Whispers in the Church: Swedish Witch Hunt, 1672

By Charlene Hanson Jordan

This history explores the lives and trials of the accused during Swedens seventeenth-century witch hunts.

It may come as a surprise that Sweden had a witch hunt and that it was a precursor to Salems witch trials.

Mrit Hansdotter and Karl Karlsson lived in an age of war, religious upheaval, and general discord. Their home, Karlsgrden, was the site of tremendous heartache, tragedy, love and survival. It overlooked the Ljusnan River on a pilgrimage road between Uppsala and Saint Olafs shrine in Norway. Mrit was sentenced to death, twice, for things she could not have done. Karl was sentenced to death, twice, for things he might have done.

Tapping into numerous historical sourcesmost of them unavailable in Englishauthor and historian Charlene Hanson Jordan details the customs, traditions, relationships, and lifestyles of seventeenth-century Sweden while exploring her familys history and considering the dangers of an imbalance of power between church and state that allowed the development and spreading of an extreme notion about evil.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Oct 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781458205988

Charlene Hanson Jordan

Charlene Hanson Jordan Bilingual English/Swedish, born in Texas to the children of Swedish immigrants. Rode a horse to country school; Earned a B.A. English/History, University of Houston. Foreign Service Washington, D.C., Scandinavian Airlines, New York City, and German Convention Bureau in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Group genealogy/history tour organizer/leader to Scandinavia during more than 30-year travel career. Author of five historical books, three Texas historical markers, newspaper articles and historical journals. Honored by American Association of State & Local History for the book and display "Crossroads Elgin." Community service and grant writer obtaining funding to establish the Elgin Depot Museum in Texas.

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Copyright © 2012 by Charlene Hanson Jordan.

www.charlenehansonjordan.info

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ISBN: 978-1-4582-0597-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0599-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0598-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012916287

Abbott Press rev. date: 10/09/2012

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Photograph credits

At Karlsgården, November 2003

Meeting Märit and Karl

Chapter 1 The Accusations and the Wild Stories

Chapter 2 The Father of the Bride Protested

Chapter 3 Märit’s Story

Chapter 4 Karl Karlsson

Chapter 5 Lars Larsson’s Story

Chapter 6 Nils Hinders Karin

Chapter 7 Rull Älla, the Herb Woman

Chapter 8 The Trials

Chapter 9 Consequences

Appendix 1 Parallels

Appendix 2 My Theories

Appendix 3 Supplemental Notes

Appendix 4 A Brief Comparison to Life Elsewhere in Sweden

Glossary

Timeline

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Thank you, Travis Jordan, for your advice, editing, and photography, and Andre Jordan, thank you for your editing help. You have helped me more than you know.

Pastor Börje Björklund, Olle Hamre-Björk, Rune Joghans, and Gunnar Käller, you helped me beyond measure. Torbjörn Brandt, I appreciate the reference books that I was able to find at your Hälsinglands Antikvariat, as well as the cooperation of the historical association in Järvsö represented by Mats Fack and the articles in historical publications and on the Internet.

Charlene Hanson Jordan

Texas, August 2012

Jonas J:son Hanzén

A special thanks to

J. J:son Hanzén¹ (1877-1955) and to Gunnar Käller.

Mr. Hanzén spent his life researching the history of Järvsö and preserving it in the many books he wrote. All of them have been important to me in writing this book, but Om Trolldom och häxprocesser i Hälsingland made the information about

the trials possible.

001_a_cairo.jpg

Figure 1. Jonas J:son Hanzén by Harold Loqvist of Ljusdal. Photograph courtesy of the Ljusdalsbygdensmuseum. Harold Loqvist had his own studio in Ljusdal from 1930 until he sold it to another photographer in 1950.

Ljusdalsbygdensmuseum, Ljusdal

Owe Norberg, who gave me permission to use the photograph, said that the Ljusdalsbygdensmuseum is a small museum in the county of Ljusdal with emphasis on local traditions and local history. The museum will have its fiftieth anniversary in 2013. In addition to its being a repository of historical artifacts, the museum has a large collection of documentary films by the well-known Swedish filmmaker Erik Eriksson, who lived in nearby Färila.

Gunnar Käller

Gunnar Käller’s painstaking research over a lifetime provided access to the judicial records of Järvsö and many aspects of the lives of Märit and Karl.

Mr. Käller spent years transcribing and summarizing the approximately 5,000 judicial and church records of Järvsö, not an easy task because the records were in old Swedish.

Besides cheerfully answering my innumerable questions and giving me copies of his historical writing, he helped Jonas J:son Hanzén by typing Om Trolldom och häxprocesser i Hälsingland from Hanzén’s handwritten manuscript when the book was being readied for printing.

I must thank Rune Joghans from Järvsö for recommending that I contact Mr. Käller!

kaller2.jpg

Figure 2. Gunnar Käller. Photo courtesy of Mr. Käller.

Preface

The people in this story are my ancestors. They lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and their home was in Järvsö, a rural parish in Hälsingland, Sweden.

I didn’t know about my roots in Järvsö until 1998. When Elsa Lagevik, a Swedish author, learned that I was leading a group of Swedish descendants on a tour to visit Sweden, she told me that Sweden is more than Småland and Skåne—I should include Dalarna and Hälsingland in the itinerary.

She made some suggestions for me. I went along with them, but didn’t get their full impact until much later. She had arranged for us to visit Karlsgården and meet Olle Hamre-Björk and Evald Bodin. I met them but didn’t connect with the place because during the trip I couldn’t focus on much besides the group’s welfare. I saw Karlsgården for the first time during that trip, but I didn’t know then that I had a special connection there.

It was in 2003, when Olle found a copy of Min Släkt Järvsö for me at an auction, that I finally began to connect. Through the book, I discovered that I descend from many people in Järvsö, including Märit Hansdotter and Karl Karlsson, who lived there at Karlsgården.

Märit and Karl were my eighth great-grandparents. My grandfather, Harvey Hanson, was the son of Hans Pehrsson Kvick who was born in Järvsö in 1825, but I didn’t know that. The farthest back that I could go was to my grandfather who was born in Trödje on the Bothnian Coast in the Hille Parish. He was a seaman who had sailed around the world for seven years before stepping off the sailing ship, the Emma Parker, a clipper-rigged bark in Galveston, Texas. He died before my birth in the house that he built. He was buried in the cemetery of the Swedish Free Mission Church at Type, Texas, a place far from the sea. The Type community is a part of the older Post Oak Island that was named for the grove of post oak trees on the Central Texas prairie northeast of Austin. That is where I was born and where I now live.

I had lived in Europe and I had visited Sweden many times, but I knew nothing about the mythical place called Blåkulla. For years I could not understand how Märit could be accused of taking children there, and I went through every possible scenario to find out how it could have happened. Along the way, I discovered how dangerous an imbalance of power between church and state can become. This is the story.

The fifth commandment reads Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother. By extension, this includes my ancestral fathers and mothers.

Photograph credits

Cover photograph: Church in Järvsö, Sweden (Photo by Travis Jordan)

J. J:son Hanzén (Photo by Loquist, courtesy of Ljusdalsbygdensmuseum, Ljusdal, Sweden)

Gunnar Käller (Photo courtesy of Mr. Käller)

The Ljusnan River in mist, symbolic of past, present, and future (Photo by Travis Jordan, November 2003)

Järvsöklack (Photo by Mark Nygard in 2010)

Järvsö Church seen through leafless birch trees (Photo by Travis Jordan, November 2003)

Aerial photograph of Karlsgården (Photo by Stig Andersson courtesy of Pastor Börje Björklund who commissioned it for his book, Järvsö förr och nu)

Upright chest at Karlsgården (Photo by Mikael Peterson, 2010)

Cabinet bed at Karlsgården (Photo by Mikael Peterson, 2010)

Courtyard at Karlsgården (Photo by Mikael Peterson, 2010)

Hästberg road (Photo by Charlene Hanson Jordan, 2010)

Back cover (left to right): Charlene Hanson Jordan, Olle and Svea Hamre-Björk, Pastor Börje Björklund and Rune Joghans at the Järvsöbaden Hotel, August 2, 2010. Gunnar Käller was not present, but his photo appears in the Acknowledgments.

Map credit

The map outline was licensed from fotosearch.com and the place names were inserted by Travis Jordan.

Map of Scandinavia

oppositefirstpagemap.jpg

Figure 3: The map shows some of the major places

important to Karl and Märit.

At Karlsgården, November 2003

On the eve of All Souls Day, I stood, enveloped by mist, on a tiny spit of land jutting into the mirror-like Ljusnan River. That’s pronounced yoos-nan and it means luminous, shimmering. It’s in the province of Hälsingland in Sweden. Toward the west lie the low mountains separating northern Sweden from Norway. The Ljusnan River rises near the border and runs for about 260 miles across Sweden to the Bothnian Gulf. That’s part of the Baltic Sea. Large prosperous farms line the slopes of the valley. Here and there are big log houses grouped in communities. The houses are substantial and solid. Beyond the river and its valley are forests and rolling hills, like Järvsöklack.

I came in seach of Karlsgården because it’s an old ancestral estate. I can see the impressive old farmstead complex crowning a slope. It is one of eight farmhouses in the community of Bondarv clustering together on the slight hill.

Bondarv is on the southeast side of the river. Järvsö is the name of the parish. Local people call it Yerr’se. It is made up of another thirty-odd communities up and down the valley, on both sides of the river. The parish has been a dwelling place for more than a thousand years. The runestone and the church have been there that long, and longer.

The church, known earlier as S. Johans och S. Pers Kapell, was smaller than the current church that replaced it in 1838. It stood on the same spot upriver from Bondarv about two miles toward the northwest, on a wooded river island.

The lives of the people in Järvsö revolved around the church. It was their anchor and the focal point for not only religious but also social and civic matters. The church was so much a part of their lives that even time was measured in terms of events having occurred at or near the celebration of church festivals, feast days, and holy days, such as Easter, Christmas, Johannes, and Mikaeli.² Feast days and holy days functioned as calendars before the printed version was available.

Märit lived at Bondarv with her husband, Karl, as had Märit’s father, Hans Andersson, and his people before him.³ Their colorful history was recorded in Järvsö for some actions they initiated and for others over which they had little control. The seventeenth century, the time in which they lived, was turbulent, filled with war and religious change. Märit was accused of taking children to Blåkulla, an imaginary mythical place, and sentenced to death, twice, for something she could not have done. Karl was sentenced to death, twice, for things he might have done.

Karl had an occupation besides that of being an estate owner. He lent out money, and he was sometimes accused of taking too much interest. Otherwise, Märit and Karl were mostly self-sufficient farmers as were their neighbors living on the other large estates.

Soldiers and laborers, too, lived in cottages on the estates and in the church village. There were no hotels. The länsman, who worked as a sheriff, might also have served as innkeeper; otherwise, travelers might have had to overnight on a farm. The ferryman lived near the ferry and the bell-ringer lived near the church and the parsonage. A furrier, dyer, or tanner may also have lived near the ferry. Where the executioner lived is not recorded. One or another soldier in the area might have served as a shoemaker, and a tailor visited homes, especially before weddings, but there were no businesses and no banks, except for Karl.

There were no stores in Järvsö because they were not permitted in the countryside. Shops were limited to the cities and to towns with market rights. The word köping meant shopping and towns with those rights often had köping in their names, such as Jönköping and Linköping.

For most of the people in Järvsö, shopping was limited to open-air stalls at fairs and festivals. These activities lasted for several days or a week and were held at different times and places during the year. They were of great importance to the people because besides the opportunity to buy, sell, and barter, they could exchange news, and meet friends. Järvsö’s small open-air market, held at Öje on December 13 (Lucia), was mentioned in 1720.⁴

The road to the church and beyond

A road still winds between the farmstead and the river. Märit and Karl traveled to church either on the road or on the church boat that carried people to worship from the communities farther downstream.

In a roundabout way, the road was also a pilgrimage route⁵ leading across Sweden from Uppsala, Gävle and other towns on the Gulf of Bothnia to St. Olaf’s shrine at Trondheim, then known as Nidaros. Uppsala and Nidaros were religious centers. Nidaros was also a port city where the River Nid flows into the North Sea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. When Nidaros was a Viking stronghold around the end of the first millennium, churches in Europe prayed for protection from the Vikings.

A thousand years later, at the end of the second millennium, I experienced a singular emotion in Canterbury Cathedral in England. I could hardly believe my ears when I heard the vicar pray for the Church of Sweden. In itself that was not unusual because Sweden was separating the church from the state. What struck me was how different it was from what it would have been in Viking times when the prayer was for protection from the people of Sweden and the other Viking lands.

Olaf Haraldson, the Viking

Olaf, the son of Harold Grenske, was born in 995 AD. He was a fearless Viking chieftain before he became a saint.

Olaf was a handsome man of medium height, and stout. His hair was a light chestnut color, and he had a broad face and a ruddy complexion. His eyes were fine, bright, and piercing, but it has been written that when he was angry, those eyes inspired terror in the beholder.⁶

It is believed that King Olaf came through Hälsingland on his way to Nidaros in 1030. He is supposed to have drunk water from a spring at Uvås in Järvsö.

Descended from Nordic Viking rulers, he was only twelve years old when he became king⁷⁶ of his own ship. Hrane, the far-traveled, was his teacher and guide. To the Viking, water was a connector, a great highway that he could travel with ease. In Lake Mälaren, however, after raiding in rich Sigtuna, he was trapped at a place called Agnefit, now Slussen in Stockholm. The Swedes led by Olof Svenske had stretched an iron chain across the outlet to the sea. Olaf’s escape was dramatic and showed early ingenuity. The young king ordered his men to dig through the gravel holding back the waters of rain-swollen Mälaren. A wall of water rushed through the new channel pushing Olaf’s three ships though the opening as if they were toys, and Olaf sailed away into the Eastern Sea. That was the name the Vikings called the Baltic Sea.

Before Olaf became a Christian, he raided in the Baltic, Russia, the Mediterranean, and also Britain. His ships pulled down London Bridge according to the Saga of King Olaf the Saint in Heimskringla,⁸ and archaeology. It is not certain that the nursery rhyme was about Olaf’s deed, but it was probably Olaf who made the bridge fall. Here is how the saga tells it in Heimskringla, loosely paraphrased:

London Bridge was held up by pilings driven into the bed of the Thames River. The bridge was broad enough for two carts to pass each other upon it, and it was fortified with towers and bulwarks of palisades high enough to reach a man’s waist. Heavily armed Danish Vikings entrenched on the bridge divided London. Being perched as they were above the river, they also blocked boat traffic.

When English King Aethelred II asked for help in 1014, King Olaf came to his aid by carrying out a daring attack. He had the roofs of old houses mounted on his ships for protection from the