“17th Century Iceland was a cruel place”
December 25, 2021 6:59 AM Subscribe
The long and underappreciated history of male witches – and the countries where more men were prosecuted for witchcraft is a short article by historian Dr. Kate Lister. The country with the most lopsided ratio of male to female witches was Iceland, where 20 out 22 executed witches in the 17th Century were men. Though a colony of Denmark, whose king was an anti-witchcraft fanatic, burning witches came late to the island. The Icelandic Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft has a good overview of the subject. And if you want to go deeper, Prof. Suzannah Lipscombe interviews fellow historian Dr. Ólina Kjerúlf Þorvarðardóttir, a specialist in what Icelanders refer to as “the burning century”, on the Not Just the Tudors podcast, and explains why Icelandic witches were mainly men.
Thanks for posting this--the only 17th Century Icelandic witch I've run across before is the one in Johannes Kepler's lunar science fiction infodump, Somnium. Kepler's witch is a woman, maybe based on his own mother who was accused of witchcraft (but not in Iceland). Anyway, the narrator is a man who asks his mother about her art, summons her spirit teacher, etc., so I guess he's a 17th C. Icelandic witch too.
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:48 AM on December 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:48 AM on December 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
Gleðilegt Noel.
posted by clavdivs at 8:40 AM on December 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 8:40 AM on December 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
There were plenty of men accused of witchcraft in 17th-century England and America too. Malcolm Gaskill's new book, The Ruin of all Witches: Life and Death in the New World, is about one such case.
The most convincing interpretation I've read is that witchcraft in men was associated with dysfunctional masculinity, i.e. men who were independent of normal household and family structures, hyper-aggressive, constantly quarrelling with their neighbours, and generally deemed to be out of control. In that sense you could say that male and female witches were mirror-images of each other. The male witch was cast as an anti-patriarchal figure, just as the female witch was cast as an anti-maternal or anti-social figure.
(Edited to add: this is my 1000th comment on the blue! It's only taken me 17 years to reach this total .. Anyway, Merry Christmas, everyone.)
posted by verstegan at 9:52 AM on December 25, 2021 [31 favorites]
The most convincing interpretation I've read is that witchcraft in men was associated with dysfunctional masculinity, i.e. men who were independent of normal household and family structures, hyper-aggressive, constantly quarrelling with their neighbours, and generally deemed to be out of control. In that sense you could say that male and female witches were mirror-images of each other. The male witch was cast as an anti-patriarchal figure, just as the female witch was cast as an anti-maternal or anti-social figure.
(Edited to add: this is my 1000th comment on the blue! It's only taken me 17 years to reach this total .. Anyway, Merry Christmas, everyone.)
posted by verstegan at 9:52 AM on December 25, 2021 [31 favorites]
No one would argue that misogyny is well mixed in with the witch scare (as with the Malleus Maleficarum, mentioned in the first article). But historical research over the last 40 years has found the phenomenon to be much more complicated than simple woman hatred, and also shown that some earlier advocacy (like the film, The Burning Times) got the history wrong (estimates of victims are much lower than they claimed).
These articles about male witches are a part of the growing knowledge about the complexities of the witch scare period - the phenomenon differed greatly by place and time, as the beliefs of the accusers changed. The belief in the "devilish conspiracy" (that witches knew one another, and met up with the devil at "Witches Shabbat" to conspire against the Christian world) was common in many places, like France, Germany and Scotland - but not, for example, in England, where a more traditional belief in witchcraft as "harm by magic" predominated (where the witch acted alone, out of some conflict or malice - more a poisoning or vandalism, but with magic). You also see this in the executions - English witches were hanged, not burned (because they weren't accused of heresy as with Scottish witches).*
So different models of witchcraft did lead to different types of people being accused - and it's very clear that in Iceland, there was a model which lead to people more often accusing men than women.
My references may be somewhat out of date, but Lynn Roper is one of the historians doing interesting work on the complexities of witchcraft trials (her specialty is the German areas of Europe).
*Under this model, witch trials in England were relatively limited, a smallish number of people per year throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The exception are two spikes, both in the county of Essex: one in the early 1560s, which was strongly linked to political fears after the pope excommunicated Elizabeth, and another in the 1640s, mostly due to the activities of Mathew Hopkins.
Scotland had a much more continental model of witchcraft (as a devilish conspiracy), and had both more trials and different patterns of trials. And yes, Good Omens got this bit wrong: If they wanted Agnes Nutter to be burned, they should have had her in Scotland.
posted by jb at 10:03 AM on December 25, 2021 [22 favorites]
These articles about male witches are a part of the growing knowledge about the complexities of the witch scare period - the phenomenon differed greatly by place and time, as the beliefs of the accusers changed. The belief in the "devilish conspiracy" (that witches knew one another, and met up with the devil at "Witches Shabbat" to conspire against the Christian world) was common in many places, like France, Germany and Scotland - but not, for example, in England, where a more traditional belief in witchcraft as "harm by magic" predominated (where the witch acted alone, out of some conflict or malice - more a poisoning or vandalism, but with magic). You also see this in the executions - English witches were hanged, not burned (because they weren't accused of heresy as with Scottish witches).*
So different models of witchcraft did lead to different types of people being accused - and it's very clear that in Iceland, there was a model which lead to people more often accusing men than women.
My references may be somewhat out of date, but Lynn Roper is one of the historians doing interesting work on the complexities of witchcraft trials (her specialty is the German areas of Europe).
*Under this model, witch trials in England were relatively limited, a smallish number of people per year throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The exception are two spikes, both in the county of Essex: one in the early 1560s, which was strongly linked to political fears after the pope excommunicated Elizabeth, and another in the 1640s, mostly due to the activities of Mathew Hopkins.
Scotland had a much more continental model of witchcraft (as a devilish conspiracy), and had both more trials and different patterns of trials. And yes, Good Omens got this bit wrong: If they wanted Agnes Nutter to be burned, they should have had her in Scotland.
posted by jb at 10:03 AM on December 25, 2021 [22 favorites]
Sorry, that should be "No one would argue with the idea that misogyny was well mixed in.."
posted by jb at 10:09 AM on December 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by jb at 10:09 AM on December 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
A great novel with male witches is Jane Smiley's Greenlanders
posted by Morpeth at 10:16 AM on December 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Morpeth at 10:16 AM on December 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
If I had one preconception about 17th century* Iceland, it was that it was a cruel place. This is adding an extra layer to that.
*Also my preconception about most Icelandic centuries, mind you,
posted by lesbiassparrow at 10:18 AM on December 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
*Also my preconception about most Icelandic centuries, mind you,
posted by lesbiassparrow at 10:18 AM on December 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm sorry, but "The Necropants"? For real? if you were wondering when you were going to find yourself typing "Ctrl+F necropants", I am pleased to report that the day has arrived
posted by phooky at 10:18 AM on December 25, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by phooky at 10:18 AM on December 25, 2021 [8 favorites]
Lipscombe asks about the necropants, and the answer is that they’re a folktale, and there’s no evidence that anyone ever made a pair.
posted by Kattullus at 10:22 AM on December 25, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 10:22 AM on December 25, 2021 [5 favorites]
No one else has mentioned fartrunes yet? Everyone focused on the necropants and no one noticed the fartrunes.
posted by natteringnabob at 10:57 AM on December 25, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by natteringnabob at 10:57 AM on December 25, 2021 [11 favorites]
Ah, the casting of fartrunes in necropants. The devil’s work, indeed!
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:56 AM on December 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:56 AM on December 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
It's interesting that "witchcraft" persecutions in Iceland weren't as gender-linked as in other places, because in some places, e.g. northern Germany, they were very gender-linked.
I am trying to dig up the source, but there was a rather horrifying first-person account of the witch trials in a particular area in Germany, where the author noted rather offhandedly that some villages had burned all of their adult-age women, leaving none alive but the elderly and children. And that this was carried out not in pogroms of disorganized violence, but rather as a quasi-judicial procedure, where one of the main records of a person being burned alive is the record of disbursements from the local treasury to buy a sufficient quantity of wood for the pyre.
For some reason I still find that set of facts particularly disturbing; I am not aware of any other examples (although perhaps I am simply happily ignorant) of cultures essentially engaging in such a systematic, ritualized extermination of their female members.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:40 PM on December 25, 2021 [13 favorites]
I am trying to dig up the source, but there was a rather horrifying first-person account of the witch trials in a particular area in Germany, where the author noted rather offhandedly that some villages had burned all of their adult-age women, leaving none alive but the elderly and children. And that this was carried out not in pogroms of disorganized violence, but rather as a quasi-judicial procedure, where one of the main records of a person being burned alive is the record of disbursements from the local treasury to buy a sufficient quantity of wood for the pyre.
For some reason I still find that set of facts particularly disturbing; I am not aware of any other examples (although perhaps I am simply happily ignorant) of cultures essentially engaging in such a systematic, ritualized extermination of their female members.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:40 PM on December 25, 2021 [13 favorites]
Can someone explain to me why witch burning isn't a form of human sacrifice?
posted by 1adam12 at 1:25 PM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by 1adam12 at 1:25 PM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
Everyone focused on the necropants and no one noticed the fartrunes.
They missed the gorilla, too.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:36 PM on December 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
They missed the gorilla, too.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:36 PM on December 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
Can someone explain to me why witch burning isn't a form of human sacrifice?
Witches aren't human, duuuuuuuuuh. Women aren't either.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:00 PM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
Witches aren't human, duuuuuuuuuh. Women aren't either.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:00 PM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
Can someone explain to me why witch burning isn't a form of human sacrifice?
Witches were burned because they were considered to be heretics - literally devil worshipers. Other heretics, like the Cathars, Jews or Protestants under Mary Tudor, were also burned. I don't know if I recall correctly, but I believe that the burning was intended to cleanse the soul. But maybe I remember wrong.
posted by jb at 4:21 PM on December 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
Witches were burned because they were considered to be heretics - literally devil worshipers. Other heretics, like the Cathars, Jews or Protestants under Mary Tudor, were also burned. I don't know if I recall correctly, but I believe that the burning was intended to cleanse the soul. But maybe I remember wrong.
posted by jb at 4:21 PM on December 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
Right, but… that’s human sacrifice.
posted by clew at 4:42 PM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by clew at 4:42 PM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
So's the geezer on the cross. It don't have to make sense.
posted by howfar at 4:45 PM on December 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by howfar at 4:45 PM on December 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
More seriously, sacrifice is the giving up of something valuable to invoke, appease, or evoke the power of, a god. Execution by horrendous means, for "crimes against God", on the other hand, is all of human history.
posted by howfar at 4:49 PM on December 25, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by howfar at 4:49 PM on December 25, 2021 [10 favorites]
In Kattullus' last link Dr. Ólina Kjerúlf Þorvarðardóttir points out that men outnumbered women in Iceland's completely rural population of ~50,000 at the time of these witch burnings, and that the victims were often itinerant laborers.
I think that tends to move the burnings away from what we normally think of as witch burnings, and toward a category of lynchings, possibly with an undertone of sexual jealousy or animosity as is often the case with lynching.
posted by jamjam at 6:07 PM on December 25, 2021 [12 favorites]
I think that tends to move the burnings away from what we normally think of as witch burnings, and toward a category of lynchings, possibly with an undertone of sexual jealousy or animosity as is often the case with lynching.
posted by jamjam at 6:07 PM on December 25, 2021 [12 favorites]
Can someone explain to me why witch burning isn't a form of human sacrifice?
Because "human sacrifice" is a highly politicized term used to demonize the activities of an inferior "other", never to describe something that "we" do. See also the doctrine of discovery.
posted by heatherlogan at 8:33 PM on December 25, 2021 [7 favorites]
Because "human sacrifice" is a highly politicized term used to demonize the activities of an inferior "other", never to describe something that "we" do. See also the doctrine of discovery.
posted by heatherlogan at 8:33 PM on December 25, 2021 [7 favorites]
Also, sacrifice in that sense connotes (a) having a deity or powerful figure who the sacrifice is being offered to, and (b) getting or at least wanting something in exchange for the sacrifice. Within a given belief system, there might at least be some rational, not just hateful reason for a human sacrifice. Eg. in the Christian tradition, Jesus made a human sacrifice of himself in order to obtain … some benefit for humanity that I’m not fully clear on, but likely Mefites who were raised in some form of Christianity could explain. As opposed to retribution killings or lynching or other hate crime killings, which the executions of accused witches in Iceland sound more like.
posted by eviemath at 9:01 PM on December 25, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 9:01 PM on December 25, 2021 [5 favorites]
You can certainly define "human sacrifice" broadly enough that it includes all judicial executions, if you want to, including modern ones. I'm not sure if that's a super useful definition, but it's certainly arguable.
Depending on the time and place, some witch trials and executions were more organized than others. In some places, it looks an awful lot like a pogrom or lynching against already-marginalized people. In other places... it looks a lot more like a modern judicial execution, but it's for a "crime" that we no longer recognize as valid or even meaningful.
What I think is difficult to appreciate from a modern perspective is how common and earnest the belief in witchcraft was. I think some modern explanations of witch-hunts tend to lean heavily on "big picture" causes, like the Counter-Reformation, consolidation of Church power, suppression of traditional folk religion, etc., because these explanations make sense to us today. I have always found them somewhat lacking, though, because they don't seem to explain the ferociousness of the violence or the seemingly arbitrary and indiscriminate way in which it was often directed. But the witch-hunts occurred in the context of societies in which people (including, on occasion, the accused themselves) really believed in witchcraft and sorcery as actual things that existed, and moreover that they could cause catastrophic events like storms and crop failures. That's really the only way to explain things like the Torsåker witch trials (which led pretty directly to a spasm of witch-hunts in Scotland), in which family members reportedly participated in the execution of the accused witches. They lived in, to paraphrase Sagan, a literally demon-haunted world.
I don't see a lot of daylight between the early modern period witch trials and, say, the ritual human sacrifice of the Aztecs. In both cases, participants were acting rationally within a cosmological framework that they believed was an accurate model of reality.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:11 PM on December 25, 2021 [9 favorites]
Depending on the time and place, some witch trials and executions were more organized than others. In some places, it looks an awful lot like a pogrom or lynching against already-marginalized people. In other places... it looks a lot more like a modern judicial execution, but it's for a "crime" that we no longer recognize as valid or even meaningful.
What I think is difficult to appreciate from a modern perspective is how common and earnest the belief in witchcraft was. I think some modern explanations of witch-hunts tend to lean heavily on "big picture" causes, like the Counter-Reformation, consolidation of Church power, suppression of traditional folk religion, etc., because these explanations make sense to us today. I have always found them somewhat lacking, though, because they don't seem to explain the ferociousness of the violence or the seemingly arbitrary and indiscriminate way in which it was often directed. But the witch-hunts occurred in the context of societies in which people (including, on occasion, the accused themselves) really believed in witchcraft and sorcery as actual things that existed, and moreover that they could cause catastrophic events like storms and crop failures. That's really the only way to explain things like the Torsåker witch trials (which led pretty directly to a spasm of witch-hunts in Scotland), in which family members reportedly participated in the execution of the accused witches. They lived in, to paraphrase Sagan, a literally demon-haunted world.
I don't see a lot of daylight between the early modern period witch trials and, say, the ritual human sacrifice of the Aztecs. In both cases, participants were acting rationally within a cosmological framework that they believed was an accurate model of reality.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:11 PM on December 25, 2021 [9 favorites]
Kadin2048: the story of the Torsåker witch trials reminds me most of the Satanic panic, including the coerced accusations of children (albeit far, far more coerced in Torsåker).
When people believe something powerfully, they can convince themselves to do horrible things.
posted by jb at 8:44 AM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
When people believe something powerfully, they can convince themselves to do horrible things.
posted by jb at 8:44 AM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
I don't now what point is being driven proposing the human sacrifice angle, but it seems a needless/axe-grindy derail whether we all agree or not.
posted by 2N2222 at 10:24 AM on December 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by 2N2222 at 10:24 AM on December 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
Quite apart from the obvious parallels to Q-Anon and similar modern-day conspiracism, there are absolutely people today who believe in the existence of witchcraft in the same sense as it was understood during the witch trials period, or as in Chick Tracts to give a more modern example. How people act, or don't act, based on those beliefs, and how it affects their emotions and level of vehemence, has quite a lot to do with the "big picture" issues.
posted by eviemath at 4:20 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 4:20 PM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
Lipscombe saw something about Necropants in the Iceland ‘museum of Icelandic sorcery and witchcraft', and from the description at the link in phooky's comment I think we can hazard a guess about what was really going on with those pants:
I think this is almost a dirty joke, or perhaps a even a dirty riddle somewhat like the old "thirty-two white horses on a red hill; now they champ, now they're still" and a satiric commentary about 'sorcerers' and how they make their livings.
Basically, find a widow willing to give you money for sex — or steal her money after you have sex with her — and then go from one widow to the next and you will always have money.
The necro aspect is an allusion to the fact that you are filling in for a dead man, and the lice are a reference to an occupational hazard for gigolos in general. I'm tempted to say the whole flaying business is a sly reference to the use of condoms, all of which were presumably made from skin in the 17th Century, but not human skin, but that might be going too far.
But if this is what sorcerers were up to, or what people thought they were up to as they went from place to place, that probably generated a lot of hostility in the isolated communities they visited.
posted by jamjam at 2:26 AM on December 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
One of the most difficult feats mentioned in Icelandic grimoires and folk tales is undoubtedly the nábrók (literally: necropants). This is a tool to gather wealth by supernatural means. To begin with the sorcerer has to make a pact with a living man and get his permission to dig up his dead body and skin it from the waist down.Note that after the necropants are made, the sorcerer must steal a coin from "a poor widow" and place it in the scrotum, and that it will then draw other money to itself, and never be empty. But the sorcerer risks leaving behind a lice-infested corpse unless he passes them on before he dies.
The skin must be completely intact with no holes or scratches. The sorcerer then steps into the skin which will immediately become one with his own.
A coin must be stolen from a poor widow, either at Christmas, Easter, or Whitsunday and kept in the scrotum. It will then draw money from living persons and the scrodum will never be empty when the sorcerer checks.
However, his spiritual well being is at risk unless he gets rid of the necropants before he dies. If he dies with the pants on, his body will become infested with lice as soon as he passes away. The sorcerer must therefore find somebody that is willing to take the pants and put his leg into the right leg before the sorcerer steps out of the left one. The pants will keep on drawing money for generations of owners.
I think this is almost a dirty joke, or perhaps a even a dirty riddle somewhat like the old "thirty-two white horses on a red hill; now they champ, now they're still" and a satiric commentary about 'sorcerers' and how they make their livings.
Basically, find a widow willing to give you money for sex — or steal her money after you have sex with her — and then go from one widow to the next and you will always have money.
The necro aspect is an allusion to the fact that you are filling in for a dead man, and the lice are a reference to an occupational hazard for gigolos in general. I'm tempted to say the whole flaying business is a sly reference to the use of condoms, all of which were presumably made from skin in the 17th Century, but not human skin, but that might be going too far.
But if this is what sorcerers were up to, or what people thought they were up to as they went from place to place, that probably generated a lot of hostility in the isolated communities they visited.
posted by jamjam at 2:26 AM on December 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
The Norwegian author Jenny Hval wrote in her novel Girls Against God that if you examine an original copy of the Malleus Malificarum, and specifically the pages dealing with the rightful torture of witches, you will find centuries of semen stains from centuries of men of faith who were aroused by it. Not sure if that is true, but it sounds cromulent.
posted by acb at 5:43 AM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 5:43 AM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by eviemath at 7:26 AM on December 25, 2021 [4 favorites]