Episode 183: Suffer the Children

Have you ever held something that's priceless?

As in literally held an object between your fingers that you knew with absolute certainty was valuable beyond measure?

I have, and I want to tell you about it.

Now clearly there are a number of factors that can make something valuable.

A great example would be the coin known as the 1913 Liberty Head nickel.

As far as experts know, only five were ever minted, making them incredibly rare, which is why the last time one went up for auction, it sold for $4.5 million.

But some items take things a step further, and back in 2018, I had a chance to examine one.

It was a copy of the Declaration of Independence, known as a broadside.

printed in July of 1776.

Now, most of the copies that people talk about were printed by a guy named John Dunlap, and they are the ones that people dream of finding behind framed photos or hidden away in an attic.

To date, there are 26 known Dunlap broadsides.

So yeah, pretty rare.

But then there are the copies made by Boston printer Ezekiel Russell.

His are all pretty much the same as the Dunlap broadsides, with the big heading followed by the smaller font of the main text.

Except, there are fewer of his, making them harder to get.

But that day in 2018, I got to hold an enigma.

It's the only known Russell broadside printed with two portraits at the top.

Just to the left of the heading are two tall ovals, each containing a profile view of a man in a uniform and a wig.

One is Israel Putnam, a Revolutionary War hero known for the Battle of Bunker Hill.

and the other is a guy named George Washington.

And if the date is accurate, it makes this the earliest known woodcut of Washington to appear in print.

So like I said, priceless.

Humans are very good at assigning value to things.

The more rare, the higher the significance.

But truly valuable things have one other quality in common.

A dash of the unexpected.

And when it comes to history, those are the stories that deserve to be told, because they take us off the beaten path, put us off balance, and give us a fresh view of something we thought we understood.

And in the process, they offer a perspective that's more than a little disturbing.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore.

If there's one European power that's managed to walk a different path, it's Sweden.

And that's not just because they managed to stay neutral through both world wars.

Centuries ago, it was the Swedish Vikings who were responsible for a lot of early exploration by sea.

A Swedish scientist named Alfred Nobel gave us dynamite, but also the Nobel Prize.

And of course, we can't forget the 1970s pop sensation, ABBA.

Not that the country hasn't had the typical European experience.

Like all the kingdoms around them, they too suffered through the Black Death in the mid-1300s.

They battled with neighbors and ruled over some of them for a time.

And then they did their fair share of invading as well.

But not everything followed the European example.

Everywhere you look throughout European history, you can see the scar tissue from witch trials.

And I know I've covered many of those stories here from different angles, from the biggest in Scotland and England, to key players like Matthew Hopkins and John Kincaid.

But what's amazing is that despite centuries of panic and tragedy everywhere else, you can't find its equal in Sweden.

The biggest reason probably had to do with the legal system there.

For a very long time, witchcraft and sorcery weren't considered serious crimes.

It wouldn't be until 1350 that it was added to the list of capital crimes, but even then, the penalty was only enforced in cases where murder was involved.

Two centuries later, though, something changed.

The Swedish Reformation began around 1527, and with it came a newfound hatred toward anything related to witchcraft.

But compared to the trials that took place in Scotland and England, the new wave of fanaticism still didn't move the needle much.

During the 16th century, over 100 trials took place, but the total number of related deaths was just 10.

Of course, even one death would have been too many, but 10 was a rounding error compared to Scotland.

The other outcome of this new surge in trials was adjustments to the Swedish laws concerning witchcraft, and by 1608, a new act was passed that applied the death penalty to all cases, not just the ones ending in murder.

Religious fear laid the groundwork, like a summer drought turning all the grass to brittle kindling.

So the arrival of more strict laws acted like a spark, and as you can imagine, it could only end badly.

It all began with an event that took place in 1617 in the town of Finspong, far to the north.

There, the land was ruled over by John, Duke of Ostrogothia, and his wife, the Princess Maria Elizabeth.

They were a couple of their time, raised in a world with a little more fear and a little less patience, but it was really their private priest who was their darkest weapon.

His name was Claudius Pritz, and from the moment he settled into his role working for the Duke and Princess, he flexed his ideological muscles.

Early on, he accused a woman of trying to enchant his employers, and to defend them, he had her tried, sentenced, and executed by burning her at the stake.

It's said that as she waited for the flames to find their way from the kindling to her feet, she reached out and grabbed hold of the priest's robes and nearly pulled him into the fire with her.

It was only thanks to the quick thinking of the executioner, who reached out and grasped the priest by the arm that the man was saved.

But it served as proof to Pritz that the witches were far too dangerous to turn a blind eye to, so he stepped up his efforts.

Under his influence, the Duke passed his own regional witchcraft law that superseded the kings, effectively entering cheat codes into the system to make it easier to hunt and and kill them.

By the time the Finspong witch trials came to an end, nine women had been killed, eight by execution, and one due to neglect while sitting in prison.

According to the legends about the trials, that execution was unique among the countless stories I've read over the years, and utterly terrifying.

Each of the women were led into the forest, most likely in the dead of night, and roughly guided through the trees until they came to the edge of a cliff.

Looking over the precipice at the ground far below, the flames of a great bonfire could be seen, like a pulsing, burning eye.

And then, one by one, they were pushed off.

The rest, well, you don't need me to tell you how that would end for them.

One last legend about the trials, though.

It's said that some of the women managed to escape and ran off into the woods where they found shelter in a deep cavern that they turned into their new home.

Over time, the cave became known as the Sorceress' Tarn, and it's been said that those who visit it can still hear the voices of the women crying out, I am innocent.

Those who mock the voices, they say, will fall dead before sunset.

Gertrude could walk on water.

At least that's what young Matz Nielsen claimed.

It all started with an argument while the pair were out guarding a flock of sheep one day in 1668.

Gertrude Sven's daughter, who was 12 years old at the time, apparently got in a fight over a piece of bread with Matz, who was a couple of years younger than her.

She then hit him in the arm and ran off to tend to the sheep, leaping over a stream.

But from where Matz sat, that's not what it looked like.

No, he was pretty sure that Gertrude walked on the water, and he told his father as much.

It was a ridiculous story, but the young boy's conviction was so powerful that his father took him to see the local priest, where they shared his encounter.

And that was the beginning of everything to follow.

Young Gertrude was quickly rounded up and brought in for questioning.

I think we need to believe that the interrogation was a frightening experience, though, because almost instantly Gertrude passed the buck.

The only reason she had been able to do it, she claimed, was because the maid who worked in her home had taught her how.

That maid, a woman named Marit John's daughter, denied the accusation, but the story was just just too vivid to ignore.

Gertrude claimed that six years earlier, in 1664, Marit had taken her to an island off the eastern coast, referred to by locals as Blokula, and there they participated in a witch's sabbath and met the devil, who gave her a magic oil that could help her walk on water.

It was all fantasy, of course, but in the 1660s, people weren't so quick to dismiss stories like this.

There was the possibility, however slim, that it could be true.

So they listened.

And then another child came forward, boy named Eric Erickson, and he backed it all up.

He had seen Gertrude and Marit there at Blokula, along with other children who had been kidnapped.

And that seemed to be enough for the authorities.

Marit was hauled into court where Gertrude and the other children lined up to give testimony.

Even Marit's younger sister showed up to contribute.

At one point in the trial, Marit, a grown woman, looked around the room and scolded the children, declaring them to be forsaken by God, God, and headed down a dark road.

When the children cried in response, they earned the court's sympathy, and when they pointed to the audience and named other women who had joined Marit in her witchcraft, the court believed them.

By the end of the day, 10 new suspects from the town of Mora had been added to the list, and it spiraled out from there.

By spring the following year, there were 22 women and one man defending themselves against accusations of witchcraft, and all of them had been accused by children.

Soon after, 18 of them were sentenced to death, and despite the national court revoking 11 of those sentences, the remaining seven were executed on May 19th of 1669.

And I really want to tell you that it was over, but I think you know that it's never that easy, never that cut and dried.

Social panic, conspiracy theories, and dangerous beliefs that fly in the face of common sense have never gone away, and they always seem to gain enough traction to keep going.

And so did this mess.

You see, one of the things about the Mora witch trials that frustrated the authorities was how the king had stepped in and commuted a number of the sentences.

They were afraid of the threat that witchcraft posed to their community, and it felt like the crown had ignored those fears.

So the local government did something bold.

They used their local powers to game the system.

forming a witch commission that would oversee future trials in their area.

And this commission gave them ultimate authority and absolute power.

No more meddling by outsiders.

Their word would be the final word from that point forward.

And that wasn't the only change.

You see, before it was essential for the accused to confess to their crime in order for execution to even be an option.

So the Witchcraft Commission rewrote that law as well, making confession an optional part of future convictions.

And because even that wasn't enough, they also lifted the rules that forbade torture.

And there it was.

In a matter of just 50 years, Sweden went from a country seemingly immune to witchcraft panic to a place where the local authorities could send anyone to their death, whether they were accused by a handful of children or confessed themselves under the threat of torture.

The stage was set, the pieces were in place, the crowds were hungry, and the tragic events that have come to be known as the Great Noise were about to begin.

That panic burned through the countryside for eight years.

What started out as a fabricated story by Gertrude Sven's daughter had quickly become a regional affair, but by 1674, much of the activity was centered in the area around the town of Torshoken.

The priest there was a man named Laurentius Hornaeus, and he was an up-and-comer.

Within just a few years, he had gone from being a student at university to the top job in the region.

By the time the witch panic rolled into town, he was only 29 years old, full of a lot of idealism and enthusiasm.

Bad traits for someone about to oversee some witch trials.

Hornaeus viewed himself as part of a chosen army, tasked by God with fighting the devil.

It wasn't a political view he picked from a list of possible options.

This was his calling, and he was passionate about it.

But that passion is also what made things so bad for everyone else.

And that included the children.

One day in the fall of 1674, Horneus assigned two boys to stand outside the church doors with him as the parishioners entered for the morning service.

These were boys who claimed to be able to identify witches by invisible marks on their foreheads that only they could see.

When they spotted one of these invisible marks, they would point the person out, and Horneus would add their name to his growing list of suspects.

That seemed to go smoothly enough for everyone until one of the women that the boys identified as a witch turned out to be Hornaeus' wife.

According to the records, he slapped the boy who pointed her out, who promptly and conveniently changed his mind, claiming that the sun had blinded him for a moment.

It wouldn't be the last time that the priest abused those children either.

Many were beaten to extract confessions, while others were dipped in icy water.

He even had some placed in an oven, like some sort of twisted reenactment of Hansel and Gretel, telling them that he would bake them unless they confessed.

Yeah, Horneus was a monster.

There's nothing I can offer that might change that.

Just evil, through and through.

Most of the confessions and accusations centered around that island I mentioned earlier, a place known by locals as Blokula.

It was there where the devil himself was said to hold court, partly because it was so isolated that it required magical flight to reach the place.

And once there, the mystery deepened.

The island was covered with a massive meadow that no one was able to see the end of.

But in the center of that meadow was a wall and a gate, and beyond them, a smaller meadow.

And at the center of that was a house, which contained a long table for gatherings and meals, and a number of bedrooms for the devil and his servants.

So as the children of Torshokin accused more and more people of being witches, that island came up over and over again in their stories.

By October of 1674, over 100 men and women were on the list, and the case officially moved into the courtroom.

His only proof that any of it was true were the accusations of the children and the confessions of the suspects, all given to him through torture.

It was a moment in time when paranoia led to the suspension of common sense.

No physical evidence was necessary because one man's wild and fantastical stories were swallowed by his desperate followers, Hook, Line, and Sinker.

It's a powerful example of just how easily a community can be manipulated by nothing more than lies that prey on fear.

Some of the accused were acquitted, but it wasn't a large number.

A few other women managed to slip through the executioner's grasp by pleating their bellies, in other words, claiming that they were pregnant, but that didn't always work.

and a few most likely died in jail, waiting for their sentence and the date of their execution.

By early 1675, the court, led of course by Horneus himself, had made its decision.

71 of the accused were found guilty.

Immediately, the 65 women and six men were marched outside.

There, a group of men from town surrounded them with long pikes and herded them, like sheep, to a hill outside of town known as the Mountain of the Stake.

That was where a massive bonfire waited for them.

But before they were burned, each of the convicted were decapitated.

Then their families were allowed to approach and remove their clothing and valuables before the bodies and heads were tossed unceremoniously into the pile of wood and kindling.

And then, the fire was lit.

It was the largest mass execution in Sweden's history and the largest execution on a single day for any recorded witch trial.

71 lives taken, right in front of their families and neighbors.

All because of a rumor.

All

because of fear.

Common sense often feels a bit like an oxymoron, doesn't it?

Because it's never as common as we might hope.

There's the logical path, the one that we would assume everyone should take, and then there's the unexpected detour, a road that usually steers us into the arms of tragedy.

In many ways, the witch trials from 17th century Sweden are just that, more witch trials, and I've already shared a number of similar cases with you over the years, but the Torshokan witch trials are clearly different, and there's value in exploring why that is.

Because if we generalize and simply lump all witch trials into a single category, picking our favorite example as the only one we want to hear about, then we ignore each unique trial's contribution to the larger picture.

We ignore the nuances that teach us more and more about human nature, and we ignore the many lives that were lost.

The great noise would ravage on for a bit longer, but the tragedy of the Torshokin witch trials left a massive wound in the heart of Sweden.

Just two years after that horrifying execution, the king ordered every single priest in the country to stand up at the pulpit and thank God in front of all their parishioners that the witches had all been driven out.

The message was pretty clear.

You can stop accusing people of being witches now because the church has said that they are all gone.

In the centuries since, the memory of the great noise has lived on through a unique celebration known as Gladpask.

It's sort of a hybrid of Easter and the American idea of Halloween.

Each year in the spring, children dress up as Easter witches, wearing colorful scarves and red paint on their cheeks, and then go door to door and ask for candy.

At the end of the week of celebration, everything culminates at Velbora, a feast day that ends with a bonfire, and the goal?

To frighten away the witches and send them off to the magical island of Blokula.

But not all kids have had it easy.

Remember the two boys who helped the priest by standing outside his church and identifying supposed witches by the invisible marks on their foreheads.

They may have operated under orders from Hornaeus and even the threat of physical abuse, but in the eyes of their community, they played a key role in the deaths of their brothers and sisters, their mothers and fathers.

They became a pariah, hated by almost everyone for what they did, and while there's no record of who was ultimately responsible, We know how their story ends.

Each of them died a short while later under mysterious circumstances.

All we know is one specific detail, recorded for posterity and the pages of history.

Someone, it seems, had cut their throats.

The role of children in the great noise is unique among stories of witch trials.

In a day and age when adult males were often the only people with social standing, it's amazing to see just how many lives were lost on the word of minors.

But before we call it a day, I want to highlight one specific boy, because his story shows us a side of witch trials that most people have never seen.

A side that's dark and evil and full of so much tragedy.

Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

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Jonathan Johann Gries was born in 1663, making him just five years old when the great noise began.

which means that by the time it was finished, he had lived two-thirds of his life under the power of witchcraft panic, and it made an impression on him.

Jonathan was the son of of a shoemaker from the coastal city of Javle, about 100 miles north of Stockholm.

Not much is known about his earliest years, but it's clear that the stories of the Great Noise made their way into his home, and something about them deeply connected with him.

Every child needs a hero, someone to look up to and emulate, and for Jonathan, that hero was becoming more and more common as the Great Noise spread.

He became enamored with the boys who served the priests by pointing out witches that only they could see.

Ornaeus used them, as we've already learned, but they could be found in many other communities as well.

They were known as the Tale Boys, and while their contributions to the witch panic harmed many people, it gave them something valuable ⁇ fame.

And being an impressionable, naive child, Jonathan wanted the same thing, without ever considering the consequences.

When the Great Noise arrived in Yavle, he became the star witness, pointing his finger at a number of women who he claimed were witches, and his own mother was one of them.

He accused her of abducting him and taking him to the witch's island where he met the devil and saw many local women taking part in the witch's sabbath.

When that accusation led to his mother's execution, one would assume he recognized the mistake he made and changed his ways.

But Jonathan wasn't that sort of boy.

Instead, he was sent to live with extended family in Stockholm, where he picked right back up where he left off at home, pointing at random women and declaring them to be witches.

It wasn't long before other children in town were following his example.

Jonathan was earning fame and recognition for his deceitful work and others wanted a piece of the pie.

If Stockholm was unsettled before his arrival, it was soon in chaos.

No one was safe and if you happened to cross Jonathan in the wrong way, you too might find yourself on his list.

But as we've already discussed, the great noise began to die off with the execution of 71 innocent lives in Torshokin.

There were a handful of other smaller trials, but it was one final trial that brought it all to an end, a trial right there in Jonathan's city of Stockholm, and it involved a woman named Malin Matzdaughter.

Malin had the disadvantage of being an outsider.

She was actually of Finnish descent and spoke that language better than Swedish, but she had married a Swedish man and they had two children, Anna and Maria.

The trouble was, their daughters seemed to have just as much prejudice against her as her neighbors.

In July of 1676, the girls accused their mother of taking them to witches' sabbaths, where they were forced to meet the devil.

Mallin was brought in for questioning and told to confess, but she refused.

In an attempt to save herself from being seen as a witch, she tried to recite the Apostles' Creed, but her poor Swedish tripped her up.

To those observing, the truth was clear.

She was too evil to speak those holy words.

And look, I could give you the blow-by-blow of her interrogation and trial.

I could list off all the the things that people claimed she had done.

But those are things you've heard before.

Malin's situation was just as frustrating and maddening as countless others before and after her.

But the one way it differed was the involvement of children.

And specifically, Jonathan Grees.

He was there to make his claims.

Even then, after all those years of the tale boys, few were questioning the truth about their accusations.

All Jonathan had to do was nod his head and tell the court that he could see the mark of the devil on her forehead.

And that was good enough for them.

On July 16th of 1676, Malin was found guilty and sentenced to death.

After debating the method of execution they felt she deserved, should they start with torture before decapitating her and then burning her body, or should they just skip the torture altogether, they settled on a much more cruel option.

burning her alive.

Malin, Matt's daughter, was the only person burned alive during the great noise, but she died with as much dignity as she could manage.

She never confessed, she never bowed to the authorities, and according to those who were there, even when the flames had reached her body, she never screamed.

And Jonathan Greese?

Well, in the aftermath of the panic, it became clear just how much of the blame fell on the shoulders of boys like him.

It was their false accusations that emboldened communities to execute innocent people.

And among that horrible, manipulative group, Jonathan was king.

So the authorities did the only thing they could think of to send a message to the people that his behavior should never be copied.

In November of 1676, Jonathan Grees was executed for his part in the great noise.

He was hanged, not burned.

This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Ali Steed and music by Chad Lawson.

Lore is much more than just a podcast, though.

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Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.

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My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical.

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And as always, thanks for listening.

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