Sweden's Unique Trials

By Charlene Hanson Jordan

"Sweden's Unique Trials," is a revision of "Whispers in the Church, Swedish Witch Hunt, 1672." This was done to stress the uniqueness of Sweden's trials. It's important. Witch trials in Sweden were relatively rare compared with the rest of Europe. Although Sweden wasn't the only country with children having acted as accusers, Swedish ch

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: May 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781648959455

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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Preface

The people in this story are my ancestors. They lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and their home was in Järvsö, a small 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 I didn’t get their full impact until much later. She had arranged for us to visit Karlsgården and meet Olle Hamre-Björk and Ewald 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 Ellen 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.

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.

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 had its fifty-eigth anniversary in 2021. 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 handwritten script.

Mr. Käller knew Mr. Hanzén well and was able to answer many questions from his experience of having known and worked with Mr. Hanzén. He, for example, typed 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.

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

Photograph Credits

J. Jonas 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 as 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 (Photo by Roselind Gaviola). Gunnar Käller was not present, but his photo appears in the Acknowledgments.

Photo by Roselind Gaviola

Map Credit

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

Map of Scandinavia

Figure 3. Map of Scandinavia. The map shows some of the major places important to Karl and Märit. The map outline was licensed from fotosearch.com, and the place-names were inserted by Travis Jordan.

Introduction

My reason for making this book revolve around Märit and Karl.

I am a descendant of Märit and Kart, but only one of their descendants. They have many thousands. Genealogy is history, and it is through genealogy that I was able to uncover information about their lives. Gunnar Käller, also a descendant of Märit and Karl, introduced me to much of their history.

I have ancestors, including my own father, who contributed more to society, but without Marit and Karl, I would not be here. This book is one way of my honoring the Fifth Commandment. Märit and Karl, whatever their attributes, are my father and mother in generations long past.

Märit was born into privilege, but it was a very rigid male-dominated society. Marriages and inheritance were arranged at birth. Märit was an only child, and she stood in line to inherit the estate. Her father held an important position in the church. Hans Andersson was a Kyrkovärd (church warden), one of three.

Märit was not a young girl. She had been widowed and had children in her first marriage when she met the flamboyant Karl Karlsson and fell in love with him. Her father objected, refusing to allow Märit to marry Karl. Besides dislike, there was a very practical reason for this. Karl would be the lord of the manor living under the same roof with Märit’s parents and interacting with them daily.

Märit in unheard-of disobedience got permission from the local authorities to marry Karl by claiming she was pregnant. I am sure this hurt her father and mother deeply. The complete control that the father exercised over Märit was unthinkable today, but I think that I, if I were in Märit’s position, would have tried to find another solution rather than force the families to live together.

This disobedience and breach of long-standing custom, cost Märit in the long run because she was accused of witchcraft.

Reason for Revision of Whispers in the Church and Change of Title to Sweden’s Unique Witch Trials

Sweden’s witch trials between 1668 and 1676 were unique. Previous to that, the country had relatively few witch trials and even fewer executions.

Regents for the young king, Charles XI, appointed judges from among the most famous men in the realm, and they traveled from parish to parish hearing the accusations made by children. This was all at the expense of the local people.

These trials, starting in Älvdalen, Dalarna, in 1868, were publicized internationally as the Mora trials by Anthony Horneck and Joseph Glanvill and came to the attention of Cotton Mather who selected the parts that would best serve his purpose when he compared Sweden and Salem in his The Wonders of the Invisible World. Mather wanted to show how Sweden and Salem were similar, but they were not at all. This is discussed by Paul Melvin Wise in his dissertation at Georgia State University starting at page 409. [Wise, Paul Melvin, "Cotton Mather’s Wonders of the Invisible World: An Authoritative Edition. Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2005. https//scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/5]

Anthony Horneck and Joseph Glanvill were no ordinary men. Horneck was chaplain to King William III, and he is buried in Westminster Abbey. Glanvill was an English Puritan clergyman who was chaplain in ordinary to King Charles II. Glanvill wrote Saducismus Triumphatus and Horneck authored An account of what happen’d in the kingdom of Sweden in the years 1869, and 1670 and upwards in relation to some persons that were accused for witches; and tryed and executed by the Kings command. Horneck’s work, which he took from a Dutch pamphlet, was included in Glanvill’s book. This was a book that influenced Cotton Mather in his Discourse on Witchcraft in 1689 and in his The Wonders of the Invisible World in 1693. Sweden’s trials were not at all like Salem’s, but Mather’s Discourse made public the behavior of the Swedish children serving as a pattern for the copycat actions of the children in Salem, about twenty years after the Swedish trials.

Children had been accusers in witch trials in other countries (Children, Adolescents, and English Witchcraft, an M.A. thesis by Lisa A. Martin, University of North Texas, December 2005), but not to the extent that this happened in Sweden between 1668 and 1675. The accusations were spread like wildfire from parish to parish, primarily in Northern Sweden. Some children even became professional witnesses claiming that they could identify witches. These trials were called Det Stora Oväsendet (The Great Noise). Between two hundred and three hundred people, mostly women, were beheaded and burned until a woman was burned alive in Stockholm in 1676 bringing the trials to an end.

Reviews of Whispers in the Church

Book review by Dennis Johnson (1932–2016) that appeared in the June 2013 issue of the Swedish American Genealogist [SAG]. Published by the Swenson Center, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois. SAG is the only journal devoted to Swedish American biography, genealogy, and personal history.

The Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center at Augustana College is a national and international research center, library, and archives for the study of Swedish-American history and relations. The center collects, preserves, and makes available archival and library materials, promotes and initiates research, and is a leader in Swedish-American genealogy.

The Swenson Center and its Swedish American Genealogist journal were both started in 1981. SAG is published four times a year in English and is useful for anyone doing Swedish-American or Swedish genealogical research.

Find the Swenson Center at swensoncenter.org or call 309 794 7204.

This book review is printed in full because it is a good description of the book and to show that the revision is necessary to depict the uniqueness of Sweden’s witch trials and the repercussions from them.

Dennis Johnson’s Review: Whispers in the Church, Swedish Witch Hunt, 1672, by Charlene Hanson Jordan, 2012, Softcover, 236 pages, Illustrated.

Most Americans will remember from their school days the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. At the time, Salem was a small village of some five hundred people and part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This was just one example of the outbreak of mass hysteria, which arose throughout much of Europe and in North America in that approximate time period. This episode in Salem began with an outbreak of bizarre behavior among a group of young girls without apparent reason, and then was attributed to the work of Satan. This soon escalated into accusations of witchcraft against several women leading to trials throughout the summer of 1692. Before the community came to its senses and the intervention of the colonial governor, nineteen victims of the witch hunt had been hanged, one crushed to death under stones, and at least four others who died in prison awaiting trial.

A similar episode had occurred in Sweden just twenty years before, in the small village of Jarvso, in Halsingland. The consequences here were not as dire, however, with only two accused witches being executed, another committed suicide, and another half dozen went on to be rehabilitated and live long and mostly useful lives in the community. The story of the people and events in Jarvso has been researched and written by Charlene Hanson Jordan, a Swedish-American writer who traced an ancestral home to this small community. Charlene was born in Texas to the children of Swedish immigrants and has written several books and articles on Texas history and on Swedish-Americans in Texas. This book is a detailed telling of these events in Jarvso as they occurred in the years 1672 and immediately following.

As in Salem, events began with accusations and wild stories mainly from children of events blamed on witchcraft. Family feuds may have played a part at the beginning. Stories escalated leading to trials and imprisonment of the accused persons. Succeeding chapters focus on the individuals who were accused, including three women and two men. With the help of several local residents, to whom she gives credit in her foreword, Charlene has accessed old documents in Swedish, which provide the main source materials for her account of the people, the community, and the witchcraft trials. In the course of her research in preparing to write this book, the author discovered that two of the principal individuals accused of witchcraft in Jarvso were among her ancestors. This was a married couple, Marit Hansdotter and Karl Karlsson, living there at Karlsgarden, a large elaborate house and other buildings befitting the farm of a bonde. They were the eighth grandparents of Ms. Jordan. Karl had been accused, but found not guilty of two murders some time before, and Marit was accused of witchcraft. She was found guilty but only fined and forced to be publicly denounced in the church. In the appendix, Ms. Jordan includes a chapter drawing parallels between Sweden and much of Europe in dealings with accusations of witchcraft. In Sweden these trials were held over a roughly one hundred year period beginning in the early seventeenth century, and a total of about three hundred people were executed after being found guilty of witchcraft by testimony and several tests. Examples are given from various parts of Sweden, including Smaland, Bohuslan, Stockholm, and other locations. Similar numbers of deaths occurred in other countries such as Germany, Denmark, Great Britain, and elsewhere in about the same period.

The second appendix presents the author’s theories about the causes of this epidemic of witchcraft accusations at this period in the history of these countries. She identifies several coinciding events, which brought this about. Belief in witchcraft was widespread throughout Europe, flowing from remnants of ancient beliefs, upheavals in the churches associated with the Reformation, the ever-present lively imaginations of children, especially when this drew to them a great deal of attention, possibly some people were affected by addictions or poisonings from folk healers, a lack of intervention by the king, leaders, and church leaders, rapid spread of rumors and gossip, copycat accusations, and other factors. Cotton Mather, catalyst of the witchcraft trials in the colony in Salem, Massachusetts, had heard of these European events also, and most Salem colony members were recent immigrants from Europe where similar beliefs prevailed. One hopes that the state of knowledge of medicine, psychiatry, advances in legal systems and protections, and public education would ordinarily prevent such mass hysteria as occurred in the seventeenth century from taking root today. However, examples can still be found, usually in less extreme form, in what are presumably modern nations even now.

In researching and writing this