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

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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, Norway Anna and Iangeborg – two characters who are so different but tell such rich interweaving stories. My heart lept into my mouth when Anna was told she would basically have to join the witch hunts. Ingeborg was a complex woman and her meeting with Malen who is a VERY intriguing character just really made this novel a rich and complex tapestry for me which held me tight between its various strands. Altogether, it's believed that 140 witch trials were held across Finnmark in the 17th century. Of those, 90 people were condemned to death. Vardø is exposed to the Barents Sea. Photo: Asbjørn Nilsen / Statens vegvesen In a Nutshell: This was a mixed bag for me. The concept was great but the execution didn’t do the story much favour. Might work for those looking for an interesting plot without much bothering about character development or writing. Guttormsen, Torgrim Sneve; Swensen, Grete (2016-12-05). Heritage, Democracy and the Public: Nordic Approaches. Routledge. ISBN 9781317122319.

Anna Rhodius, ex-mistress of the King of Denmark, has been banished to Vardø for some unknown reason. She is convinced that the only way out of the godforsaken island is to provide information to the local Governor about suspected witches, whom he is determined to remove. The Witches of Vardo is a fictional book about witches in the 17th century. The story is drawn on the records of the witch trials in the 17th century in Norway. People were afraid of witches and believed that they would cause harm as they were in league with Satan. 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.The nearby mountain Domen, where many of the accused witches were said to have met, is now home to a shelter to rest and enjoy the ocean view. The trials in popular culture Many of the women told the court that they had been celebrating, dancing and drinking with the Devil. This was said to have taken place at Domen, a small mountain between the fishing villagesKibergandVardø.

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 Anna Rhodius was once the King of Denmark's mistress and has been sent into exile on the island of Vardø. She is gifted in healing and the creation of potions. More than anything Anna wants to return to her privileged life at court; yet who will she be willing to betray to achieve this end? While of a higher social class to the other women she remains vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft. 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.

Three women's fight for survival in a time of madness' Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies . Vardø is an island community in the far north-east of Norway. In the days before airplanes and motorcars, Vardø and the entire county of Finnmark were truly remote places. 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 Western Norway, over 1,600 kilometers away. She then threw the skin of a fox over Mari and transformed her into the shape of a fox. [4] Beyond these beliefs, historical events were at work that spurred the panics on. In 1617, Norway suffered a particularly violent storm on Christmas Eve. What should have been a happy time was marred by tragedy — of the 23 boats out to sea when the storm hit, a total of 10 boats and 40 men never returned. At the time, Vardo and neighboring Kiberg only had 150 residents each — so to lose 40 of the 300, all of whom were men or young boys, was a significant blow to the region. The villagers wanted a reason for the storm and the deaths. Two women, Mari Jøgensdatter and Kirsti Sørensdatter, were tried as witches responsible for the weather. Mari confessed, and other witches were tried. Mari was convicted and burned at the stake in January of 1621, marking the first death in the Vardo Witch Hunt of 1621. Within six months, 11 more women were convicted and burned.

The memorial is in two parts. A 100-metre long memorial hall communicated the stories of the victims, written by historian Liv Helene Willumsen based on original court records. The other building, a mirrored cube, contains an evocative burning chair. I was impressed by the evocative writing, and was made to almost believe that Maren was a witch. I could not really believe in the character of Anna, though the device of telling her story by writing secret – lemon juice – letters to the king was a good one. I was also impressed by the amount of research that had clearly gone into the book. The Witches of Vardø by Anya Bergman is set in an isolated fishing village in Norway and the story is chilling, sometimes graphic and filled with cruelty and injustice for those women accused of witchcraft.

My thanks to Bonnier Books U.K. Manilla Press for an eARC and to Bonnier Books U.K. Audio for a review copy of the unabridged audiobook edition, both via NetGalley, of ‘The Witches of Vardø’ by Anya Bergman. The audiobook is narrated by Sofia Engstrand. Ingeborg Krog [16] was brought in for questioning. She denied the accusations and was subjected to the ordeal of water. When she failed the test, and continued to plead her innocence, she was subjected to torture. She confessed nothing under torture, except for one story which did not satisfy the court: she claimed that she had once eaten a fish she had been offered by a woman who had been executed for sorcery in 1653, and may have consumed some magic at that occasion.