Danish Witches and Sankt Hans Aften – The Exasperated Historian

In the Autumn of 2021, one of the first classes I ever attended at Arizona State University was called "The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe." I'll be honest, the class was pretty boring. It was all online, the professor seemed entirely disinterested in the topic of the class, and every week all we had to do was read a couple dozen pages from two different textbooks, watch a few videos, and then take a quiz--over and over again. The final project was writing an essay about something to do with the topic of witchcraft and Europe in general. It was one of the worst essays I have ever written, but I still got an A!

With that said, in the months and, well honestly years, leading up to my first trip to Denmark, my fiancé kept telling me how excited he was to take me to the witch museum that had just opened in the town of Ribe before the last time he visited in 2022. I was also very interested in the museum, and with the other "witchy" activity his family participates in every year, the Sankt Hans Aften witch burning.

No, I promise they do not burn an actual witch (anymore), but evidently Sankt Hans Aften (that's Saint John's Eve to all us English speakers), aka June 23rd, is one of the only days in the entire year that Danish citizens are allowed to have bonfires, and a lot of people also add a wooden effigy of a witch to the top of their piles. The photo above is of my future grandmother-in-law at the family Witch Burning in 2022. Someone had gifted her a wooden broom that morning as a joke, which is probably why she has it in the photo!

While the modern Witch Burning festivities are light and fun, that was not always the case in Denmark and the rest of Europe. In this article, I will take you through the history of witchcraft in Denmark (and other parts of Europe, but mostly Denmark since that is what the museum I visited focused on). I will take you through what the Vikings believed about magic, through the more well-known witch hunts between the 15th and 19th centuries, and bring you to modern day, where we discuss why Danish people alive today burn a witch effigy on a Christian holiday that also relates to the Summer Solstice.

(The above is a photo of an interactive map in the museum that lets you select every country in Europe that was affected by witchcraft, giving you a more in-depth look at how different the hunts were depending on where you lived at the time).

Danish history is very closely tied with Viking culture, and in fact I will be doing an entire article about the Viking Center and Viking Museum I visited, both of which are also in Ribe!

Most people, however, don't normally immediately jump to witches when thinking of Vikings. Magic, yes (anyone else thinking of Loki and Freyja in the Marvel movies?), witches, not so much. However, there is in fact recorded history from the Viking Age that tells us women with magic--what we might think of us "witches" today, were very much present in Viking culture.

It is important to note that men in the Viking Age could also wield magic. For Viking men, magic was usually done through the use of their runic alphabet, singing songs called Galdr, or performing rituals and using potions.

The Viking word for their form of a female witch was "Völva" which means something like a person who holds a wand. Most depictions and accounts show the völva as holding wooden staffs, not the kind of wand we associate with witches today, but don't confuse these women with Harry Potter or Gandalf. Völva were mostly seeresses, or women who could pronounce prophecy or see aspects of the future. The Viking word for this form of magic was called Seiðr, which is similar to the words for "to bind". Völva could also cast spells too though, for things like healing, love, and victory in battle.

Editor's Note: My Danish and Scandinavian pronunciations leave much to be desired, so I couldn't even guess how to pronounce Seiðr or Völva on my own. I tried to look them both up online and as far as I can tell, Völva is pronounced "vool-vah" and Seiðr is pronounced as either "say-ther" or "say-der" depending on which source you believe. Yes, I do notice that völva and the English word vulva sound similar, and yes I think its interesting that this is another, albeit not so straightforward, way that the völva and feminine traits are interconnected.

Völva were not condemned like the later European witches would be, but they weren't exactly welcomed in with open arms either, and instead were set apart from society as being "other."

Viking magic did not derive from the better-known Norse gods like Odin or Thor (classified as Aesir gods who ruled from Asgard). The Aesir gods ruled over Midgard (or what we know as Earth today) and were associated with law and order. Instead, magic came from the less well-known Vanir gods, who ruled from their own home in Vanaheim and were more chaotic and tied to nature.

In the beginning of time, the two sides went to war, but the war ended with a truce. Part of the peace agreement included different gods being exchanged from the two sides, and among those exchanged was Freyja, who originally came from the Vanir and went to live with the Aesir on Asgard. The Vanir gods had already been practicing Seiðr, and continued their tradition after moving to Asgard.

One story recounts how Odin asked Freyja to teach him the art of Seiðr, which she did. In the legend, Loki apparently insults Odin for practicing such a feminine form of magic--but I doubt Odin cared. What the story does tell us, however, is that Seiðr has always been seen as a magical art practiced by women.

The staff carried by the völva practicing Seiðr in surviving art looks very similar to the staff women used to spin and weave cloth. Throughout time, spinning has always been seen as a feminine art, so this is another way we can see how Seiðr and the völva are associated with women.

This attribute also shows how the völva were associated with the Norns. The Norns are three women who represent the Norse version of Fate. The Norns live at the base of Yggdrasill, the world tree, and they affect fate by spinning the cords of fate. This is another way the völva are seen as having inherently feminine traits, and how they were seen as being close to the Norns and were able to get close enough to the cords to change fate somewhat.

The Norns are depicted in statue form outside of the Viking Center in Ribe. I snapped this photo in June of 2025.

The Volva's Seiðr magic could be temperamental and highly volatile. According to The Collector (article linked below):

In one story, the god Thor gets a rock lodged in his skull in a fight with the giant Hrungnir. He goes to see the Volva Groa to have it removed. She begins to sing an enchantment, which starts to work. This makes Thor excited, and he tries to encourage her, but he makes the mistake of talking about her husband, who she thought was dead but is only lost. She becomes so emotionally overwhelmed that she forgets the spell. Thor lives the rest of his life with the stone lodged in his head.

As we can see from the above example, völva worked with both mortal men and women as well as the gods. In another famous tale, a völva is visited by Odin, who is disguised as an old and frail man. The völva recognizes him despite the disguise immediately, thanks to the fact that he only has one eye, and she agrees to tell him his future. Odin is told about the earliest times of Viking history, the creation of Midgard, and then moves on to Ragnarök, the end of the Viking world, when the gods will battle the giants and bring about the end of everything. The völva reassures Odin that the world will be rebuilt, but evil will take root when it does. This story is a great example of the reverence mortal and divine held for the women who practiced magic in the Viking world.

Unlike most who lived in Viking society, the völva would not stay with one encampment or village. Instead, they would travel throughout the countryside, earning their keep by speaking prophecy. They were highly regarded and could speak with anyone in Viking society regardless of rank, and yet they were still viewed as outside of the social norm.

Today, archaeological and written evidence of the völva is scant. While they are mentioned in several sources, none are very extensive save for The Saga of Erik the Red, (a translated copy of the saga can be read by clicking here). which speaks of a völva named Thorbjorg from what is today Greenland.

The Collector notes that in the Saga, Thorbjorg's clothes are described thusly:

When she arrives at Erik’s hall, her clothing is described in detail. She wore a floor-length blue or black cloak trimmed with precious stones sewn into the hem. She also carried a jewel-encrusted wand and wore a stunning crystal necklace, which may have been in imitation of Brisingamen, the necklace worn by Freyja. She had a pouch at her waist in which she concealed her other magical tools.

The Volva also wore a hood made of black lamb skin and trimmed in ermine fur, calfskin slippers, and wildcat skin gloves lined with ermine fur. Cats were associated with Freyja, so this may be another reference to the goddess. While her clothes are very rich, suggesting wealth and status, her shoes, gloves, and hood also suggest her wandering existence.

I don't know about you, but if I saw a lady dressed like that, in the Viking Age of all times, I would immediately give her whatever she wanted out of sheer respect!

According to the saga, Thorbjorg is served a dinner of animal hearts with goat's milk. After she eats, Thorbjorg is able to perform a magical spell after having another woman sing a Galdr (the special songs I mentioned earlier). While the other woman sings the song, Thorbjorg is able to reach a place between the boundaries of life and death, and while in that state she is able to practice her magical arts.

I found a translated copy of the saga, as I noted above, and found Thorbjorg's story in Chapter Four, for those curious to read it themselves.

According to the website Lufolk Blacksmithing (their article is also linked below), the link between the völva, nature, and the spirit world was completely interconnected and unbreakable. In Lufolk's wording, "Preparation, intention, and respect for the spirits and the environment were paramount in ensuring the effectiveness of these practices."

Besides the story of Thorbjorg in Erik the Red's saga, there is also a burial site in Denmark dating from the 9th century that some archaeologists believe may be of a völva woman. The burial is at a site called Fyrkat in what is today near Hobro. The woman was dressed in a dress of red and blue cloth with gold thread, had an iron staff with bronze details, wore several silver toe rings (which have not been found in any other Scandinavian burials from the time according to The National Museum of Denmark), and was buried with an ornate carriage with horses to draw it. Also in her grave were several objects that seem to indicate a magic practitioner, like silver amulets, lead powder, poisonous seeds, animal bones, and bowls that may have come from Central Asia. She also had more practical feminine grave goods like scissors and spindle whorls. The finds indicate she had royal status.

While the völva were highly respected among both mortals and the divine in earlier Viking history, the same was not true once Christianity took root in their society. By the 13th Century, Christian laws were beginning to dismantle the use of Seiðr magic, including the use of wands. The völva fade from history soon after, and as we will soon see in later European history, Christianity has always had a negative impact by those who practice the magical arts.

Today, there has been a resurgence of people who practice Seiðr and other traditional pagan practices from Antiquity and the pre-Christian period (including me!). Some modern Pagans use historical and archaeological evidence to recreate ancient rituals as a way to keep these traditions alive, and others take ancient folklore and adapt it to fit their own modern personal lives. Neither way is correct or incorrect, and instead I find it really cool that there are other weirdos in the world out there like me who are literally incorporating history into their everyday lives. If you'd like to see how I used a piece of history in my own personal life recently, you can read my article about the Handfasting ceremony my fiancé and I did back in March by clicking here.

Now that our knowledge of how the Vikings practiced magic has been established, let's move forward in time to the early-modern period of European history, and how that impacted Danish men and women accused of witchcraft.

Editors Note 2: I have seen another term for a female magic practitioner from this time period, Seiðkona, but when I tried to research it further it seems as though this is a similar word or term for someone like a völva and some use the terms interchangeably. I didn't want to ignore the Seiðkona term entirely but also didn't want to add it into the main body of the article because I don't want to confuse people with unfamiliar terminology.

A few centuries after the Vikings adopted Christianity, the Danish people's language had also changed with the times. In the Middle Ages, the Danish word for "witch" became "vølve" which is very similar to "völva."

Now, a quick note--a lot of the information I will provide in this section came to me courtesy of Hex! Museum of Witch Hunt in Ribe, Denmark. While I was visiting in June of 2025, I took photos of almost every infographic available in the museum and then wrote them out in my own note form afterward. The museum signage is in Danish, English, and I believe German, and the audio tours are available in multiple languages as well. I highly recommend visiting the museum if you ever find yourself in Ribe or the nearby areas. When we visited, it cost us about $17 US per person to get in and it was completely worth it. I also visited on Sankt Hans Aften, June 23rd, which I will explain more at the end why that was also really cool to be able to do. Anyways, with that said, let's get into the more infamous parts of European witch history.

The above photo is the museum's interpretation of a pyre used to burn a witch. It is a recreation, not an actual piece of a fire used to execute someone. I don't know how anyone could think it was real, given that we are talking about a literal fire here, but wanted to clear that up!

Between the years 1540 and 1693, approximately 1,000 people in the Dano-Norwegian Realm (because Denmark and Norway were ruled as a joint kingdom at the time) were burned at the stake for the crime of practicing witchcraft. It is believed a similar number of people, around 1,000, are accused but later acquitted of the crime. Those who are accused spend the rest of their lives with a cloud of suspicion over their heads and a "frayed reputation" (in the museum's wordage) following behind them.

The witch problem was not exclusive to Denmark though. In the three hundred year gap between 1450 and 1750, approximately 100,000 Europeans across the continent are accused of witchcraft, or "Colluding With the Devil." Of those, between forty and sixty thousand are found guilty of witchcraft and executed. Not all are burned at the stake. In fact, despite that being known as the stereotypical method of killing witches, most are actually not burned (though that seemed to be the most used method in Denmark).

Editor's Note: Apparently some non-academic publications were claiming up to nine MILLION people (mostly women) were executed for witchcraft in Europe. I've never seen that number myself, and it honestly sounds laughable to even think that many people were alive in Europe at the time (though I'm sure there were in non-plague years). Anyways, uh, no nine million people did not die in the witch trials. Also to note, I have seen the claim that midwives were disproportionally accused of witchcraft because of how many women and children died in childbirth in that area, but this is not true either.

How did the Europeans get to a place of killing so many people for a crime that, today, most people believe does not even exist? What sparked the witch mania craze, and how did so many people end up dying because of it?

While the witch hunts did begin before the Protestant Reformation of 1517 (in fact the earliest hunts date as far back as 1428), the numbers were much fewer and far between. It was only after Europe (and the rest of the Christian world), was rocked by this major schism that the witch hunts began in earnest.

For those who don't know, and want a brief synopsis, the Protest Reformation began in 1517, when Martin Luther, a local monk, nailed his 95 Theses to the door of a Catholic church in Germany in October of that year. Martin Luther had been growing more and more disillusioned with the church as time went on, and he finally became so incensed with the church's "indulgences" (which were financial disagreements Luther had with the church, and the fact that the rich could pay their way into Heaven essentially among other issues) he came up with ninety-five distinct reasons to reform the Catholic church.

At first, Martin Luther had no intention to break away from the Papal authority, but because of the recent inventing of the printing press, the ninety-five theses were quickly translated from the original Latin to German and then spread all across the country in a matter of weeks. The word continued to spread like wildfire. By December, word had reached Rome, and from there it could not be stopped. Eventually, Martin Luther and his followers would be excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

As a result of Luther's actions, the Protestant church, and its many different denominations, were born. Because of the breakup of the church, Catholics and Protestants would do battle, both physically and through the written word, for centuries to come. Even up to the modern day the rift between them causes socio-political issues (just look at Ireland for instance).

Another unforeseen consequence of the Reformation were the witch hunts. With both sides already suspicious of the other, accusations soon began to be thrown into either camp. Then the Thirty Years' War broke out (the 1618-1648 European Thirty Years' War that is). Though the war had many causes, only some of which were religious in nature, as a result the fear and suspicion of witches became even more widespread.

Another cause of witch hunting in Europe during this period was the Earth's naturally changing climate. This period of history has been dubbed "The Little Ice Age" today, and the extra coldness that blanketed Europe blighted crops and devastated livestock. Disease prevention was also near non-existent thanks to germ-theory being little understood.

All of these issues wrapped up together and culminated in one of the darkest periods of European History--The Witch Hunts.

This is a virtual recreation of what a Danish town might look like during the early-modern period when the witch hunts were taking place. This video was taken by me in Hex! Museum of Witch Hunt. The following quote was taken from a sign in the museum and chillingly explains the mindset of witch's accusers.

"[Witches] use magic to undermine society, and they are in league with the Devil..."

Of the 100,000 or so people accused of witchcraft in Europe, 75-80% are women, the vast majority but definitely not all. At the end of the 14th Century, Christian philosophers and theologians begin to write down and share their belief that witches, male and female alike, sell their soul to the Devil in order to obtain magical powers. These powers are not all dark (or maleficia if you want to use the Latin term) magic, there is such thing as white magic too. Whichever form of magic was being used, it could help the witch do everything from baking break to murder, all of which is usually done with the help of demons they summoned. Christian doctrine teaches further, that the Devil is making these pacts with witches in order to build an army, and this army is what he will use in the final battle on the Day of Judgement. If the witches are not stopped, well, all Hell could break lose, literally.

Between the 16th and 17th centuries, the "science" of demonology also becomes more widespread. Demonologists across the continent share their "knowledge". These Demonologists are not just theologians, but also scholars outside the church, different members of royal families, and more. They view themselves as God's soldiers, and contribute to the witch hysteria by writing books and crafting anti-witchcraft legislation across Europe. These laws are passed at different times with varying results, and its important to note that the witch hunts looked very different depending on what region of the world you were in at the time, partly because of the laws and partly because of the already existing cultural practices that gave the people living there a different point of view towards witches in general.

As I mentioned before, the way the witch hunts took place varied wildly from place to place. In the same period where the majority of Danish witches killed were women, the majority in Iceland were men. The same was true for Russia, which executed many more men for witchcraft than women. In Ireland, it is believed only four people were ever executed for witchcraft, while in Germany over 25,000 died. In England, 90% of those accused are women, yet over in Estonia, the numbers were closer to half and half regarding gender.

On 12 October 1617, all magic is officially banned in Denmark under "The Sorcery Decree." This new law bans all magic, not just dark but white magic (which is usually seen as harmless or even being practiced for good by most) as well. As a result, legal cases against witches skyrocket. A previous legal ruling, the Jyske Lov or "The Law of Jutland" from 1241 had been the official law of the land before, but did not have much to say about magic or witchcraft, making the addition of the 1617 law necessary to battle back from the Devilish forces.

Let me give you a brief explanation of the Danish law system of the time as well. In Denmark, private individuals would make accusations of witchcraft before the secular courts. If a witch was found guilty, they would then have to be tried at a higher level (after 1576 at least--earlier cases were settled at the local court). The local judges would then appeal in the Landstig (the kingdom's supreme assembly at the time). If the witch was once again found guilty, they would be executed.

All court cases, regardless of what the trial was being held for, were overseen by eight witnesses in Denmark at the time, as well as a scribe that would record everything. In homicide cases, there were twelve jurors present. In witchcraft cases, that number raised to fifteen, usually made up of the nearest neighbors to where the alleged crime took place. Each guilty verdict had to be approved by the town clerk. I'm not sure if witnesses and jurors means the same thing in this context--this information is from the Hex! museum and that is the wordage they used.

All of those condemned to die as witches in Denmark were given a half jug of wine, mead, or brandy. Gunpowder was usually tied in a sack against their back--which would allow the victim to die faster after being put to the flames. Danish witches were also tied to a ladder, and then the ladder was pushed into an already roaring pyre. I'm sorry for putting that imagery into your head, but nobody ever said studying history was all sunshine and roses.

The accused also had some legal rights in this time. They could not be sentenced based on their own confession, or statements made by others accusing them of witchcraft--more evidence had to be brought forth to prove the accusation other than just someone's say so. Torture was also not allowed until after a witch had been sentenced to death. After the sentence was handed down, a witch would often times be tortured to ensure their complete confession could be made, and that any other information they might know about other witches would be made public before they died.

The church was not directly involved in these court cases, but they did have some influence over them.

The first executions for witchcraft take place in Denmark in 1540. More than half of the Danish cases, however, would take place between 1617 and 1625. During that seven year period, an average of one witch was executed every five days. The number of cases would fall off dramatically after 1625. The last Danish witch, Anne Palles, was executed in 1693. In 1800, the last lynching of a suspected witch took place with the death of Anna Clemens. In 1866, the prohibition of magic in Denmark was formally repealed, making it no longer legal to execute a person on the basis of witchcraft. Think about that, 1866--for the Americans reading this, that is one year AFTER the end of the War Between the States.

Let's take a brief look at Iceland as well, which was under the dominion of the Danish Kingdom at the time of the witch hunts. In 1600, the population of Iceland was around 50,000 people. The 1617 Law against magic that passed in Denmark was formally put into effect in Iceland in 1630--news traveled slowly back then, okay? I don't know the actual reason why it took so long, but this information was also provided by museum signage so...anyways. 130 witchcraft cases were brought before the Icelandic courts, but the majority of people survived their case. Of the twenty-two executions of witches in Iceland, twenty-one were men. All of the executions took place between 1625 and 1683, and torture was not known to have been used in any of the cases. Each of the death sentences had to be upheld by the Supreme Court in Copenhagen, which also helped explain why so many of the cases ended in acquittals.

Back to Denmark.

As previously mentioned, after 1576, convicting someone of witchcraft became harder in Denmark, but that didn't stop the trials. Approximately half of all those accused of witchcraft in Denmark would be acquitted, and the vast majority of those accused were poor, elderly women.

The Hex! museum provides a much more detailed analysis on the witches killed in Ribe (where the museum is located) than the rest of Denmark, and by doing so we get a closer insight into these poor men and women's lives.

Another important thing to note was Ribe's special status at the time. Ribe had the local court, but this court has the same status as the higher, provincial courts in Malmö and Copenhagen. Because of this fact, those accused and tried in Ribe had a higher likelihood of being found guilty than some other Danish witches. In other cases, when a witch is brought before a higher court, they are usually tried before judges who do not know them personally, but because Ribe's witches are being tried by judges who do know them and do know those accusing them, it is easier to find them guilty based on what is known about them in the local community. The following stories are all of Danish witches, some from Ribe and some from other parts of the country. Ribe's acquittal rate for these cases was a very low 39%.

In Ribe alone, there are twenty-six witch trials. Of those, twenty people are accused (some of them unfortunately more than once), fourteen people are killed, and one is exiled from the kingdom. The first trial, and death, is in 1572, when Johanne Rygge is burned. The last trial in Ribe is in 1652, when Anna Bruds is put to the flames.

Editor's Quick Note 3: For many centuries, Danish surnames were not passed down from the father to his children like they are around the world today. As you will see, many of the following names end in "Datter", which means "daughter." For example, the surname "Larsdatters" meant "Daughter of Lars" and so on. Just wanted to slip that in there for those curious.

In 1572, Johanne Rygge is accused of taking another woman's health. She is the only woman tried in Ribe before the 1576 edict demanding a higher court uphold a verdict goes into effect. Unfortunately for Johanne, this means she is only found guilty of witchcraft at a lower court, and is sentenced to death. Before she is killed she is tortured and then put to the flames.

In 1577, Giertrud Povels from the nearby town of Hviding is tried twice and put to the flames.

That same year, 1577, Maren Christens Praekfader is accused and convicted. Before her death she accuses Ingeborg Harchis of being a witch as well. Ingeborg's husband immediately steps up to defend her during her 1578 case, and Ingeborg's life is spared...for now.

In 1590, Catharina Larsdatters is executed. No other information of her case survives.

In 1595, Maren Povlsdatter is beheaded with an axe after being found guilty of witchcraft and failing to comply with her banishment from Ribe.

In 1610, Ingeborg Harchis is once again accused of witchcraft and this time is found guilty. Under torture, she accuses her own daughter, Bodil Harchisdatter, and also Else Peder Mortens. Ingeborg recanted her daughter's name before she was killed, but by then it was too late. Bodil and Else initially escape the flames, but in 1614, Bodil accuses Else and another woman Karen Kallis while under torture. She later recants the names and Karen is acquitted. Not so for poor Else. Else is convicted by the city court, but is later acquitted by the city council court, and she is spared. Bodil is believed to be a liar, which allowed Else and Karen to survive.

Ingeborg, Bodil, Else, and Karen are all formally accused by the same man, meaning one man tried to be responsible for the deaths of four women. From what I could ascertain, it was somewhat common for one individual to accuse multiple people of witchcraft.

In 1613, Anne Lourops from Fanø is accused and found guilty. She accuses other women from her town under torture.

In 1618, "Limp" Sidsel Jensdatter is executed in a case that gains notoriety. Sidsel was an elderly poor beggar from East Jutland, who went door to door selling both white and black magic. A woman who had already been convicted of witchcraft accuses Sidsel, and a local man raises a case against her. Multiple people from the town come forward to further accuse Sidsel. "Since she cannot refute the accusations with other testimonies in her own favour" she is sentenced to burn. This quote is from Hex! and the museum has also created a six minute long film, that can be listened to in multiple languages, about Sidsel's story.

Editor's Note 4: All seven cases that take place in Ribe during the 1610s are overseen by a man named Ebbe Morgensen. Part of the Hex! museum is now located in the home he built in Ribe in 1583!

In 1620, The same man who accused Ingeborg, Else, Karen, and Bodil now accuses another woman, Birthe Olufsdatter. Five days later, Karen Roeds is also accused by the same man (whom the museum named on their signage but I refuse to do so!). Karen is also accused by several others, including her own granddaughter. Her husband cannot afford to help the women. Birthe is burned on 7 August 1620, and Karen is put to the flames on 12 September.

That same man continued his personal warpath, and accuses Johanne Moltisdatter on the 24th of August that same year, 1620. She is burned on the 31st of October. Johanne's case will be the last witchcraft trial in Ribe for seventeen years.

In 1621, Christenze Kruckow is another Danish witch executed for her crimes. She is beheaded by sword because, as a member of the nobility, it is seen as a more honorable death than being put to the flames. She is the only Danish noblewoman executed for witchcraft and died at around the age of sixty-three.

In 1630, Hans Poulsen is banished from the realms of the Danish King for performing white magic. He is lucky to escape with his life.

In 1637, arguably the most famous of all Danish witchcraft cases breaks out. Maren Spliids is accused, despite her being of middle class and married to a wealthy tailor in Ribe. Maren is accused of making a man sick--THIRTEEN YEARS after she was seen scolding him. According to Hex! she "promised misfortune" upon him--which must not have been a very strong spell if it took thirteen years before the man got sick but that's just my opinion.

Maren is at first acquitted of the crime, but in 1640 she is retried after her case is brought before Denmark's witch-hunting king, Christian IV, and his court. The king has Maren imprisoned in Copenhagen's infamous Blåtårn prison for nine long months. Maren finally breaks while imprisoned and confesses to being a witch. She is brought back to Ribe and made to publicly confess to being a witch--a humiliating ordeal. Maren then accuses Cripple Anna Thomasdatter, and the two women confess to being a part of a witch's coven. Maren is burned on the 10th of November 1641 and Anna on the 14th of December. Four other women named by Maren and Anna are tried for witchcraft crimes: Maren Matthesen, Anna Ebbis, and Niels Holdensen are acquitted. The fourth woman, Maren Jellis Skraedder is acquitted as well, but is then retried in Ribe's last trial in 1652.

On 16 February 1652, Anna Bruds is accused of witchcraft, which she confesses to. She then accuses Niels Holdensen and Maren Skraedder, but later recants Niels's name. Maren appears in court to deny that she is a witch. On 7 April 1652, Anna Bruds is condemned, the last witch from Ribe. Luckily, the judges find Maren once again not guilty, and her life is spared.

The above photo is of a door lintel from Maren Spliids home in Ribe. Her case was both famous and infamous in her own time as well as today for a variety of reasons. The biggest reason was that the Danish King, Christian IV, known today as Denmark's "Witch-Hunting King" (think the equivalent of James I and VI of England and Scotland) became personally involved in Maren's case. She was also from the upper class of society, was subjected to an illegal form of torture (she was tortured while in prison before she ever confessed to being a witch), and was held in Denmark's most infamous prison at the time, Blåtårn Prison in Copenhagen. The Hex! Museum recounts Maren's story in a six minute film that can be viewed in multiple languages.

The door lintel from her house in Ribe, shown above, is the only physical evidence of her life that survivors to today. The lintel's engraving recounts the philosophy that God rewards and protects those who live a good Christian life. It also has the phrase "Memento Mori" on it, a common Latin phrase meaning "Remember You Must Die"--simply a reminder that everyone dies one day. The hourglass and skull motifs were common of the time and are imagery meaning the same. The lintel was made sometime between 1580 and 1630, and because it was over Maren's front door during her life, she must have walked underneath it hundreds of times. A sad reminder of an innocent woman's death.

In 1693, Anna Palles is the last witch is burned in Denmark, and in 1783, Anna Göldi becomes the last person officially executed for witchcraft in Europe. The witch hunting fever finally began to die down as skepticism around whether or not it is actually possible to enter into a pact with the Devil arises, and the science behind disease culture and how it is spread becomes better known. Judges also begin to demand more evidence in all criminal cases, to protect the innocent, and witchcraft--a case which was already hard to prove, becomes next to impossible.

In 1780, a priest named David Grønlund published a book entitled Historical Information About the People Persecuted and Burned in Ribe Town for Witchcraft. He was able to gather information on twelve of fourteen court cases he was interested in by reading through existing court documents. In 1884, Jacob Frederich Kinch publishes Ribe Town History and Description, which also provides more information on Ribe's witch hunting past.

(Previous images all taken by me at the Hex! Museum)

I didn't mention it in the article, but the book most infamously attached to the story of Witch Hunting is the Malleus Maleficarum or Hammer of Witches. The book was written by a Catholic Clergyman in 1486 and was widely seen as the how-to guide on how to find and locate witches for many years. Twenty editions of the book were made in the ensuing decades, and because of the recently invented printing press, the book spread across the continent like wildfire, appearing in a multitude of royal courts. The Catholic church denounced the book as being inconsistent with church doctrine, but that didn't stop it from exploding in popularity. Copies of the book can be purchased in the museum gift shop which I found highly, well, let's just say I did not bring one home with me. I told my fiancé that I literally would not feel safe in my home with that piece of evil literature in my house, but maybe that's just the spiritualist Pagan in me.

Now that we have an understanding of the basis for witches in Danish history and culture, let's take a look at why modern-day Danes burn effigies of witches on Sankt Hans Aften.

The above photo is from the "Witch Burning" I attended on 23 June 2025. The bonfire was done at one of my future family-in-law's houses, and you can see a paper we were given with part of the song we sang during the burning itself.

So first, what is Sankt Hans Aften (or Saint John's Eve in English), and what does it have to do with witches?

Sankt Hans is the Danish cultural celebration tied to both Saint John the Baptist (whose birthday was June 24th, supposedly) and also the summer solstice (which isn't always on the 23rd or 24th but is somewhere around there!). Up until 1770, summer solstice celebrations were a national holiday, and from what I understood from the Danish relatives, it is seen as a holiday today, but I don't know if its necessarily a "national" holiday. In ancient times, the Vikings would celebrate the summer solstice with bonfires, a tradition that has clearly survived to present day.

Other ways the Danish people have celebrated the solstice throughout history include several ways a young woman could find out who her future husband would be (at least according to an article from The Guide Collective, article linked below). Apparently if a girl wanted to find out the identity of her future husband she could do one of two things on the solstice. The first was gather nine flowers and put them under her pillow. That night, she would dream of the man who she would one day marry. The other ritual involved a young woman gathering water from a sacred spring into a bucket. When it became midnight on the solstice, she could look into the water and see her future husband's reflection staring back at her.

(It would be really weird if you saw a face of someone you had never seen before. I know if that happened to me my first thought would be, "Great! How the heck am I supposed to find someone I don't know in this day and age?!")

Sources disagree as to when the witch effigy began being added to the bonfire celebrations, with the dates I have seen being anywhere from the late 1800s to the 1920s. Some say this is done as a way to remember the men and women who had been killed in the witch hunts of previous centuries, while others say it doesn't have anything to do with real witches at all, and instead this part of the celebration was imported from Germany, because Germans celebrate in a similar manner on "Walpurgis Eve".

Another explanation is that in medieval times, bonfires were believed to help keep away dark spirits and malevolent forces like witches, and so the bonfires are lit today as a way to remember the literal darkness of the past.

As I showed in an above photo, the Danes also like to celebrate holidays with songs. We had a song we sang during the Witch Burning, and the cousins had also made a song specifically for my future grandmother-in-law's birthday party we had while over there.

This was the group for our family's celebration--and was still only part of the extended family we saw while in Denmark. Groups of people gather all across the country to burn fires and celebrate every June 23rd. The gatherings can be for personal families (like ours was), or public gatherings at churches and even places like Tivoli Gardens (which I wrote about in my Copenhagen article that can be read here).

The Danish relatives also told me that Sankt Hans is one of the only days in the entire year that the Danish government allows its citizens to have a massive bonfire, and so all across the country people will pile up their roughage, waiting for that specific June day when they can light it up. Unfortunately Danish weather is also unpredictable, and so sometimes the stuff to be burnt is so wet it doesn't want to light. That is what happened this year (2025), so enjoy this example of what the solution to the problem is.

There really isn't a lot of readily available information online about the Sankt Hans celebration, other than what I've included in this article, but I hope this section was illuminating and interesting to read as well.

Out of everything I've written about my trip around the world so far, this article has been by far my most favorite to research and work on. When I took that class at ASU nearly four years ago, I had no idea that one day I would not only be attending a "witch burning" of my own, but that I would be doing so side-by-side my future in-law family, surrounded by love, laughter, and joy.

That Autumn Semester at ASU was one of the hardest periods of my life. I was truly lost in my personal life, and experienced a really bad blow in regards to my future romantic prospects as well. The reason why my final essay for my witchcraft class was so bad is because of the horrible state of mind I found myself in those few months, but somehow I pushed on and rallied myself. I reconnected with my oldest friend (shout outs to Meg, we've been besties since preschool so over twenty years now!) that January, and started to shake myself out of my funk. Then, on March 5th, I met the man who is now my fiancé and handfasted husband 😊. The point to adding this bit of poignancy to the end here is my way of reminding everyone that you never know what the future holds, and things really can (and hopefully will!) get better, as long as you don't give up and you "Keep Moving Forward" as Walt Disney once said.

Whether you are here because you wanted to learn more about Viking magic, because the European witch hunts fascinate you and you wanted to pay your respects to the many victims of them, or because you wanted to read more about my journey around the world, I hope you learned something here today. Like I said, things can always get better, but sometimes it is good to look back and reflect on those who came before, and never forget the struggles they went through to bring us into the modern day.

PS...

My fiancé always likes to pose with the burn pile! His grandmother is the one in the very first photo at the top of this article. We circumnavigated the globe with her (literally!) for her birthday. She called the trip "Betty's Big Bash Before She's Ash" and we did this for her 75th birthday. My point in telling you this is that apparently my fiancé gets his attitude about posing for photos from her, ha! My future grandmother-in-law also started shouting once we got out to the pile "Don't throw this witch in! I'm not ready to burn yet!" 😂

Oh Mamor, don't ever change.