The Perpetual Flame
As Europeans embarked on their colonial ventures in the Americas, they also forged new frontiers closer to their homelands. In Norway's far northern territory of Finnmark, settlers from the south moved into the ancestral home of the Indigenous Sámi people, and by the end of the seventeenth century, nearly five percent of the population had been tried for witchcraft. This episode tells the story of Norway’s Vardø witch trials and their legacy.
Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.
Steilneset Memorial in Vardø, Finnmark, Norway. Photo credit: Bjarne Riesto.
Music
Purple Planet - Alone
Purple Planet - Darkness
Purple Planet - Fallen Angels
Purple Planet - Immuration
Purple Planet - Sense of Loss
Purple Planet - Shadowlands
Sources
Primary
“A Norwegian Witchcraft Trial at Vardø.” In The Witchcraft Sourcebook: Second Edition, edited by Brian P. Levack, 230–233. London: Routledge, 2015.
Riesto, Bjarne. “Steilneset Memorial in Vardø, Finnmark, Norway, commemorating the trial and execution in 1621 of 91 people for witchcraft. Installation by Louise Bourgeois.” Photograph. July 20, 2011. https://www.flickr.com/photos/eager/13571909504, CC BY 2.0.
Secondary
Gibson, Marion. Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials. New York: Scribner, 2023.
Hagen, Rune. “The Witch‐Hunt in Early Modern Finnmark.” Acta Borealia 16, no. 1 (1999): 43–62.
Ødemark, John. “Cultural Difference and Development in the Mirror of Witchcraft: The Cultural Policy of Display at Steilneset Memorial.” Nordisk kulturpolitisk tidsskrift 17, no. 2 (2014): 187–209.
Schulte, Rolf. Man as Witch: Male Witches in Central Europe. Translated by Linda Froome-Döring. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Toivo, Raisa M., & Willumsen, Liv H. (2022). “A Narratological Approach to Witchcraft Trial Records: Creating Experience.” Scandinavian Journal of History 47, no. 1 (2022): 39–61.
Wheeler, Donna. “Witching Hour in Norway: The Steilneset Memorial.” DonnaWheeler.com. 2012. http://donnawheeler.com/witching-hour-in-norway-the-steilneset-memorial
Willumsen, Liv H. “Children Accused of Witchcraft in 17th-Century Finnmark.” Scandinavian Journal of History 38, no. 1 (2013): 18–41.
Willumsen, Liv H. “Witches of the High North: The Finnmark Witchcraft Trials in the Seventeenth Century.” Scandinavian Journal of History 22, no. 3 (1997): 199–221.
