Vardø witch trials (1621)

The Vardø witch trial (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.

On 24 December 1617 Eastern Finnmark in northern Norway suffered a terrible storm, where "sea and sky became one." This happened suddenly, "as if loosened from a bag." A great majority of the male population was out at sea at that time and were surprised by the storm, which sank ten boats and drowned forty men. The same year, the new law of sorcery and witchcraft for the union of Denmark-Norway was issued, and announced in Finnmark in 1620.

In the winter and spring of 1621 a witch trial took place at the fortress of Vardøhus in Vardø, the center of Norwegian Finnmark, where a woman from Kiberg, Mari Jørgensdatter, was interrogated under torture on 21 January. She said that Satan had come to her at night at Christmas 1620 and asked her to follow him to the house of her neighbor Kirsti Sørensdatter. He asked her if she would serve him, and she said yes, after which he gave her the witch's brand by biting her between the fingers of her left hand. Then they went to Kirsti, who said that Mari was to come with her to a Christmas party at Lydhorn mountain outside the city of Bergen in southern Norway. She then threw the skin of a fox over Mari and transformed her into the shape of a fox.

When Mari flew with Kirsti through the air south towards the sabbath of Satan she saw many people she knew doing the same, mostly women but also two men; they came from Kiberg, Vardø, Ekkerøy, Vadsø and other communities along the Varangerfjorden, transformed into cats, dogs, sea monsters and birds so they would not be recognized.

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