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

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It is about a young, desperate widow, Zigra, whom cannot feed her family and so begins an affair with a merchants wealthy son, when his wife catches them, she accuses the widow of witchcraft. This would be common for the era and she is taken to the 'witch hole' and awaits trial. She is then joined by other innocent women accused of witchcraft and their terrible fates. To me, the main tragedy of the witch trials is that those people were actually innocent, and all of the witchcraft tales were made up by men (and sometimes women?) in power, to either explain their misfortunes or just as a way to enact their mysogyny etc. Norway, 1662. A dangerous time to be a woman, when even dancing can lead to accusations of witchcraft. When Zigri, desperate and grieving after the loss of her husband and son, embarks on an affair with the local merchant, it’s not long before she is sent to the fortress at Vardo, to be tried and condemned as a witch.

Steilenset remains to remind us to never forget the causes of their misfortune–or the consequences of fear and persecution. Related Entries Alm, Ellen Janette. Statens rolle i trolldomsprosessene i Danmark og Norge på 1500- og 1600-tallet (Thesis, University of Tromso: 2000)Norway, 1662. A dangerous time to be a woman, when even dancing can lead to accusations of witchcraft. When recently widowed Zigri embarks on a doomed affair with the local merchant, she is inevitably sent to the fortress at Vardø to be tried and condemned as a witch.

There is hardly anything happening for a great part of the story. A whole lot of energy goes in setting the scenes but there is hardly any action. It was too slow even on audio. I found Bergman’s writing atmospheric and beautiful. Her chapters alternate between the perspectives of Anna and Ingeborg. I especially enjoyed the incorporation of various folktales into the narrative including those of the Sámi people. The visionary transformation of the witches into birds was very evocative and reminded me of the portrayal in Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ of the northern witches, who were also gifted with weather magic.Here we have a mix of past and present women’s strife in a lyrical narrative telling the interwoven story of a three women and three children arrested for being witches, and that of one noblewoman sharing the same castle exiled by the king for being too outspoken and not going into the shadows as old women are meant to.

The Witches of Vardø is a novel based on the real life witch hunts which took place on the island of Vardø, Norway, between 1662 and 1663. It is beautifully written, atmospheric, with some gorgeous descriptive passages. The setting highlights how cold and desolate the landscape is and adds to the eerie atmosphere and feel of the book. Set in Norway in 1662, The Witches of Vardø is a beautifully told historical fiction tale about a group of women accused of witchcraft. When Zigri starts an affair with the merchant’s son, she is denounced as a witch and taken to the island of Vardø to await trial. Her daughter Ingeborg is determined to rescue her from a terrible fate, so joins forces with Maren, the daughter of the infamous witch Liren Sand. Will the two girls be able to save Zigri and the other women accused of witchcraft? Those in the witches hole are not the only women captive on the island. Noblewoman Anna Rhodius has been sent to Vardø in disgrace. She has lost everything, but what will she do to regain the King’s favour and return to her previous life of privilege?The setting of The Witches of Vardø, an isolated fishing community in a remote part of Norway in the latter half of the seventeenth century along with its subject matter, reminded me strongly of The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave which I read in 2021. And those who have read, as I have, books such as The Manningtree Witches by A. K. Blakemore or Widdershinsby Helen Steadman will be familiar with accusations of witchcraft being levelled against women, especially those considered "different", for instance women skilled in healing. Also how fear of association can turn a community against those accused, how natural events can be interpreted as portents of evil or how unconventional behaviour can be viewed as a sign of possession by the Devil. In the winter and spring of 1621 a witch trial took place at the fortress of Vardøhus in Vardø, the center of Norwegian Finnmark. There a woman from Kiberg, Mari Jørgensdatter, was interrogated under torture on 21 January. She said that Satan had come to her at night at Christmas 1620 and asked her to follow him to the house of her neighbor Kirsti Sørensdatter. He asked her if she would serve him, and she said yes, after which he gave her the witch's brand by biting her between the fingers of her left hand. [3]