The Torsåker Witch Trials | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is more [Music] bad I decid to be a little silly all
right a little silly goofy just a little bit it's October everyone obviously it's
October oober it is October and I'm very excited about that cuz you know October
is the best bur there is yeah I didn't have a comeback for that I I like my brain just was like she the
thing was Ash looked up like she was going to say something and then just just froze yeah yeah yeah you know but
either way it's unavoidable to talk about October is great I [ __ ] love October leaves are changing we're in New
England so we get the best of it nny nanny boo boo she said [ __ ] y'all I was going to say Salem night oh the Sal
night [ __ ] spooky movies there you go there's going to be a [ __ ] saw prequel there's a hell
House LLC prequel uh the new Monster High movie premieres this weekend very excited about that weird that I like
that because I only like it because my nieces showed it to me we're going to have a movie night for it's going to be
a lot of fun just spooky [ __ ] the the Saw movie the new Saw movie My Girl Sydney at horror Chronicles I've shouted
her out her Tik Tok before on here she's awesome I trust her implicitly with horror movie recommendations and reviews
like seen if she tells me something isn't good I'm like [ __ ] it I'm not going to try that like I just I'm like I
get she gets it she said that the new saw is her favorite horror movie of the entire year wow and she was like barely
able to even contain how much she loved it she said it was phenomenal I want to see movies early I want to have that
privilege I know I like that I like that too um I really want to see it though remember one day when we just watched
all the Saw movies and John came home and was like what are you guys doing my God it was before I had kids yeah and I
had like no I think I was still a teenager so I had like no responsibilities we watch however many
were out at that time we watched them back to back yeah I think it took us two days actually I think I ended up coming
back like a week or so later and John was like are you guys doing this again like what is happening you guys all
right those were the days you know sitting down and watching a movie uh but yeah so you know lots of fun stuff
happening all it's a great month hey hey hey I'm what's happening I hope you're having a great month I hope everybody
kills it this month so I think we should just get into our next spooky really uh kind of off-putting story oh
great uh because we're going to talk about the torer witch trials torer torker T they
are Swedish o uh which was a journey in the pronunciation department but yeah here's the thing to our Swedish
listeners um Tobias Forge if you're listening that includes you obious but of course I iully went through and I
tried my damnest on each of these pronunciations can confirm yep I said them out loud several times I listened
to several versions of the pronunciation with no warning yeah I really I did my due diligence here I tried I know I'm
not going to kill it because I myself am not Swedish I don't know I thought you sounded great thank you I appreciate
that but to my Swedish listeners and anyone who loves a Swedish listener uh I'm trying so hard and I hope I do you
proud yeah Elena uh randomly just started listening to pronunciations and practicing them while I was working on
my case so I was typing and then all of a sudden it was like I'm not going to try cuz I I that'll be like bad but I
was like uh what's happening like what are you calling me literally I was like excuse me I was like don't worry
fighting words but yeah this one's going to be interesting it's one that I didn't
know about until recently it's we we have a very like obviously everybody thinks of the Salem
Witch Trials yeah which again wild in the US not a scarier or more cited example of mass hysteria and
scapegoating than the Salem witch trials in 1692 to 1693 but even though they were super
they're obviously very significant very horrifying they were kind of small in scale when compared to the centuries
long witch hunts and trials that occurred across Europe cuz we've mentioned that before with some of the
ones that you've like dived in dove into dived into dived into dived Dove Dove it
dove into oh no dived sorry I became Swedish for this so I don't know how to do this no I think I think I can't help
you like I dove right into that sounds good to me either way uh the trials in the uh the trials and witch Huts that
happened in Europe over the 16th and 17th centuries are the scale is massive it's uncomprehensible to be
incomprehensible I'm Swedish I'm sorry I forgot how to speak English like I forgot we just forgot English entirely I
guess I'm going trip over all the English and say the Swedish perfectly but either way while countries
with high rates of accusations and executions like Germany and England tend to kind of be the thing that people
focus on when they think about Western interest in witch hunts they were definitely not the only European
countries where supposed and alleged witches were pursued with much Vigor yeah evidently in the Swedish Parish of
tour shorer I believe that's how you say it uh for example years of Hysteria over
Witchcraft and black magic led to a massive trial known as the torer witch trials in 1674 and
1675 so before the Salem wit trials okay um this is where a truly unbelievable amount of people were executed in one
single day oh in one day one day damn and we'll get to it so let's talk about fear of Witchcraft in Europe at the time
because it really is a wild thing to peek through fear of Witchcraft is lame so throughout the early modern period of
1350 to 1500s so this is way back I like that it said early modern period of Europeans understanding of witchcraft
in sorcery was a little different to what it would become in the centuries that came after witchcraft was
considered a crime and could result in the death penalty but accusations of sorcery were seldom taken literally and
executions of supposed witches were very uncommon uh this is not to suggest that
you know Swedish people or Europeans for that matter didn't take the subject seriously but they just kind of adhered
to the Catholic Church's position and then and the Catholic Church's position at the time was that belief in or
practice of Witchcraft or black magic was the product of devil induced delusions and was considered heresy oh
so the biggest change to how Europeans understood witchcraft came around 1486 and that was with the publication of a
truly wild book called The malus maleficarum Hammer witches uh it was written by Fame Dominican demonologist
and witch hunter Hinrich Kramer now this book took a much stronger position than that of the
church they basically said that sorcery and Witchcraft were a direct result of satanic influence no so the church is
saying it's heresy you can't believe in that [ __ ] but he's saying oh no no no Satan himself has induced you to do this
and they said and he was and so this person this Hinrich here Kramer was saying that it presented a very real
threat to God-fearing people everywhere and in response to that threat Kramer advocated that the use of like
mindbending torture physical psychological emotional torture was the only means of getting any suspected
witch to confess to their heresy and death was the only way to eradicate witchcraft in Europe the [ __ ] you could
not cure the person of Witchcraft or the black magic that they have dabbled in you have to kill them that's it seems
seems a bit much now when it was first written malas there was received actually very poorly by the church they
did not like it they labeled it zealotry they said this guy's like over the top wow like we're looking at it as pretty
black and white here he's like he's going wild it's really intense and they vehemently contested Kramer's
interpretation of religious texts which in the book malas maleficarum he uses a lot of different uh like you know he
looks at the Bible he looks at religious texts and he interprets them his own way
mm and talks about it like it's fact so although the Catholic Doctrine stated that Witchcraft and sorcery were a kind
of mental illness that was influenced by the devil those who fell under Satan's influence according to the church could
be saved okay so you didn't have to die like you you could be saved damn Kramer's assertion though was that a
person was a witch and remained a witch Once he or she had been accused okay so that's the say that unlike the church
Kramer insisted a person could not be saved from Satan's influence the only way to solve the problem kill the witch
the end well that makes sense that he believes that because malus maleficarum translates into the hammer of witches
yeah that's what that's what um exactly that's yeah the Hammer Of God now in modern analysis of malus maleficarum
many writers and historians have noted a ton I mean it's a staggering amount of misogyny in profound sexism influenced
in this text that check Kramer was so misogynistic and sex it's unbelievable when you read it and don't you worry I'm
going to give you a few little little things from the text because I read the whole thing you read the whole thing the
thing you read the whole Hammer of witches I read the whole Hammer of witches I have it in my library right
now as a witch you spent $16 on that research my friend Kidd uh so I think it's funny that his book sells for $16
now what a douche there you go uh but according to Kramer women were far more likely to be witches than men because
quote their flesh is lecherous and their minds feeble what a [ __ ] so basically they're
like they're they're lustful and stupid my skin is lecherous and my mind is dumb
yep cool um Kramer was actually obsessed with the purity of women and that they should be pure but he also believed them
to be inherently evil and vastly inferior to men isn't it strange how like he technically is probably a serial
killer because like his work probably led to the death of so many women yeah that's pretty and then he shares that in
common with serial killers like that pathology of being like women are dirty and we must save our with the purity of
women but thinks them inherently evil and very inferior to men but like that's very much a modern day serial Killer's
view you're right of women it's wild it's interesting how those two things like really correlate but he said
because they're so evil inherently and so stupid uh that we were more susceptible to evil influence and far
more like more likely to engage in Witchcraft and sorcery because of that this guy's so rude um so his hatred of
women can also be found um not explicitly stated but in the section of the text devoted to interrogation and
Punishment uh because many of the suggested techniques of torture that you should use to get a confession from a
witch so that you can then burn her at the stake um involved a lot of exposing and destruction of women's bodies in
particular and a lot of sexual humiliation I was just going to say like humiliation he's gross um this guy's
[ __ ] while malus maleficar may not have been endorsed by the Catholic Church it definitely spoke directly to
the fears and anxieties felt by ordinary people across Europe who were emerging from the late Middle Ages into a pretty
unfamiliar era at that time so thanks to the invention of the printing press just
40 years earlier his text was able to be reproduced and distributed and for a time it was second only to the Bible as
the most popular book in Europe okay lady whistle down damn yep so the result of this popularity was that the public
so those outside of the church developed extreme and very d dangerous and outlandish beliefs about witches that
would shape centuries of witch hunts to come so this is a very powerful book did
anybody even know who this man was before he wrote this he just came right on the scene and was like just like
listen to me [ __ ] women and witches let's go I love that everybody fell at their Fe fell at his feet so would you
like to hear a few things from this book no but I know that it's necessary so there's a section that is titled what
sort of women are found to be above all other super ious and witches me don't you want to know the answer is any woman
who is Unfaithful which remember that could be like she opened her eyes after blinking and a man happened to be in the
room but the next is that she's ambitious wait Unfaithful was like looking at another man Even well back
then you could be considered adulterous by just like showing an ankle like so wild like it there was very the borders
there were were big but the next was an ambitious woman oh you're [ __ ] oops and the last is if they are
lustful lame so she breathes near any other men she has Ambitions and she [ __ ] that's like essentially which
which which what's his name it literally uh Heinrich Kramer like Hinrich We're Here for a Good Time not a long time it
literally says in the book quote it follows that those among ambitious women are more deeply infected who are more
hot to satisfy their filthy lust and such are alter alteres fornicates and the concubines of the great the
concubines of the great I've never been more flattered there is also a section called that witches deserve the heaviest
punishment above all the criminals in the world basically they want to confiscate all the witches things and
then decapitate her that's what they think the the punishment should be oh my God take all her [ __ ] and then
decapitate her and worse than any other criminal murderer child rapist everything like the worst of the worst
it was said that witches couldn't cry that was the belief so which I cry all the time so interrogators were
encouraged to do any manner of [ __ ] up things to force the accused to cry so then what if they cried basically do the
worst you can imagine to get them to cry because if they don't then they're a witch forget shock I was just going to
say shock can happen or other reasons why someone wouldn't cry under severe torture because human beings do have
different ways of expressing emotion well and a lot of times like like you just said forget shock but people
disassociate like like there's so many different reasons why you wouldn't cry during something so crazy now lawfully
they were told that when they go to a witch's home to um an alleged witch to pick her up after she's been accused
they were told to physically pick up an accused witch at their home and put her on a plank or in a basket to carry her
out of the home a without allowing her feet to touch the ground if she was allowed to touch the ground she would be
given Powers by the devil through her feet I guess oh CU hell which these dudes had this dude had a weird Kinks I
think and if they kept her from touching the ground then she would have to confess because she would lose her
powers and they said in this book that a lot of time before being burned alive witches would ask to just touch the
ground one last time and that wasn't because they were about to die a her rically painful and senseless death but
they said it's because they wanted their powers to kill everyone with lightning no I don't everything I just
said is in that book I think they just missed the Earth and they were like let me hit her up one more time before they
were like I'm about to be burned alive can I just touch the grass what the [ __ ]
and they were like nah you want to kill everyone with lightning with your feet and that's like what that's really what
they felt they can't argue that like it would be hilarious if this wasn't if they didn't use it like when you
think about the words themselves you're like that's [ __ ] hilarious and then you think the power behind those words
and you're like scary oh [ __ ] people took this as true like whoa I just can't believe that
they literally like went around and took them out of their homes via Basket in front of their kids everything that's so
sad there was a belief that the devil gave witch's powers to deal with torture without crying or confessing the truth
so again if she stayed quiet shock or doesn't confess then she is being helped by the devil I'm also like why are you
making the devil sound Humane right now well and then if she confesses though it's because God has compelled via a
Holy Angel to force the devil to Desert her so either way she's a witch just one
side says that the devil's still helping her and the second one says that apparently the devil deserted her so
either way she was help you guys are rooting for the wrong guy because if the devil is helping her that's Fantastico
and then if God is making her confess that she's a witch she's going to die anyway well you're not really rooting
for your guy here why would God compel a Holy Angel to force the devil to Desert
her I don't know I mean to make her you're going to kill her anyway that's but that's exactly it that's what I'm
saying like that doesn't make sense yeah uh when they were taken according to this book they are to be stripped
completely um and that is to look for obviously witch marks like that's a thing we hear from the tri but also to
look for the limbs of unbaptized children hidden in their clothes I wish I was making up that's
the thing because you I wish I was making this up because your first reaction is to like chuckle because it's
absurd because it's absolutely absurd but then you're like holy [ __ ] hundreds and hundreds of years ago men were
stripping the clothes off of women they believe to be cohorting with the devil and looking for the limbs of babies yep
like that's a wild sentence and that's true it puts you on such a roller coaster of emotions cuz your initial
like you said your first thing is like that's [ __ ] ridiculous like I'm laughing at that and then you're like no
I can't laugh at that no that's not funny like when you your mind bends the other way and it's like oh no this isn't
satire like this is a real book that was second to the Bible and it's just by this random man like it's not like the
[ __ ] po wrote this like who the [ __ ] is Hinrich that's even if the pop R what
the [ __ ] even if he did but do you see what I'm saying like he's just some random [ __ ] dude who clearly has a
lot of I'd like to know about his mother he's a demonologist and witch hunter like he was a known demonologist and
witch hunter so he wasn't like just some guy that came out of the woodwork but he
didn't still that's ridiculous I also really want to know about his mother I also want to know that I have so many
questions well if they found anything that they beli to be a witch's Mark or they found any instrument of Witchcraft
during the stripping um he literally wrote that they would gather up some quote honest men zealous for the faith
and they were instructed to bind her with cords and place her on some engine of torture no and no [ __ ] they were to
be instructed to make themselves the torturers put a look of dis to look Disturbed while torturing her they were
told need to be told that they were told not to smile or appear joyful even if they might be they said you have to try
to look Disturbed as you torture this woman wow these this just I'm speechless the accused lawfully
could be told by a judge that if she confessed her life would be spared even though they had no intention of doing
that they would either just do that and then kill her or do that and promise her
impis imprisonment but then later burn her unexpectedly take her out of her cell and just burn her or the judge
could promise her her life and then at the last second go oops a new judge is stepping in to take my place and the new
judge would say you're you're going to die this is just like psychological physical emotional torture it says the
accused should be frequently exposed to torture be uh beginning with quote the more gentle of them and a notary is to
be present for the torture and write down how she was tortured and her answers to each level of torture oh my
God then if she confesses under torture they bring her directly to another room and ask her again so that she doesn't
quote confess only under the great stress of torture oh my if she doesn't confess
after torture then other quote engines of torture should be brought in by the judge and she will be told that she will
have to endure those if she does not confess it says quote if then she is not induced by Terror to confess the torture
must be continued on the second and third day but not rep repeated at the present time unless there should be some
fresh indication of its probable success one of the sections of the book is titled and I [ __ ] you not with this
title this is the title of the section no no no of the continuing of the torture and
of the devices and Signs by which the judge can recognize a witch and how he ought to protect himself from their
spells also how they are to be shaved in those parts where they use to conceal their Devil's masks and tokens together
with the due setting forth of various means of overcoming their obstinacy in keeping silent and refusal to confess
and it is the 10th action that's the title of the chapter concise wow and he said they need to be
shaved in Parts where they hide their Devil's Mask Yep this guy's [ __ ] on every level I'm also like did you have
an editor my guy that was like I feel like you should clean that one up cuz that's long I feel like we can get to
the point of that one a little quicker I think that probably took a full 45 seconds for you to say now yeah that's a
dynamic ad now rule of thumb for judges uh don't use the same old torture be creative in the words of the book quote
if the sons of Darkness were to become accustomed to one general rule they would provide means of evading it as
well as well-known snare set for their discre destruction as an example quote is he wishes to find out whether she is
endowed with a witch's power of preserving silence let him take note whether she is able to shed tears when
standing in his presence or when being tortured if she be a witch she will not be able to uh weep although she will
assume tearful aspect and smear her cheeks and eyes with spittle to make it appear she is weeping oh so even if you
do cry they're just going to go you're faking so you either don't cry and you're with the devil or you cry and
they go that's fake you just can't win you wi your eyes with spit can um you cannot let the accused
see the judge before he sees her because this is a method of bewitching him oh okay uh in fact he says what you should
do is bring the accused into the trial backwards all the time uh oh and the judge should always wear salt around his
neck consecrated salt that's holy obviously um oh and also they should strap holy relics and [ __ ] to their
naked bodies but it's the witches that are weird for sure what the [ __ ] right like the
witches are the ones that are odd and strange and [ __ ] up and like you think about the women just being sub to all
this like the confusion and the just like what the like the pure just [ __ ] of this all every like we said before
every part of the accused is to be shaved because witches hold witchy [ __ ] in their hair oh and just like how
demean or quote in the most secret part of their bodies which must not be named oh my God so they would shave
their heads as well everything yeah oh my God um he has he has another suggestion uh make sure you torture your
witches on a Friday if you can uh that's when everyone else is gathered together
at Holy Mass to await their savior so usually a confession can be tortured out of the accused then you know when no one
else is around yeah that tricks yeah uh if she endures so deeply disturbing yeah
if she endures all torture you can come up with while drinking bruskies at a local Tavern then the J judge is allowed
to bring her somewhere else where she will be fed and given drink and treated okay for a minute um then the judge
comes in and speaks nicely to her telling her to confess to him in confidence and he will promise under God
to be merciful sounds like a lie right considering what we just read say well it is so we all said I I think a lot of
us said well wait isn't God not into lying sacks of [ __ ] isn't that like kind of the whole that's supposed to be the
whole deal like lying is bad that shall not lie I think is one of the things don't uh well don't worry because these
people knew how to do some serious mental gymnastics to make all this holy stuff work according to the book he can
lie like this to the witch because quote with the mental reservation that he means he will be merciful to himself or
the state for whatever is done for the safety of the state is merciful so he's not lying when he tells her he'll be
merciful he's not saying I'll be merciful to you he's saying I'll be merciful and that
means the state wow uh they would subject a wish a witch to purgation I believe is how you
say it what is that uh that is forcibly inducing bowel movements for cleansing purposes so they would give her some
kind of laxative to completely clear her out why cleansing what uh and the last thing is
there was a trial by Red Hot Iron that they would Ed and they would make the accused carry a huge heavy red hot iron
bar like several like as long as possible and if you get burned you're guilty if you don't get burned by that
hot iron bar that you have to carry a mile then you're innocent so let's give it to Hinrich and see if he gets burned
mhm that what like what those are just a few of the things I picked out of there
as I was reading to be like wow this is nuts if you get burned you're guilty if you get burned you're a [ __ ] human
it's like how they used to do the drowning thing where if you sunk when they dunk you then you were innocent but
you were dead you drowned and if you floated then you were guilty and we talk about witch prickers
which we'll get to and they also [ __ ] with those too witch prickers I'm upset so while the malus maleficarum may have
proven profoundly influential when it came to kind of getting the idea in Europeans minds of what a witch is it
wouldn't have been of what they wanted you to think witches it wouldn't have been anywhere near as influential had it
not been for the Protestant Reformation in 1517 the Reformation was one of the most
significant events in the history of Western civilization and it broke apart the Catholic Church um it established a
number of religious reform movements that basically created new denominations like Calvinism and protestantism Y these
denominations posed a direct threat to the Consolidated power of the Catholic Church who labeled the reformers
Heretics and idolators um the Reformation contributed to the social upheaval of early 16th
century Europe and led to religious wars across Europe I'm sure a lot of people know about this I remember that large
destabilizing effect on the people of Europe Sweden was a very religious Nation so the Church of Sweden largely
rejected the ideas of reformation at the time they lumped the movement in with supposed you know Heretics their beliefs
and you know their BAS basically like Pagan ancestry kind of stuffff uh in 1555 Swedish Catholic Archbishop Magnus
gothis which is a pretty cool name that's a dope name I'm willing to bet he was a witch he addressed witchcraft
directly in his Opus I think it's viai v v I think it is Opus V history of the northern peoples in which quote he
demonizes Pagan beliefs as well as Lutheran beliefs conquering Sweden um gothis followed Kramer's lead
by interpreting witchcraft not as a metaphor or some kind of vague threat uh but as a real and actual danger in the
lives of Swedish people fantastic for example among a lot of the one of the many claims in the history of the
northern peoples was that blockula a supposed Gathering Place for witches on the Sabbath in Swedish folklore wasn't
folklore at all but was in fact a real place and thing where witches flew to perform a Sabbath and Cort with the
Devil now I looked up what bacula is it is an island it's an actual island in the
Calmar Street and it's referred now to Now by its name blo youngren which means the blue Maiden oh that's cool uh it's
known as a gathering place for you know you can go and visit it like tourists can go see it now um but it was known in
folklore as a Gathering Place for witches for hundreds of years and there's something called The trojaborg
Labyrinth on this island and if you look it up it's cool it's a series of stones
in the form of a maze like a labyrinth and it's said to be created by witches over hundreds of years of rituals well
that's cool and it's like a a it's a labyrinth that like bends in on itself like snakes back in on itself tell me
what it's called again the trojaborg Labyrinth t r o g j a b o r g uh most people believe it's from Pagan times and
probably was created during fertility rituals and stuff like that like you know Earth rituals like very cool [ __ ]
this is really beautiful it's a national park now and if you're visiting just like you know it is very much advised
not to take any rocks from that troia Borg Labyrinth I love that but people are stupid and apparently get a [ __ ] ton
of bad luck if they do temp fate and they end up coming back to return them don't mess with [ __ ] like so don't take
[ __ ] like from that stuff uh as a text gothic' history of the northern peoples
was not really intended just to address witchcraft or sorcery directly it's just
kind of one's short passage in that text it's about a lot of other things but along with the larger issues of heresy
there in the book it's did have a big influence on the subsequent books that dealt with directly with witchcraft in
lenus penus gothic' eth christiani and ericus johanes PR's MAA in Contrix for example both authors Echo
the sentiment and idea of history of the northern peoples by talking about witchcraft as a very real and present
threat in fact in the Ma I think it's Maj and Contrix I'm pretty sure that's how you say it um it draws heavily on
Kramer and Goth this's ideas and it identifies maleficarum idolatry and devil worship as types of heresy and
that all of those should be punished by death and that's it great and they all he also Echoes Kramer's belief that
women were were far more likely to be seduced into sorcery uh maleficar by the way like
think I think you mentioned that Al together it Loosely translates malice maleficarum to hammer of witches yeah
mif um maleficum is Loosely defined as an act of Witchcraft performed with the intention of causing damage or in injury
the resultant harm okay so they would say that maleficum was something that witches did now it's also worth noting
that although Christianity had firmly taken root across Europe by the 17th century and completely replaced older
belief systems that had been labeled Pagan heresy at that time that doesn't mean the old ways had been forgotten
entirely pre-christian beliefs and magic and you know a magical realm and you know Fay all that stuff they had just
kind of transformed from The Real World belief of that into kind of folklore that was viewed through the now
Christian lens as like malevolent and menacing okay so it turned yeah it turned from being this magical thing
that that people actually believed was real into like no this means bad stuff now although this is incredibly
complicated obviously one of the most obvious forms of this transformation can be seen in the folktales that had women
who were once benevolent like healers and you know like respected and midwives and this that it just all those all
those kind of women now they were Twisted by the church and presented as figures that were more similar to
Kramer's view of women as quote treacherous and lecherous female entities who dwell in the forest so now
they're Forest witches and they're like hags you know it's also like y'all need us to continue the world so true maybe
don't [ __ ] us all over again these examples in themselves are not all that useful in the daily lives of s 17th
century Swedish people but when they're combined they help form an idea of whiches as not only physical spiritual
and psychological threats but one that is female always female it's really hammering that idea in so by the mid
17th century the Catholic Church which again had once very much rejected Kramer's position on witchcraft and
sorcery yeah cuz you said that in the beginning called that extreme zealotry right suddenly they'd begun to embrace
the Deep MOG in Wild hysteria presented in the malus maleficar and that was because it was
after the reformation and they needed to get back that power um and they were also starting to get into the other
texts that we mentioned above like gothis and you know pri's text um to be clear the church had again for centuries
pursued Heretics with Vigor obviously um and they' used such people as scape goots that was a thing um but by
embracing this new propaganda of Kramer and others like him they hope to position themselves as the one true
Faith among the growing number of competing religions that were happening because of the Reformation Lu
Protestants like good way to do that is just kill everyone yeah Didn't I don't think it really it's not a great way to
go now for a period of roughly three centuries beginning with the publication of the malas
maleficarum and ending in about 1750 witch hunts and trials across Europe led to the state sanction murders of
approximately a 100,000 people wow most of them women um as was the case here in
Colonial New England The Witch Trials served to restore whatever power the church had lost to new belief systems
but it also gave everybody a new scapegoat in the form of anyone who resisted or defied papal Authority right
now in Sweden as in other countries the the whole idea of the heretic or witch was often projected on those who we're
kind of still connected to that pre-christian culture you know people who practice
herbalism or non-western Traditions like healers like you said you know like like
cunning women they were called and according to Jenny t uh tierman osterberg from the Swedish Witch Trials
how to confront dark Heritage in Smithsonian Magazine um she they said quote ideas of cunning women and men who
magically cured the sick through herbs and ointments were reinterpreted and given threatening meanings at a as a
strategy for demonizing folk beliefs which is so sad that they took like something so simple and connected to the
Earth and very pure that's thing in a way and and twisted it this way like to make it evil yeah and it it was all
really to help people not to hurt anybody exactly and at this at that time as far as the church at that time was
concerned only God and those who acted on his behalf CU remember at that time they could choose who acted on his
behalf uh and doctors had the ability to cure sickness so anyone else who tried to do that they considereda flagrantly
challenging the authority of the church so you were a herdic and you were subject to punishment so to get this
straight only God and doctors and the and a few priests that decided that they were a direct connect to God they were
the only ones who were allowed to heal that's it and if some woman said hey I I know how to heal this person and I would
love to make their life better by healing them with these things that I grew in my garden which then you're a
piece of [ __ ] you're directly challenging the authority of of man upstairs these men at that time who were
pissed that you came up with a better cure than they ever could yep and so they just kill you yeah like that
doesn't make sense instead of saying wow these people are helping the sick like but it's because they're not doing it
and then they don't want what people to rely on women too much exactly it's just
it was a wild time now we're going to talk about the great Noise Okay in Sweden the worst of the witch trials
fell between 1668 and 1676 in a period known as the great noise wow so not too far before right before the Salem on and
in Swedish it is De sto endet m I tried guys Deo endet okay look at me SW Swedish
listeners let us know I'm trying I'm try to do you proud I like it um although not the only period of witch trials in
Sweden's history it was the most intense and certainly had the highest body count
is this the one that happened all in one day yeah we're going to get to it don't
worry but many of whom were women who worked in the fiab which was Scandinavian summer Farms okay I think
it's F or that one was tough faab I believe I tried uh Scandinavian summer Farms that's how you says but much like
the Witch Trials of sa Massachusetts the great noise began with the thoughtless accusation of a child oh uh one
afternoon in 1668 in a rural area near delara in harid dalan a young Shepherd girl named G Gertrude sven's daughter
and her friend matz neelen were tending to a her and they gotten some kind of argument uh they were young gerre was
like 12 so they were kids um so they were like too focused on their own little squabble and they didn't notice
when some of the goats strayed away from the herd wandered out into the SandBar in the dollar River and were like stuck
out there oh no now they were too frightened to go on the or excuse me the boy mattz was too frightened to go out
on The Sandbar so he refused to help okay and Gertrude had to Wrangle the goats on her own she did it herself
right later when they returned to the Village mattz feared that he was going to be made fun of if anyone found out
that he was too scared to go out there and recapture the goats so he decided to undermine gude by telling villagers that
he watched her Wrangle up the goats because she walked on water oh my God and they all [ __ ]
believed so his shitty little ego couldn't handle just being like I didn't want to go on the water and she went in
and we're all just going to take this 12-year-old motherfucker's like so he's saying this
to villagers and Pastor Lars elvas hears this yeah and he called Gertrude to the
church and began questioning her oh my God and she's 12 and like questioning her so like who knows I mean what we've
seen in the malus maleficarum there who knows they were going by it at this point um so under duress Gertrude told
the pastor that she when she lived in Lily hardle a maid by the name of morett Jon's daughter from a neighboring Farm
took her and 12 other children to Blacula and made them participate in Black Mass oh my God and we're going to
take a 12-year-old's word for it a 12-year-old in distress yeah exactly Jean's daughter gude said had a birth
mark on one of her left fingers that looked like the devil's Mark as it was described in the malus
maleficarum uh there were also these [ __ ] I mentioned it before called Witch prickers by the way um and just
speaking of a devil's Mark uh they would be brought in to stab the accused all over their body to see if there was a
place where they didn't bleed fantastic um that was where they claimed that the witches Mark was in the place that it
didn't bleed uh and sometimes these [ __ ] would use a fake blade like a retractable one to make it look like
they stabbed when they didn't so then it wouldn't bleed and they go whoop there it is just playing games now a firm
believer in Satan's ability to seduce women into practicing black magic elvas our pastor here put the 12-year-old
Gertrude on trial for witchcraft and she was found guilty and sentenced to die a
12-year-old all because this little [ __ ] ass [ __ ] wouldn't go to The Sandbar his little ego couldn't handle
that he didn't that a girl went out onto the SandBar and he didn't loser now fortunately before the execution could
happen the larger body of the church did intervene that's good and Gertrude and the 12 children she' name as accomplish
accompli were spared the death penalty and instead just got flogged severely oh my God so they just 13 kids just had the
absolute [ __ ] kicked out of them in public [ __ ] because she was tortured into naming them oh yep the maid though
morett Jan's daughter was less fortunate based on these false accusations which again were born out out of Matt neel's
childish lies to save his own little ego y the maid was arrested and executed for
being a witch wow and and burned alive this is what kicked off The Great noise okay now the incident involving Gertrude
sven's daughter not only illustrates the way that Witch Hunt spread like [ __ ] Wildfire but also how the influence of
earlier works like malus maleficarum were still fueling hysteria centuries after it was published in this case as
well as a bunch of others that followed this a child typically acting out of guilt or shame or boredom MH made some
outrageous accusation something that was usually completely impossible like walking on water yeah we're looking at
you and putam and then rather exactly and [ __ ] putam we don't forget you never rather than just all the adults
acknowledging it as a lie and the community treating it as such as like childlike Behavior it would be it would
be this and it would just be looked at as like Yep this is obviously real like what nobody questioned it and this was
in part due to the fear of witches spread by the church but it was also due to Kramer's assertion that once a person
is accused of Witchcraft you remain a witch until you can prove that you are not cannot do this of course put the
accused in a impossible position there was no way to dispute this accusation as we aligned out for you mhm and the
result was a completely irrational cycle in which a person again obviously most often times a child made some
thoughtless baseless wild accusation it would inevitably lead to the conclusion that according to the church's position
a they were a witch and then a sham trial would follow and an execution of the accused and it would all keep
cycling and during that whole thing they would try to get that accused to name other people once they're named they're
a witch you can't stop being a witch so now you're brought in and the whole cycle continues you can't win now at the
trial outside haradin Gertrude sven's daughter accused 19 more village women of Witchcraft under torturous
interrogation ger the 12-year-old yeah she was being tortured again oh no uh yeah and then those 19 Village women who
were being tortured and interrogated they accused more women of Witchcraft because it was like you had to they they
Tri you and the trend began spreading to other Villages and now conscious of how
such hysteria could divide communities the Swedish government responded to the growing rate of accusations by
establishing a commission and this commission was priests and government officials and they were used to address
the fears of witches and sorcery according to tman uh osterberg who we mentioned before the Smithsonian
Magazine article right the purpose of the commission was to relieve the Public's sense of responsibility for
dealing with the problem and then they were going to do this by sending government and church officials quote to
the mo most witch infested areas to free the nation from the fury of Satan okay but this only increased the
witch hysteria no way spreading to all other parts I couldn't imagine that and the trials became a national catastrophe
this is horrific so like the initial hysteria itself the commission and government sanctioned Witch Trials
quickly escalated from being something that they were trying to keep a lid on and trying to keep kind of orderly and
at least have some kind of process like due process in these things it they quickly devolved into chaos and
increased violence like this all began as like [ __ ] up but they were at least trying to make some kind of dup process
happen here so people weren't just being like wildly executed and accused somewhat didn't work I was going to say
it doesn't seem like it did it was very quick that it escalated ated into chaos um uh AER tman osterberg writes
previously torture was forbidden but to execute a person the court of appeal H hon must confirm the sentence
indisputable evidence was required which meant a confession hence the authorities
deemed torture necessary also the courts allowed children once deemed untrustworthy as key Witnesses wow
priests even paid some to testify and the stories of children became the B for many death sentences it gets even worse
and kids will say anything under distress most people will say anything under adult will yeah exactly now in
hamr in the province of housing land the entire Village was caught in this frenzy
in 1673 because a woman named Kirsten L's daughter was pulled out of her home in
front of her children after being accused of Witchcraft by local children what tman osterberg says given
the rate at which the hysteria had grown in such a small period it's pretty possible that L's daughter and many of
the other women in the village expected this to happen to be honest god um but obviously it was unbelievably
traumatizing for her and for her children uh kirs and L's daughter's trial before the commission lasted 4
days and during this trial this 4-day trial 54 local children and a handful of other locals suspected of Witchcraft
accused her of sorcery and of participating in Black Mass at blockula my God good now according to one local
boy he said that Kirsten fed him food that turned out to be a live snake and he could feel it moving around in his
stomach and he said so he says that that alone is like I don't know little boy like the kids say I don't know about
that bet I'm cool what does that mean is that lie or truth bet I think that just means
like yeah I bet oh really is that what that means that's how I I never knew uh sounds good to me I think cap means lie
oh that's the one I was think what you're thinking of yeah bet just means like I bet oh okay so you just take away
the eye yeah I kind of like it we really just we're really getting lazy um so the
boy was like yeah totally like she fed me food it was a snake um it's living in my stomach now and it's like I think
that's just a tapeworm but okay I also think that's just indigestion yeah so the boy then was like oh but you know
what's cool an angel appeared to me later that day and told me the only way to rid myself of the snake was to go to
the Paris priest priest confess my sins and I did that and then what's awesome is I regurgitated the snake after that
so the angel was right but this [ __ ] she gave me the snake nice during the trial the boy's story was confirmed by
his parents and two other adults [ __ ] y'all this is real [ __ ] life I did not make that up that is a real real
trial that happened a little boy said Kirsten L's daughter fed him a [ __ ] sandwich or something that had a live
snake in it it was living in his tum tum a Holy Angel appeared to this little [ __ ] said if you go to the priest and
confess all your sins you'll puke out the snake and be fine so he did he puked out the snake and his parents were like
yep confirmed what yeah what yeah the other children in the village told similarly in just wild stories
insane yeah and they were they were talking about consorting with serpents renouncing God turning their backs on
the Altar and this was all Kirsten's fault uh Kirsten uh for her part strongly and consistently denied having
any knowledge of any of this or any knowledge of Witchcraft or doing anything of the sort she's like I'm just
raising my kids out here but it did no good she'd already been accused there's no way to undo it once you've been
accused the toothpaste cannot go back in the tube at the end of a 4-day trial kired and was found guilty and sentenced
to death by beheading and after that her body was burned at the stake holy [ __ ]
after she was beheaded her beheaded body was burned at a stake and they wondered
where the plagues came from now among the many problems with Sweden's witch hunting commissions was that it put like
like we've already mentioned a billi problems but one of the the offshoot problems of this commission was that it
put an impossible burden even on the like just random men that they put on these commissions cuz they made them
responsible for quelling the growing fears and anxieties of everyone in the village but everyone's getting accused
but that's the thing so they specifically were being told to root out and eradicate Witches by the church and
in that way they were being responsible for proving and dealing with something that was impossible to prove and deal
with with but then their failure to meet the demands of the state and their neighbors meant that even the best on
the commission were INE effective and at worst they would then be accused of Witchcraft
themselves so this was a horrible cycle with which pulled everyone into it even the people
that were placed on this commission some of them were simply doing it so they themselves wouldn't get wrapped in it
and executed and beheaded it's level not to say that the men on these commissions
were great or anything I'm just saying like there's so many layers to who got affected by this and who got pulled into
this like these kids these kids are not inherently evil kids no they're being pushed into it they're being terrified
into this like this is all everyone is working off of fear it's so scary it's fear that's being trickled down by this
giant Authority that's looming over them kind of like how that happens now and that's and it's like look what's
happening even the and and cuz I'm even going to give it to these men on the commission some of them were not
inherently evil like before this but they were just this was their job it's an impossible thing for anybody to be
involved in so [ __ ] up and then they're being told well if you don't do this you're going to be beheaded and
it's like what the [ __ ] like how does anybody act in this way want launch myself into the sun everyone's just
getting pitted against each other yeah and that's just to say like you know it it was just chaos it was chaos pure
Mayhem with zero kind of like clear thinking involved from anywhere no this [ __ ] is saying he threw up a
snake in front of his priest like that's not clear thinking my it's like you got
like nine-year-olds saying this kind of [ __ ] and these nine-year-olds aren't inherently evil they say stuff they make
up stories like [ __ ] Anne putam but like the like these nyear old listen an putam
is a special kind of [ __ ] up but like these nine-year-olds and [ __ ] like not
all of them were just dicks like a lot of them were just f [ __ ] terrified and they were acting from men and women
cuz there were women who were accusing these witches who were just trying to stay out of the well and they're just
they're trying not to get fogged it's everyone it's everyone is basing it out of fear and then there's those random
evil pieces of [ __ ] that are in here just having a [ __ ] party because this is what they couldn't wait for yeah and
it's hard to distinguish between everybody to be quite honest um so it's scary now this was particularly true in the
small village of torer which is what we this is all about in Sweden's anger manland it is actually spelled anger
manland I think that's more fun personally but I think you say it anger manland this whole play sounds like
anger man land the anger it does actually everyone is an angry man does in the land uh it's
Sweden's angr manland province in the northern part of the country okay uh in 1674 the commission contracted lenus
christophy Horus another is it wasn't there already a hornus no I was going to say you heard
me say it out loud cuz I was trying to pronounce it correctly yeah you didn't want to say it the wrong way so he had
served as the local clergyman for the year prior after the previous Minister had passed away R and as they had done
in the other Villages the commission tasked tornus with investigating and eradicating Witchcraft in the Paris
using whatever means necessary no thank you now in pursuit of his goal Cornus recruited a group of local boys oh first
mistake that's always good who claimed they could I and it gets worse cuz he recruited this local boy group that was
like we can actually identify those marked by the devil just by looking at their
face good how hornus was like this seems legit he like this checks what's kind of
interesting though is that he almost gets real checked himself for choosing to do this and I'll let you know how uh
so they're like yeah yeah we can totally we're going to figure out who's marked by the devil just by looking at their
[ __ ] mug um and he's like that sounds great so over time such people those who
capitalized on the hysteria like we talked about there were the bad people who were capitalizing on this there's
always the bad people capitalizing become common um but while it may appear that um as though these individuals
sought to benefit from this unspeakable horror going around them again it was more likely that most of them not the
little boys but some most of them were trying not to be accused themselves yeah so it was basically align yourself with
the witch Hunters or align yourself with the witch [ __ ] and it's like you situation and it's like or just run into
the forest and never stop running that would be what I would do just by truly but then if you're found in the forest
you're [ __ ] also speaking of witch trials again go read slooh foot it's really good oh yeah uh by uh by
Brum it's really good Brum so either way whatever their motivations these boys which they referred to as viscosa which
Loosely translates to something like wise boys or smart boys or Sage boys sounds like Biscoff cookies to me right
it does they became common in Witch Trials across Europe particularly in cases where children played a large part
of the trial which is so chilling to me it is it's [ __ ] up as like Witnesses or accusers in many cases these boys
such as those positioned outside the church in dll were paid for these Services I bet they [ __ ] were so like
many people who were in horus's position here uh he was a True Believer in the teachings of the church and saw himself
as a soldier in this battle against the Devil by and in a very short amount of time hornus had rounded up 71 people in
a small Parish 65 of those were women 65 out of the 71 oh my my God many of them
were elderly or poor and the accused were all identified by two boys The viscosa Who St who were stationed
outside of the doors of the church to identify them as they left church as they left church as they left church
these boys would be sitting out there and go her marked by the devil what the [ __ ] this is what's funny though because
one of the boys identified horus's wife horus's own baby mama r rufina as one marked by the devil
what a pretty name Bri rufina well and then this boy was slapped for having identified The Minister's Wife as a
witch and he corrected himself and said oops I must have been blinded by the sun
just kidding oh has that happened before my friend [ __ ] you wow and also [ __ ] you
hornus put your wife through the same [ __ ] my wife [ __ ] you your wife was I would I'd be like no no no no no no he
said what he said he said what he said he said brda get out there so the trial get her yeah so the trial began October
15th 16774 and Tor shooker that's like hard to say it is um with judge Johan Anderson hreus presiding over all 71
cases which included residents of torser doll and ET eter lanis uh all 71 had accused of practicing Witchcraft and
abducting children who were then forced to participate in whatever was happening
at blockula okay at the time the population total for all three villages was 675 people so the accused accounted
for more than 10% of everyone over the age of 15 in the entire Parish in this one day holy [ __ ] [ __ ] yep so as in
every other case of witch hunting the Accused at torer had already been accused almost all by children and so
stood no chance of proving themselves innocent that's it you're accused and not only that you're accused because two
little shits stood outside of a church and said you marked by the devil wow just at random yeah just at random
clearly cuz they accidentally got his wife yeah oops the sun was in my eyes wow in one case one of the accused
confessed to having made aara which is a magical bar ball of yarn and I was like
that sounds delightful F I like that um she they said they made it by dripping her blood onto the yarn and asking Satan
to give it life okay it's just weird how like they wrap Satan up so much in witchcraft cuz I'm
like witchcraft really doesn't have anything to no they don't even like give a [ __ ] it's not even real uh in another
case a girl of only 11 or 12 years old was forced to testify that her own mother had brought her to bacula oh oh
that is so [ __ ] on another level and she said when she was there she watched the women chop up and boil children in a
cauldron honey you've been watching too many programs but she was forced to testify wow now another young boy
accused his neighbor of kidnapping him and taking him to blockula where he watched her eat drink and dance in
blockula and lying with the evil one under the table and kneeling before Satan sounds pretty rad pardon I was
going to say like see you at 10 now according to Hans hogman uh many of the children who testified at the
trials in ch tchaker did so against their own family members and in some cases like we mentioned their own
mothers that's horrific uh Hans says in the course of the trials it seems that most of the accused had serious doubts
that the authorities would go to such lengths too impose the death penalty rather those who confess did so to
return home to their children as soon as possible Right a church sentence could could one always put up with so they
were like I'll deal with the church sentence that's what they thought they were going to get they had no idea it
was going to go this far but obviously those doubts were very misplaced Because by the end of the trial all 71 were
convicted and sentenced to die 71 on June 1st 1675 the accused along with a bunch of people from The Villages
were all gathered at the chiker church where they learned that they were going to all be beheaded and all of their
bodies would be burned at the stake all 71 and can you imagine one day first of all what and second of all can you
imagine if one of those was your mom that you had to testify against and then you find out beheaded and burned because
of you she's being beheaded and burned and you they had no idea they thought they were just like let's get them they
can deal with the church sentence and their mom's probably told them that their mom was probably like I can deal
with it just you know what whatever it takes to get this done and I'll get home to you and then they're like no we're
going to cut off her head and burn her body at the Stak oh my God yep it's horrific so from the church after they
learned of their sentences they were all led up to a spot in the mountains known as hauret which
is Witch Mountain uh where three PES had been built to accommodate this unusually
large group um in many cases the prisoners fainted or became too weak to carry on because they were so upset and
family members were forced to carry them to their execution oh my God the executions were
overseen by the parish mayor and carried out by two or three executioners who worked all day beheading each of these
people how are you ever the same after that 71 PE what is 71 divided by three or two
even 71 divided by three the answer answer is approximately 23. 6666 everybody is is beheading that many
people likely or more if it was only two executioners cuz it's two or three 71 divided by
two the answer is 35.5 35 people I that's on another level and you just have to go about your life after
that and they would do these beheadings in the location below the PES where the PES were built
because they wanted to ensure that the blood flow wouldn't extinguish the Flames oh once the head had been cut off
the body was carried to the py a family member had to do this by the way carry your beheaded body over to the py uh
where you would be thrown on there and burned that's yep and after this was all done after all the EX I just have to say
it again sorry this is real this is real like this isn't a horror story this keep
having to tell yourself over and over again this [ __ ] happened the amount of times I like cognitively like
dissonance myself away from this and had to come back and be like oh no this is not a fiction story this this happened
to People's ancestors this happened that's so [ __ ] like there's listeners from that have Swedish
ancestry that that could be tied to either side of this wow yeah it's wild go on no it's true cuz I think that way
with the Salem WIS when I go into it it's hard to think of itous it sounds like fiction it does so when this was
all done the executions were concluded the clothing of the accused which also had been stripped before they were
executed um they were return to the family and then the family was instructed just go home sorry what was
returned to the family their clothing oh okay here and so they would say here's their clothes just go home I guess see
you guys on Sunday for Mass oh and you know you had to be at Mass on Sunday you know your ass was going to be there that
day oh my but then you don't know am I going to come out of Mass on Sunday and some little [ __ ] is going to point at me
and say I'm I jesus cuz did these so were there subsequent ones like afterwards there was but this is one of
the main like this is this is a wild one yeah and it's just I I and there are some sources that you can read records
that say that a couple of individ uals might have been spared that day because of uh they might have been
pregnant uh but if they were spared that day then they were waited give bir and the same fate befell them so that's
somehow that's like worse because you knew what was coming yeah it's all it's all bad now the trials and executions at
torer proved to be something of a turning point um there were trials but it changed after this um especially in
Sweden in particular um it proved if nothing else that when it came to accusations of what Witchcraft and
sorcery no one not even children were safe and later that year after the executions at hauret horus's own mother
and Aunt were accused of Witchcraft wow if that isn't Karma I don't know what is
for Real uh hornus himself was later shunned by the community and retired in shame bye hornus yeah [ __ ] you dude by
the following year 1676 public opinion on witches and accusations of Witchcraft shifted a bit this was a turning point
there were other things after this but this was a big Turning Point by the time the hysteria had reached Stockholm that
year it had all but petered out to be honest um there was still one final case to be tried though before everything
came to an end okay because just a few months after the executions at tors sherker a boy in Stockholm by the name
of Johan graas accused a neighbor melan Matt's daughter of Witchcraft Matt's daughter was put on trial and refused to
confess to being a witch and she was of course deemed guilty and burned alive at
the stake and how old was she I don't know how old she was but okay so I thought I missed no that's okay but she
was she was just a neighbor wow and he just a and she was burned alive at the Stak and a short time later it was
learned that Johan had lied when he accused Matt's daughter and when that was learned he was
executed so suddenly according to Jenny tman osterberg uh a majority began to question the truthfulness of child
Witnesses several of whom later confessed that they had lied and were they executed I don't know
how that but I'm like are we just going to execute and execute and execute till we can't execute no more well for a lot
of their role in spreading the hysteria some of them were executed wow and in the months and years that followed
accusations of Witchcraft and sorcery suddenly became increasingly rare I bet and when they were leveled they were
pretty quickly shut down either by neighbors or authorities cuz they were like we're not doing this again and with
that the great noise came to a rather unceremonious end in Sweden uh after having led to the death of nearly 300
people in the end mostly women wow but it's more likely that it's a very a much higher number I'm sure right like some
people just weren't documented now in the decades that followed the big noise there were attempts to obviously accuse
and try witches but they never really gained any attra any attaction and in some cases were just completely shut
down by authorities by then they had reached a more enlightened age and in 1858 for example a priest in delara um a
county in central Sweden accused an entire group of local women of Witchcraft so a priesthood hoping the
case would be brought to trial and instead the authorities went out of their way to silence him and the
accusations and they said that it brought embarrassment to their government that he even ACC accuse them
of this so Sweden turned it around I'm glad to hear that because Sweden turned it around yeah that's pretty [ __ ]
embarrassing they learned now um as tman osterberg wrote in Heritage discourse the histories of marginalized peoples
were as oppressed as the peoples themselves because Heritage is so often forged and preserve power and maintain
precedence the story of the women in the Swedish wish trials wit trial serves as
an example so torer has not tried to hide this brutal history of witch hunting um they've
actually just tried to kind of like Rebrand it a little bit as like they're a destination for like those with an
interest in history but they don't hide it they're like this happened yeah um they might like not give you like I
don't think they're out there like let me tell you all the Gory details but like they don't they don't hide from it
they're like this happened and you can come here and learn about it you have to recognize they actually have a memorial
to those executed that's been erected in the village and it was erected in 1975 wow like there yeah I don't know when
that one was erected you can visit tchaker know that they know what what happened there and that they have they
have you know done all they can do to get past it but it is Unthinkable that this is real it's
Unthinkable truly I'm like without words and then the fact that even more people
were executed after when they were like yeah I lied it's like two executions don't make one
exact it's just not a good and cuz I know some people when they see Witch Trials they're like oh okay whatever
like what but when you read about it well each one are different yeah you don't realize how how intense these
things are it's not just like oh they got on put on trial and some people were screaming and pretending they were being
bit by specters and [ __ ] it's like it's like no no no thissing against their own mothers yeah
this got real brutal so that is the story of some of the European witch trial Madness
and the malus maleficarum and The torer Witch Trials fun except not at all Sweden learned so good for Sweden good
job Sweden you've done you've done well for Sweden you know killing it since well
with that we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not say wor that you put anybody on trial for
witchcraft because I think you're probably lying and then it's going to come out that you're lying and then
everybody's going to get executed and really who wins when that happens no one not you no one and putnam's a
[Music] [ __ ] [Music]

When it comes to the horrors of witch hunts and trials around the world, Sweden is not often cited as one of the more aggressive or egregious nations. Nevertheless, the Torsåker Witch Trials remain a shocking example of religious hysteria due to the way in which they unfolded, which included local leaders defying the Swedish Crown and taking it upon themselves to identify, try, and execute supposed witches without proper authority. Moreover, while the Torsåker case may have unfolded like most others across Europe, it remains an outlier in that those responsible for starting the hysteria weren’t just held accountable for their false accusations but were in fact murdered.

Thank you to the lovely David White, of Bring Me the Axe podcast, for research assistance :)

References

Gershon, Livia. 2022. "The Easter Witches of Sweden." JSTOR Daily, April 15.

Hogman, Hans. n.d. Torsåker Witch Trials of 1674 - 1675. Accessed September 16, 2023. https://www.hhogman.se/witch-trials-sweden.htm.

Jordan, Charlene Hanson. 2012. Whispers in the Church: Swedish Witch Hunt, 1672. Des Moines, IA: Abbott Press.

Tiderman-Österberg, Jennie. 2021. "The Swedish Witch Trials: How to Confront Dark Heritage." Smithsonian Magazine, October 25.

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Brief Summary

The episode covers the Torer Witch Trials, mass hysteria, and the influence of Malus Maleficarum on witch hunts in Sweden.

Key points

The Excitement of October. Ash and Elena share their love for October and spooky movies.
Misogyny in Witch Trials. Discussion on the misogynistic views in 'Malus Maleficarum' by Hinrich Kramer.
Horror Movie Recommendations. Sydney from Horror Chronicles recommends the new Saw movie as phenomenal.
The Mechanics of Torture. The accused faced horrific psychological and physical torture to extract confessions.
The Great Noise in Sweden. A period of intense witch trials in Sweden led to the execution of many, primarily women.
Gertrude's Trial. A 12-year-old girl named Gertrude was put on trial for witchcraft and found guilty.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Wow, she said it was phenomenal!

A recommendation for a new horror movie.

2:01WatchOct 17, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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