold on, I hate it I hate it. comeome on because like you can pay people. you can pay people, you can bribe people. Andost people get scared. if you're accused of witchcraft. and I was saying in the other episode like how social stigma and taints work is like like an easy comparison, but like the Epstein cases like the taint of it is almost like Its a weird parallelsrop between the witch trials, but I'm just saying like when someone's accused of something or they're in any kind of orbit to it or if you are anywhere close to it, people run a mile. So are you going to get twelve people to stand up for you and say he definitely didn't raise a zombie? Yes. ye. Definitely, definitely. I've been around zombie raising and he didn't do it He didn't do it. right? I think that the first time bigig Joh and littleittle John are dragged before the courts like they're let off And then he keeps trying keeps applying pressure and he keeps keeps and keeps going at it. And eventually they're locked in a prison. There doesn't seem to be any evidence of torture, but absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence as we know. And eventually, Big John and Little John crack and they confess Which is so I'm not sure what they were doing. They found runes in their houses, but everybody had runes, right? And they were accused of using a particularly nasty rune on John Magnuson, the Fart Res Fart The fart Runes.. Yeah, the Fetter Runes, which was when you there's it's written down in one of the Grimwells for much much later on, but it's basically a curse that you die from shitting and farting de I swear people make shit up and they come on this podcast just to get me through. I promise that that's true. I promise. But when you read it sounds like, obviously it's funny because it's farting, but it sounds a lot like dysentery when you're reading the description. It's like your guts will be burst asunder, you will have no peace. you're basically gonna shit yourself to death. That that That's not glamorous. That's not a good curse that one. It wouldn't be a nice way to go Obviously you'd recognize the hilarity of it because it's a fart room, but you also died. So that's not good. No But they fessed up. They said that, yeah, yeah, we did do this. It's all weird as to why people do this. They were burnt to death. But then this is the really crap thing. John Magnuson went to the courts to say that he should be compensated for everything they did and all of their lands should be forfeit to him. was it It was. Yeah. It was dead. It was Big John's daughter whose name was Fuffyther An Irish person could never say that.ir Thir No I couldn't do it. So Thurir and then she challenges him and he accuses her of witchcraft. Yeah, so she has to go to court to defend herself. She drops out of the records. It looks like she won that one. But she had to watch her father and her brother be burnt to death by this maniac and have all of their lands confiscated by this guy. Yeah, it's really nasty. And it still comes back to this thing. We see it in Salem. again, you know, where so many people talk about water are the reasons behind sale and happening and what happens,ah,ah. And there's so many different things, but one of them is land land Where it's like I'd actually really like your man's plot over there h seems to I think that what it does is it inflames existing tensions the witch trials. It's like whatever it is was already there before. it's just lit a touch aper to it It's just there's a dispute of a lou if people are angry at one another, it suddenly becomes a really easy and convenient way to do it. I know a few people who I'd like to accuse of witchcraft. Witch Yeah What are we going to do about that I don't think I mean we could try now. I don't think it would fly. We could try a partart really. You don't know the person I'd like to accuse. R If you did, people people might I'll vouch for you. if you need twelve people Telve people, you could be number one. Y. Okay ye He was with me the entire time. I will say I can't go into us. It'll be too identifiable. Okay, nextxt trial in Iceland is another John, John Leafson, but we're leaping forward now to sixteen sixty nine. Yeah, so this is this the guy is accused, John Lefson and he's accuteed. So you've got again, it's a priest Paul Bierson, the one who wrote the book. and his wife Helga Haldal Dota Right? Now the nice thing about the ISO wit not nice, It's all horrible. but the Iceom witch trials is kind of like women like where are you in this L that they're not beingilled but they're sort of like taking a back seat. and then you meet Heelga and you're like Hga stay out of us. Stam it, Halga Damn it. letting inside down. So she starts to exhibit all of these illnesses much like John Magnusson was doing. She has night terrors, sweats, screams, she's not herself. she's in pain. She says that she's been bewitched obviously and it just happens that her husband has written this really influential tract on on which findings look out Right? And then the person that they reckon did it is this guy John Lefson, who did ask to marry one of her maids and she said, no So there's a lot of marriage's a lot of marriagey stuff. Ownership still going on. Yeah. like why why would someone be mad at you? Well, they might be mad at me because I didn't give them permission for this that and the other. So poor old John Lefson is hauled off found to have like a runic inscription about his person somewhere and is suddenly tried and then executed, burnt to death, another one. And you think that would shut Hellgar up but she gets sick again She gets sick again then and then more people rounded up and accused of witchcraft again and more people are executed. I think by the time she's finished with this, like a third of all the people that are going to be executed in Iceland, she's taken them all out. She has. Yeah, just by saying that she I'm sick again And Paully again. There was her mad husband running around. With his book? With his book saying, you know, you're a wich, you're wich and you're wich There's two things going on there with Helga, I think to bear in mind. One is she could be lying, right? Let's look She could be lying. She could be manufacturing this to just exert power and to be influential. And also there's this thing always in these witchcraft trials where Sometimes the finger does get pointed back, but actually if you're the one doing a lot of accusing and pointing the hardest, doesn't always turn itself around to you because you're the victim and you've positioned yourself as such. And you see that in Salem as well But the other thing is In the fervor, the religious fervor of what you believe. and we've talked about the landscape earlier in the episode where the green lights are in the sky, the lava' on the ground The rooms are in everyone's house to believe that strongly And you know it's all very tempting to try and understand from our perspective and to psychologicalize it technical term You could make yourself ill. I think I think a lot of this would be psychoosematic. Right? I think because you have to Helger believes in witches. She believes absolutely. This is in fact it's not even something you believe in. it's real This is just what happens. and her husband is the one who's gonna to help us find who these witches are. I mean you it could easily be psychosematic or it could be any one of the nameless illnesses that people She couldn't identify at the time or be maybe it was a mental illness. Who the hell knows? Yeah. Who knows what it was? But she was certain that she's been cursed. Yeah, and I guess that's my point. It's that she from her position probably believe you she's saying and absolutely is convicted of is strong in her convictions. What happens to him then is they're all executed. They're all executed. They're all dragged off to the Icelandic Parliament, called at a place called Thingveet to the Thingy, which is their parliament. and they would be burnt to death. And there was one that Heelgw accused, name was Lassie, I think They tried to burn him and it started raining and it came and it was put out the fire three times before they could actually. But they kept going. And then the priest on Paal Biersen on his way home fell over and broke his leg and everyone thought that was a sign that Lassie must have been innocent. like I found particularly freaky when I learned h tes, right? Iceland doesn't have a lot of trees. Right? So the Vikings turned up there and went, Ohh, there's loads of trees and they cut them all down. But because it's dark all winter, they don't grow very fast. They grow really, really slowly the trees. so they're very much preserved. Wood is very, very precious. By the time you get to the seventeenth century, wood is extremely precious, which is why most of the houses are built at peak, they had to go to special lengths to build the bonfires yeah. They had to go really scavenge and find enough wood to be able to burn these people to death. And I don't know whyether that just makes it even more horrible. We're willing to sacrifice. Yeahah this very, very precious resource to do this. But yet, Helga, she seems to keep being poorly and more people are being executed And then eventually she moves and I'm not even sure what happens to her at the end of it. presumably she kept being sick, but by this time People askar as with all of the witch trials, eventually somebody somewhere at the back goes I have a question Yeah eventually. And soon as that as soon as people start going, hang on a minute, like the whole thing crumbled unravels so quickly. L in the Essex trials when people started publishing things about that lunatic Matthew Hopkins, people started going,h, they're just old women. What on earth are you doing? And then when people start common sense starts coming into it, it unravels really, really fast. And that's what happened in Iceland as well We're going to talk in cold hard numbers or try to when we come back after the break and talk about the impact and legacy of these witch trials in Iceland As the saying goes, if these walls could talk, and on the Bwixt the Sheets podcast, we make it our business to discover what happened behind closed doors and even more importantly, in the bedrooms of people all throughout history. kings, queens, mistresses, servants, and everyone in between. We also get up close and personal with medieval aphrodysiacs, lethal Victorian makeup routines, and look at the scandalous lives of beloved children's authors. Nothing is off limits In other words, it's the best bits of history with me, Dr. Kate Lister. Listen to but twwix the sheets of the history of sex scandal in society twice a week every week, wherever it is that you get your podcasts, brought to you by the award winning network History Hit R right let's talk about very hard in all witchcraft cases, which is to try and talk about numbers in terms of like how this actually impacted many how many people were killed, say I have here in front of me that it's about twenty one or twenty two people who are executed. Yes, it's twenty one, definitely, twenty two possibly there is a reference to maybe a woman being killed, but we're not sure and This is over the that whole time period from sixteen seventeen to sixteen, eighty five was the last. Okay. Okay, sos it's a good old span.. stillill twenty one people, potentially twenty two. so it's not it's nothing. Totally accused But this is interesting. A hundred and seventy individuals are accused over that period of time It's a lot really. Especially in small communities. Well the thing he's got to memember is it's very much concentrated in the West Fjords. And these are very small rural communities. You absolutely would know the people who were being useded. It's not like a big sprawling metropolis. Th These are just isolated little clusters of peat houses living together, little villages. Everybody would know everybody This is the male witch trial of the most famous male witch trials to some people. How do we know what percentage we'reen? ninety three percent. ninety three percent of them Wh, it totally skews to against everything we think we know. Absolutely. And you know the leading theory why again, this comes from Ronald. so it's true. It's true. It's just right,'s just true. We didn't look any further. But I think that he makes a very, very good point as if I can judge what he says. But his argument is that Wherever the people were targeted, the demographic is Whoever had a preree existing association with witchcraft? So in England and in Scotland and in America in the Germanic countries, there is an idea that women are naturally more inclined towards witchcraft than men are You see that on the Maleifus Malefarib? kind of that's really ancient thing. L the oracles at Delphi, they were all women. and like when we think about the figure of a witch, you think of a woman. it's not it's quite a gendered word, even. like you'd say ye Yeah, like witches and wizards, wizards the boy ones, right? So we have a real association that women the more magical sex, but in Iceland and in Slovenia and Russia and Normandy, it was men who are considered to be more magical. And particularly in Iceland it's because the crime involved reading You had to be able to read, to educate yourself, to carve these runes, to conduct the magic, and that was a male preserve Oh, that's fascinating. right in northern France, shepherds were accused and targeted. The biggest demographic by far. and it's because shepherds were thought to have like magical qualities. Right. So and in Russia, it was wandering itinerant who are almost always men because it's much harder for women to be wandering around you knowree freely for obvious reasons. So it was wanderers, beggars, people like that in Russia. In Iceland it was associated with written magic, which was a male preserve. That's am. I love that detail. They were more targeted. So what you're looking for is any group of people that have that association, that there's something they are able to channel magic. And in Iceland, women just weren't It's so interesting that it comes down to something as practical as that. Practical as that.. Can you do you have the literacy to do this? Right? Yes no It was just more believable to them. Of course it would be a man Of course it would be a man that could do it. Men have to read and write to be able to do it. Whereas over here, In this country, our tradition was like, well, yeah, old women. they're witches. And so divorced from literacy or from the written word rather because there's a literacy in terms of plants, understanding plants and all that kind of thing. And that is more associated with women. Actually, you never hear she wrote down a spell in seventeenth century England. never hear she said it. Yeah. that she was mumbling it or she was or she crushed something or she burned something or she she made something puppets, et cetera. Yes. but never she wrote No something. 'ause you've got to be literate in order to be able to do that I think I think that that's a really strong reading of what was going on is that it's whoever was had the most immediate association, whoever you believed possible of doing magic And it wasn't women in Iceland because they couldn't write. So you went, you were filming this, what a year ago now? Yeah ago, somethingomet like that How present do you think it is like in the tourist thing? Becauseuse like they love it. it Is it really there? Is there a huge impact basically? Yeah, it's like Pendle.'s like they've got the Museum of Witchcraft and Sorcery, which is fabulous and I recommend anybody. How did I not go there when I was there I didn't even. They've also got a Penis museum, which we didn't get time to go to. I did know that I was there. I didn't go to that one either. yeah. No, but I didn't go Next time Next time Penises and witches. If the Icelandic tourist board want to fly Kate and I over to the witch Museum and the Penis Museum, we'll both go. We'll make the weirdest documentary ever. It be ye yeah, it would be quite weird I will love it. Still do. I happy to do it. Yeah. And how did it impact the culture? That's I mean how did the witch trials impact any culture? I often think of that as like you think of the witch trials that they' absolute when they're burning neighbors. I have to think like what was it like in the aftermath Like when things had calmed down and when it had basically fallen out of fashion and when the person at the back had gone h You've gott to try and live in this community. And you burnt Margaret's And you burnt Margaret's? Yeah you bunch of bastards. And like you got to sit there and look at Margaret's daughter at church and like know what you did and like the aftermath of that, how people process that, that blows my mind. I can't even begin to think of it. So it was very much like it was in the rest of Europe. It kind of just died away And something else that was interesting, it was a guide for the National Park in Iceland and he said that another thing that you see in the Witch trials is it's not just who's the most closely linked with magic. It's where you get communities trying one another And then you get the witchcraft. as soon as that is's decentralized and taken to a bigger court. L in Scotland, the witch hunts suddenly came to nothing because they started to say, you have to send the witches to London to be investigated. In Iceland, suddenly they had to start sending them over to Denmark or get somebody over. And now it's not communities trying one another. There's an oversight And that has an impact as well It suddenly falls away. So actually within that, you could kind of conclude that witchcraft in the seventeenth century, generally speaking, is very useful for communities. veryer harmful but it's useful for certain manoeuvers, power maneuvers, local manoeuvers And in that sense, it does introduce this idea of manipulation and yes belief. I don't think we can lose sight of that, but also the idea that there are power structures here and they're being manipulated. Always someone on the makeake There is always someone who wants to make their name, whether it was Matthew Hopkins, the witchfinder G general, whether it was King James, the sixth se writ in his demonology, whether it was Pal Beierton Wave in his book around. There's always someone somewhere who's going to make a name for themselves in this community by riding it of witches. And What an easy way to do it as well to point the finger go, that's the devil I found them and got rid of them. And it's never a woman No Ram That's not coming to mind very quickly. mean, Well, women did play a part in this because we know that they were employed as witch prickers in the Essex witch trials. They were the ones that would like torture them basically and try and find these marks on. Yeah, but they're never the ones on the make. No. no, they're much stranger, like Helga. What are you doing? Yeah. Yeah, what doing It's second it's insidious and it's dangerous, donon't get me wrong and they're they're not leading it. But they're never the one waving the book. I wonder what would have happened if a woman had emerged to the wom going, actuallyct, I'm a woman. I can speak on this It's her kind of actually I'm a liar and a thief. I've completely overlooked the most obvious witch trial. Salem Salem, yes. They' they're girls. Well they were accusing one another, weren't they? Yeah they were all accusing one another. So so that that is Okay, they're teenage girls or young very young adults in some cases, but It's definitely female. But under the auspices of that pastor guy. Y man m on the makeake. mother yet. Yeah. he's the one on the makeake. Yeah, exactly. so there still is Something else, there still is a man up there that's going to write the book that's not going to make him that much money actually, but that's his intention. iss to make him slightly famous. So again, there's yeah, so he he's the one on the make as well. Yeahah. Saring people, manipulating people. And as you said, like they did believe this stuff. Yeah. I don't think, I mean, it's interesting one of the girls from Salem years later did actually confess that she just went along with the others. I can't remember her name You don't see that very often of people going actually, yeah, I did Yeah did I did make that up. I think a lot of the time like you were saying, they do believe this. They get really swept up in it and away with it and it must have seem terrifying like the devil's here He's going to get yeah Yeah, because he exists. He exists. Where can people watch this documentary? You can watch it on History Hit And what's it called? It's called Witch Man Witch T trials in the land of Ice and Fire. Oh The title in it. Nice title. Annie thought of that? Yeah, she's very good. She is very good. The old history and TV team are great. L the work that they do. They're very sturdy. Annie.ike, Oh my go. They're a sturdy breed on TV. by day five I was walking around Iceland winging just like Annie talks to me like a small toddler and I'm walking around and going, I'm hungry, I'm cold. I want a sandwich. You so I can sit down. C say. I don't want to be h, don I cant have a cup of tea. I don't wantan to do it. I I'll say my lines. Give me a dio. she's got snacks in a bag. She goes, haveave that. Yay, Okay, I'll do the next scene now