The Witches of Vardo: THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER: 'Powerful, deeply moving' - Sunday Times

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Perhaps. Or perhaps it was the 1662 panic was the work of one woman–Anne Rhodius. Though her husband was later pardoned, Anne lived in exile in the Vardo fortress until her death in 1672. Her deeds had contributed to the last of the great witch trials in Northern Norway. Though more people were accused in the following decades, only two of those cases led to death sentences. The witch trials of Vardo were over. Steilneset has become a popular stop on the Varanger scenic route, one of Norway's 18 road trips designated National Scenic Routes. The Louise Bourgeois installation at the Vardø memorial PDF / EPUB File Name: The_Witches_of_Vardo_-_Anya_Bergman.pdf, The_Witches_of_Vardo_-_Anya_Bergman.epub

This is a thought-provoking and beautifully told story, one that historical fiction fans won’t want to put down. This novel is unflinching in its portrayal of what awaiting a witch trial meant for the accused. The brutality was severe, the degradations, the inevitable outcome. It is not a novel for the fainthearted, yet it is also not gratuitous in its portrayal. One of them, Ingeborg Iversdatter, confessed under interrogation that she and an adult friend had transformed themselves into cats so they could escape incarceration and take part in a Christmas celebration with Satan. The end of the trialsThe Vardø witch trials ( Heksejakten i Vardø), which took place in Vardø in Finnmark in Northern Norway in 1621, was the first major witch trial of Northern Norway and one of the biggest witch trials in Scandinavia. [1] It was the first of the three big mass trials of Northern Norway, followed by the Vardø witch trials (1651–1653) and the Vardø witch trials (1662-1663), and one of the biggest witch trials in Norway.

My thanks to Bonnier UK Audio and NetGalley for the ALC of “The Witches of Vardø”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook. But legacies live on. Though all of the young girls accused of witchcraft were acquitted, they had all lost their mothers and, in some cases, sisters and aunts, to witchcraft executions. Those that had fathers living were sent home, while the rest–orphaned by a century of tragedy–were taken care of and fostered by other mothers living in Vardo, brought up in new families who tried to move on from the horrors of those dark, cold winters. I'm also not sure how to feel about rewriting Anna Rhodius' history - I have to read more about her, but absolving women who also help enforce brutal systems of responsibility might not be the best idea. Even if in the end, it's the fault of patriarchy. What is interesting about these stories is how fantastical, and yet familiar, they are. Girls learning from their mothers – especially in an age where herbal medicine was common – is nothing new. Traditions had to be passed among the female line, and this could have included folk beliefs and medical remedies that others mistook for witchcraft. Additionally, the tall tales told by the girls were likely fueled by folk beliefs and common knowledge of demology. Maren later, at a court of appeal, stated that Anne Rhodius had misled her to lie against other people by denouncing them for witchcraft. The girls were highly susceptible to influence, and Anne Rhodius’s opinions and learned mind likely ingrained demonological beliefs in them. Additionally, all three girls had seen their mothers executed for witchcraft. Is it a stretch to think that the households they had left would constantly remind them of how witchcraft was believed to run in bloodlines? It is not a huge leap to think that these girls, traumatized by losing their mothers and ingrained with dark folk beliefs, were able to believe in witchcraft, Satan, and their own abilities. This excerpt from Rune Blix Hagen’s “Christmas Witchcraft in 17th-century Finnmark” encapsulates our topic today: remembering witchcraft at the Steilneset Memorial. Designed by artist Louise Bourgeois and architect Peter Zumthor, the memorial opened in 2011. It is two separate buildings. First, there is a 410-foot-long wooden structure framing a fabric cocoon that contains Zumthor’s installation. Using wooden frames, he created sixty bays in a long line which are suspended by cable-stays and coated in fiberglass membranes. Inside is a timber walkway, 328 feet long by five feet wide, with 91 randomly placed small windows that each contain a single lightbulb in memorial of those executed for witchcraft. Second, there is a square smoked glass room, standing 39 feet tall, with Bourgois’s installation entitled The Damned, The Possessed and The Beloved. Using weathering steel and 17 panes of tinted glass, the walls stop just short of the ceiling and floor, leaving gaps. A metal chair with flames projecting through the seat is reflected in seven oval mirrors placed around it. As Bourgois stated, “The perpetual flame…that old chestnut of commemoration and reflection…here is devoid of any redemptive quality, illuminating only its own destructive image.” Steilnest Memorial in Vardo, NorwayAlso, a lot of things in the book just don't make sense. For example, all of Anna's POVs are written like her letters to the king and the way their relationships were in life and the depth of her letters just seems ridiculous. Anna is the King’s prisoner. She longs to return to the mighty Court in Copenhagen, yet the only way to achieve this is to cast her accusing finger on her fellow women. Can you tell me about your depiction of Anna Rhodius? It feels like a counterpoint and rebuke to the usual historical narrative. I immediately wanted to google her story. As the author says this book is one to give voice to the thousands of innocents murdered by the fearful, hateful and petty that manipulated the minds of the superstitious and aggrieved, and to make them echo into the present and future, forever living in the hearts of the people like them.