After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - The Witch Men of Iceland

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

When we think of the great witch trials of history, we usually picture innocent women accused of impossible crimes... but that wasn't always the case.In the frozen, windswept landscapes of 17th-century Iceland, a wave of witch trials led to the persecution and execution of men accused of practising dark magic.Why were male witches feared more than female ones? And what happens when ancient Norse magic, strict Lutheran beliefs, and one of Europe's most isolated landscapes collide?Edited by Anna Brant. Produced by Stuart Beckwith. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Flames roar into the Icelandic night. A man screams as he's tied to the stake, condemned for carving magical symbols and practising sorcery. In 17th century Europe, witch hunts were usually aimed at women, but in Iceland, it was mostly men who were burned. Why did this frozen island at the edge of the world fear male witches more than female ones? And what happens when ancient Norse magic Lutheran paranoia, and a brutal landscape collide. This is the dark story of Iceland's witch trials. From the West Fjords of 17th century, Iceland, this is After Dark.

Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Anthony. And I'm Kate. And we are going to be exploring a very cold, dark, dingy, but gloriously dingy history today. But before we do, we have to explain, of course, Maddie is still absent. She is fracking in the Alabama and outback.

I don't know what she's doing anymore. It's getting hard to keep on top of these things. But in her stead, we have, of course, the one and only Dr. Kate Lister from Betwicks the Shee. Hello. Now, you have a book coming out very shortly. Sure do. How are you feeling about that?

At the moment, it's like that feeling just before Christmas. But you don't know if it's going to be exciting or if it's going to be a kick in the tits. It is exciting. It's going to be exciting. It's a beautiful book. If nothing else, it's very pretty. As really well written. Give yourself some credit.

Spectacularly well written. Genre defining, I would have called it. Paradigm shifting. Yes, yeah. Well, don't quote yourself on that, don't know. No, no, but it is nonetheless. Kate says it's great. Kate says, I enjoyed this book myself, so actually.

But one of the things you did before that book, I think you were writing the book while you did this, was a documentary upon, I can't believe in saying this because it's not something I was aware of, but Icelandic witchmen. Yeah. And I think sometimes when we as historians we have are areas of specialism and you obviously write histories of sex and pleasure and, you know, I do certain gender stuff and

whatever, but at the same time, we then find these little niches that are like, oh, come on, that's too amazing to overlook. Talk to me a little bit. Before we get into the nitty gritty, talk to me a little bit about why you were drawn to this particular history because it is so unusual and I don't think people know about us no it's and that's why I was drawn to it so the thing that I find really fascinating about the Icelandic witch trials is that 93%

of everyone that was convicted and executed for the crime of witchcraft there was a man which does rather go against the mould that were often handed this kind of narrative has sprung up around the witch trials that it was a persecution of women and that it was about the

patriarchy and I'm not going to pretend that that wasn't the case in some places in England and Scotland and in the Americas, but there was plenty of other places where more men than women were accused. It wasn't just Iceland. It was the case in Russia. It was the case in Lithuania. It was a case in Normandy.

In the Burgundy area, it was pretty much 50-50. So it's really widespread. It's not the case that this was about targeting women. And one of the things I find really fascinating about the witch trials, the history thereof, is every time someone thinks they've got a handle on what caused it, there's a counterpoint. Yeah. There's always, like you can say, oh, it's about old people.

Well, it's not because they were burning children in Germany. It was about women. No, it's not because in Iceland, it was almost all men. It was only one woman that they executed. Is it about menopause? No, it's not. Is it about, I mean, it's really difficult to get a handle on what the hell was going on. And I think Iceland is really important because we have to write this history back in.

And whilst it's important to acknowledge the patriarchy and the misogyny at work, we can't do that by conveniently ignoring this part of the history. So I think that it gives us a richer understanding of what was happening at this particular period in history. And it's not as simple as let's get the women. It's just not that simple. And I think like it can still be patriarchy and misogyny and affect men, right? Yeah, absolutely.

One of the things we talk about in our own society now, a lot is going, see the ways in which that's absolutely ruining your lives, lads. Like have a look at that there as well for your own sake. One of the most fascinating things about this for me is that the landscape in which this takes place. I know it might seem like a small detail, but I know when you filmed the documentary, which is on History at TV now, you went there. I remember texting you at the time going, I get to go to Yorkshire where I live. You get to go to Iceland. Eleanor is another one.

She's off in Avignon or wherever, and I'm in Skegness or whatever, Scarborough. Not there's anything wrong with those places, by the way. Beautiful. But, you know, it's a little bit more glamorous. But give us an idea of when you're filming there in terms of this idea of landscape and darkness and then we'll lay the story, the history on top of that. It's so insanely beautiful, is Iceland.

Like, it's ridiculous to the point where, like, it's showing off, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you can't really take it all in. I remember we would go into one of these big tourist destinations. I can't remember the name of it, but it's a huge waterfall. the most beautiful massive waterfall we've ever seen. But on the way to the waterfall, you're passing multiple other waterfalls and glaciers

and like lava streams. And like things that here would definitely be a tourist destination. There you're just passing them on the way to the really beautiful thing. It's just ludicrously stunning to the point where you're just like the northern lights are overhead and there's volcanoes and there's glaciers. And you're just like, what is this place? This is unreal. And when you go there, or at least when I went there, I was like, I definitely don't believe in witches.

But like, you stood underneath the northern lights and you're in this crazy landscape. Actually, maybe trolls could be real. Yeah. Yeah. There's green lights in the sky. I don't know anything anymore. Right. It seems like a really magical landscape.

There's like points in the earth that have opened up where it's like water's now bubbling up because of the lava flow underneath it. And that's just, they're just ten a penny in Iceland, them. And there's something about the landscape that does seem magical. and because so much of it is formed on lava flow that there's a real unworldliness to the landscape of it almost looks like you're on Mars but you're not it's without doubt the most beautiful place I've ever been to yeah when I went it was the time of essentially

almost never-ending dark I think we had maybe an hour and a half try and go when there's daylight yeah so did you have daylight when you were filming we did we were very lucky we went sort of September time and there was a pretty good balance between daytime and night time we were talking before we pressed record on this and I was like okay when when is this because we're talking about the early 17th century I think and what's going on in Iceland at this time like how is it defined is it the Iceland we know or is it is it is a strange and magical land so Iceland is it's a very isolated community at this point it's it's obviously it's an island it's off

by itself. It's part of the kingdom of Denmark. So it's ruled by them, but they're obviously quite a way away, but that's supposed to be all their laws and courts coming from. It is primarily agricultural and it's fishing. And you've got little dots of villages here, there and everywhere with an estimated population of about 40,000. In the early sub-sitian. In the early... It's actually quite a lot, really. It's more than you'd think. Yeah. But the majority of people that live in in peat houses, very, very small community. You said that when you went it's almost always dark. Imagine that in the

17th century. It's like the place is pitch black, right? See now that really does appeal to me though. Yeah? Would you hate it? The whole time I was there, because obviously in summer it's almost 24 hours sunlight. I was trying to work out which one of those I prefer. Total sunlight or total darkness. I think I'd go for total darkness.

I'd go for total darkness 100%. I wouldn't even need to think about it. I think I don't and I don't mean to make light of people who have an actual seasonal affective disorder. But I am definitely happier. in darker months. Lurking. Yeah, lurking, yeah.

Rotting in a corner. We're like, don't come dear me. And also there's less expectation to be sociable. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And you know how I feel about that.

I do know how you feel about that. We were supposed to go to a thing last night. We didn't go to that thing. And I didn't go. We just. We had pizza and beer. Yeah. And that sums up what I would be doing

in the dark months. We had much more fun. We did. But in the dark months in Iceland in the 17th century, you would be sat around telling stories. that's what they do. They would little communities get together and people would be telling stories

and you'd be around the fire and you'd be doing crafts and it had been that way for a very, very long time. And the other thing you need to know is that it's very deeply Christian and we've got Lutheranism just starting to move in and then obviously all of the witch trials happen against the backdrop of the Reformation

of Protestant and Catholic absolutely going to war with one another. That underpins all of this. Before we even get there, because this springs from what you were saying earlier about, oh, you know, the Northern Lights are going mad up there, lads. And, you know, then we've got this like undulating lava formed ground. And before we get to that kind of Christianisation of Iceland,

the other thing that's underpinning all of this is a belief in magic. Like, it's quite famously Nordic or Norse folk beliefs that are coming in there. That magic is etched onto this landscape. And we'll talk about how that tension arrives. with religious aspects that you just talked about there. But this is scattered throughout this as well. So like it's not that big a leap for people to be thinking there might be magic around. It's not.

And it's for as long as there been people on that island, they've been practicing folklore and magic. It is steeped in North influence. It was colonized by the vice. I don't think anyone else was there. Like when they turned up. Irish people went apparently. Oh, did they?

Sorry, Ireland. I don't think we colonized it now. Did you turn up you went up. No, sod this, lads. No, I think we were just like, ah, misery. Oh, did you? Oh, sorry. Sorry, Ireland. But the Vikings turned up in around about the 10th century. And then it was finally Christianised like a hundred or so years later. So it's really close. And there had always been this tradition of magic. It's everywhere, except they probably wouldn't, would they even call it magic? They understood, they called it white magic and black magic. So white magic is good magic. And you can see like ruins carved in to everything. They have ruins for everything. They have ruins for health, for prosperity, for good luck, to keep the animals safe, to keep. you all right on a journey to make sure you get a good night's sleep. So protect, like everything. These runic symbols are carved everywhere. And that just underpins that culture. It's, and for the

longest time, it wasn't anything weird. It was just what people did. I love that. I love this idea that they wouldn't even have seen it as magic as just a thing. They didn't. In fact, I think it was in 1617, King Christian the 4th of Denmark brings in a law that kind of kicks off the witch hunts across that region and then eventually in Iceland. And he doesn't, and he doesn't, and he doesn't, and he He says that they have to outlaw all magical practice. And he makes a distinction between good magic and bad magic. And he says, good magic, please stop that. I'm paraphrasing.

He doesn't say exactly that. He says that you mustn't do it anymore. Bad magic should be punished on pain of death. So even in that decree, he's acknowledged that there is a kind of magic that everybody does. It's just part of the course. It's like crossing your fingers or knocking on wood. It's just what people do. And then there's bad magic.

And is this where that tension that you were mentioning earlier about Lutheranism really starting to seep in. Is that what's happening here? The problem is, is that when the witch hunt craze gets to Iceland, this really entrenched and long-standing tradition of folklore looks like witchcraft. Right. So it's something that everybody's been doing.

It's knock on wood, cross your fingers, saluting at magpies, only they're like putting down runes. Suddenly, that comes into conflict with the Christian faith. We're trying to stamp all of this out. We need to get rid of it. And something that everybody did and it had been going on for centuries,

now looked suspicious and strange. And it's funny, like you're talking about periods of time where actually there's not an awful lot of time to make these adjustments. So people are still doing the things that you mentioned that are ancient to that landscape. Maybe not even thinking about it. It's like so into the culture that you would just put ruins on your home. You'd have them on, not paper, I guess, but like bits of leather and you'd keep them about your person or you might have amulets.

It was just what everybody did. know what I'm really aware of as you're as you're describing this and I've never thought about it like this before but in Ireland when we because it was for such a long time religion was so ingrained in in just society not even in religious society but just in society in general even now my parents generation or even when they're not religious if they pass by religious sites they will bless themselves it's that kind of thing it's that kind of thing it's like if you ask most people do you believe in magic I think most people probably say no but if you actually like seriously sit down and think Do you have little superstitions,

little weird things that you do to yourself? If you spill the salt, do you throw it? Do you bless yourself? Do you touch words? Do you like all of these little customs and superstitions that we all still cling on to in the year of our Lord, 2026 when like we still don't, when like most of us like,

I've got an atheist. I don't believe in it at all. But it's, but for some reason you're still not going to risk it. What do you hold on to? What are the ones that you find yourself doing? Salute a magpie. Do you know what actually when we were in Iceland,

this is interesting because I, I am a team non-finding. believer. I listen to the uncanny podcast every single time it comes out and I'm still team not believer. I'm an atheist. I'm science all the way. We had this plan that when we're in Iceland, we were actually going to do a curse. We're actually going to get a proper curse and I was going to release a curse. I was going to like put this rudic thing out. And when push game to shove, none of us could do it. Just in case. Yeah. It's like I've almost felt mad at myself. I was like, I know, I know. What if it is true? And there's this whole thing going, but it's not Kate. It's not.

You're just drawing something on a piece of paper. This is for it. I couldn't do it. And And because you were afraid of the impact it would have on the other person? Or because of that idea of it returns back on what you put out to get back? What if it hurt somebody? There was an experiment. I think it was on a Tony Robinson documentary on monsters. And it was exactly this. They got a group of scientists.

So the absolute team non-believer here, rational logic. And all they asked them to do is they printed out pictures of their loved ones, of their children, of their partner, of their parents, and asked them to rip it in half and say a curse on them. I wouldn't do it. None of them could do it. None of them could do it, despite all of them. of their knowledge and all of their that this isn't real.

So we still have this part of ourselves. Just in case. Do you know what I've done, which is slight madness and I apologize for what I'm about to confess to here, but you talked about magpies and saluting magpies. I don't do that because I had to try and stop. I physically went, stop, stop doing it. It became a bit obsessive compulsive.

Became a bit obsessive compulsive. But now what I have done is, honest to God, this is ridiculous. I've adopted the magpie as my animal. So now, anytime I see a magpie, it's a good thing regardless. This all sounds very healthy. Thank you. I think I'm in a really good mental space. And...

But isn't, no, funny in the way they're like, we still hold on. No, it's not. It's grave mental illness. Yeah. Shouldn't be allowed out. But like, look how we still hold on to this stuff. Just in case. Now imagine yourself in 17th century Iceland with lava flows and it's pitch black and you

believe thoroughly in this stuff and someone's gone. a witch. I would be, I hate to say, but it's probably true to say I'd be like a witch finder general or something because I'd be so obsessed with this. Everybody thinks that they would be one of the people going, hang on a minute, I don't think we should do this. The truth is you probably wouldn't because you would believe in this stuff as much as everyone else and you'd be terrified. You'd be terrified. And speaking of being terrified, there is source material that's coming out at this time. Like, there's a lot of printed material. Printed material is becoming more and more popular across the world at this point, but certainly printed material around witchcraft is now

starting to really, really find homes for itself. And it's telling you why you should be afraid of witches and that they are real. They're not even arguing that they're real. They know they're real. So tell us about the malice maleficarum. We hear this a lot on After Dark. So how does it feed into this? That freaking book idea. I think one of the things that we need to say, first of all, is the malice malaccharum didn't invent witches. No. Witches have been around for a very, very, very long. time the Romans believed in witches and executed witches. And I know that because Professor Ronald Hinton told me. And if he says something, you can put the pot on for it. It's true. You don't need to read anything else. He don't need to read anything else. He's right when it comes to witchcraft.

So he told me that and now I believe that entirely. Right. So they, it's been around for a long time. But what happens is you get suddenly this belief that witches are the devil incarnate and that they are there to wreak his havoc on earth. This is a slight shift. in beliefs before. The Malifahs Malifakarum was an influential witch finding manual written by a maniac, right? It wasn't the only one. They probably still would have happened

even if this book had never been written, but it was a big one. Okay, and it's written by, you see a monk or a fright, an asshole, called Kramer, who was so mad that he got thrown out of several villages for being weird and creepy. Yeah. And like creeping on women

and trying to get them executed. But it's very, very clear and explicit that the devil is here and he is recruiting primarily women but men as well to do his evil will and that you need to find them. And it sets off just, I mean, this and other things at the time, but it sets off this paranoia. And in this religious tumult of Catholics versus Protestant and we're all trying to be the most holy,

suddenly witches become a way to prove that you're holy because you can find them and you can fight them and they've become this real thing and you're doing God's work and you're going to get them and it takes over and it's just, it all happens over the span

of like one long lifetime. It's just, I know it's not as neat as this but when I think about it, I almost think of like it starts and then it kind of ends almost as fast as if people just suddenly went, what will we do?

Jesus Christ. What were we doing there? How embarrassing. Like they've just sort of like come to in Tesco of just like, what on earth would do? Why have I got bombfire wood with me? This is just crazy stuff.

But it kind of peters out almost as quickly. And, And yeah, it took a while to get to Iceland. It was one of the later ones. It's so true about this snapshot in time in some ways. And I think that this intensity of this period of time is certainly something that, you know, experts on witchcraft have looked at for a lot of generations for a very good reason.

By the time it gets to Iceland, as you have very neatly led us to, we have this thing then. You're going to need to tell me about this because I'm a little bit confused about exactly what it is. The Beastie? Oh, right. Okay. So one of the things that now I said at the beginning that it's hard to find constants throughout the witch trials. But one constant that you always seem to get is a religious zealot with an agenda. That he's got something to prove. You have that in Salem and you have you have that in Pendle. You have that in Scotland. He will be there. There's always a fella. There. And in Iceland, well, there was a few of them, but this guy is called Palbiersen. And he wrote a book that translates to like the mark of the devil. Or again, I, I, Icelandic people. I'm so sorry. I'm going to butcher your beautiful language and I'm so sorry about this. It's called bestie or beastie and that's what it translates to it. And basically, it's Malifas Malifakaram fan fiction. You can tell that he's very heavily influenced by it because he's basically, it copies quite a lot of it. So that's what the book is and he publishes his own

version. He went abroad and he learned about all of the witches and then he brings them back to Iceland and he publishes his own book on it. And so then this becomes the Icelandic specific of what witchcraft looks like in Iceland? Is that, or is it more general? It's more, it's what's going to be used in Iceland. It's what he's going to use to try and persecute witches. But it's really just the Malifascarum just repeated, basically. Right.

So what we're going to see is that this book starts to have an effect on actual everyday lives. It does. But things have been kicking off in Iceland for a while. There's been some rumblings. There was, like, in their six, 16th century, so going back 100 years, there were accusations of witchcraft and people being accused of witchcraft,

but usually the punishment was just don't do it again. That was like even when they've been accused of black magic, if you accuse of black magic in the 1500s, it would be a slap on the wrist and like, don't, that's not good, don't do that. So things that they were really upset about was sexual crimes, like women were being drowned

for adultery and things like that. Then we get into the 16th century and suddenly the law changes and you start to get Malia's, Malifakara and Books and Palbiusen right in his own. But the first person who was executed for witchcraft was a guy called John Ragnoldviesen and he was, and he was arrested in 1617 for raising a zombie.

Yeah, and he wasn't given a trial or anything. They kept him in prison until 1625 and then he was burnt to death. The Icelandic people burnt them to death. And this is under the Witchcraft Act? His thing is this was totally illegal. Like none of this should have been happening in Iceland because they had a law that said all of their trials should be tried by a court in Denmark, not by local magistrates, which is what happens here.

So they're not even supposed to be doing this. And it takes about 40 years for the King of Denmark or somebody over there to go, hang on a minute. Don't do that. But they're not supposed to be doing it. But they get so carried away with it, they crack on regardless. Right. Talking about cracking on, we're going to take a quick break.

And when we come back, we're going to talk about the trial specifically. Now what I find fascinating about this and the trials that we are about to talk about is when we talk about the Salem witch trials, it is a number of trials but it's one story, one time. But what we're going to discover here is that this is over the course of a generation or as you said earlier, like a long lifespan kind of. It's not one time. It's not one person.

It's not one incident. We're talking about a collection of things here. Yep. So it's first guy arrested first guy arrested for. Raised Zombies 1617 I think the last fella Burn Alive was 1685 So it's that kind of spread

Interestingly though it's almost all confined to the West Fjords of Iceland Almost all happens there It's as if other people near as other parishes We're just looking at them like what on earth Are you doing it was almost all concentrated up in the West Fjords So take me to the 1650s There's a trial there so we've gone from 1617

For Raising a Zombie which is insane and now we're in 1650s what's this fella I presume? Yeah, so this is called the Kirky Bowl Witch Trials and this it takes the right, so the thing we need to talk about everyone's name at this period is everyone is known pretty much by their first name

and if they have a surname it's their father's first name with son on the end if you're a man and Dotier if it's your daughter, right? So we've got at the centre of this is a father and son who are accused who are both called John John Johnson. Oh no. Right? So it gets, so we'll call them

Big John and Little John. Love it. Yeah. Right. Okay. And the guy who's accused in them is a local priest called John Magnuson. Another John. Another John.

And he suddenly starts to, he experiences feeling sick. He has night terrors. He says that one of the weird things he says that he felt a dog running across his feet in the middle. It's like, it's quite intense. Or like he felt cats walking across him and things like. He's convinced that it is Big John and Little John that are cursing him. And he thinks that this is because he refused little John. John the right to marry one of his maids or his daughter or something like that.

So he really starts to pile on the pressure. They are arrested and interrogated and the first time they kind of go, no, what? That wasn't. And then the authorities seem to go, okay, done to that again. But then he keeps being six and he keeps piling on the pressure and then he has them arrested again. And another quirk of Icelandic law at the time is your trial pretty much came to. Can you get 12 people to say you definitely didn't do it? If you can get 12 people to say you definitely didn't do this, we'll let you.

you off. Oh, I kind of like that. You like that? It's not robust. It's an interesting one. Actually, hold on. I hate us. Change the mind. I hate it. Well, go on. Because, like, you can pay people. You can pay people. You can bribe people.

And also, people get scared. If you're accused of witchcraft. And I was saying in the other episode, like, how social stigma and taints work is like, an easy comparison, but like the Epstein case is like the taint of it is almost like, it's a weird parallel to write between the witch trials. I'm just saying like when someone's accused of something or they're in any kind of orbit to it or if you were anywhere close to it, people run a mile. So are you going to get 12 people to stand up for you and say he definitely didn't raise a zombie? Yes.

Yeah. You definitely, definitely, didn't do that. I've been around zombie raising and he didn't do it. And he didn't do it, right? So I think that the first time Big John and Little John had dragged before the courts, like they're let off. And then he keeps trying to, he keeps applying pressure and he keeps and keeps going at it. And eventually they're locked in a prison. There doesn't seem to be any evidence of torture.

But absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, as we know. And eventually, Big John and Little John crack and they confess. Which is, so I'm not sure what they were doing. They found runes in their houses, but everybody had runes, right? And they were accused of using a particularly nasty ruin on John Magnuson, the fart runes. Fart. The fart runes. Fartreter.

Yep, the feta runes, which was when you, there's, it's written down in one of the grimwells for much, much later on. But it's basically a curse that you die from shitting and farting yourself to death. I swear people make shit up and they come on this podcast just to get me to react. I promise that that's true. I promise. But like when you read it sounds like obviously it's funny because it's farting, but it sounds a lot like dysentery when you're reading the description of it. It's like your guts will be burst asunder.

You will have no peace. You're basically going to shit yourself to death. That's not glamorous. That's not a good curse. No. It wouldn't be a nice way to go. Obviously, you'd recognize the hilarity of it because it's. it's a fart room but you're also died

so that's not good. No. But they fessed up. They said that yeah, yeah, we did do this. It's all weird as to why people do this. They were burnt to death but then this is the really crap thing. John Magnuson went to the courts to say that he should be compensated for everything they did and all of their land should be forfeit to him.

And was it? It was. Oh! Yeah. It was Big John's daughter whose name was Thitherthir. An Irish person could never say that. Threthrethrethir. Thuweth. Thur. No, we couldn't do it. So Thither and then she challenges him and he accuses her of witchcraft.

Stop. Yeah, so she has to go to court to defend herself. She drops out of the records. It looks like she won that one. But she had to watch her father and her brother be burnt to death by this maniac and have all of the lands confiscated by this guy. That's insane. Yeah, it's really nasty. And it still comes back to this thing.

We see it in Salem again. You know, so many people talk about what are the reasons behind Salem happening and what happens. And there are so many different things. but one of them is land. Whereas I'd actually really like your man's plot over there. Thanks very much. It seems to, I think that what it does is it inflames existing tensions.

Yeah. The witch trials is like whatever it is was already there before. It's just lit a touch paper to it. It's just so if there's dispute of a land, if people are angry at one another, it suddenly becomes a really easy and convenient way to do it. I know a few people who I'd like to accuse a witchcraft. Witch.

Yeah. What are we going to do about that? I don't think, I mean, we could try now. I don't think it would fly. We could try a part with it. You don't know the person I'd like to accuse. Right. If you did, people, people might.

I'll vouch for you. If you need 12 people, I'll stand up my life. Okay, yeah. He was with me the entire time. I will say there's, I can't go into it. It'll be too, too identifiable. Okay. Next trial in Iceland is another John, John Leifson,

but we're leaping forward now to 1669. Yeah, so this is, this, that's the guy who's accused John Leifson. And he is accused. So you've got, again, it's a priest, Pal Bieson, the one who wrote the book, and his wife, Helga Halstold Dottier, right? Now, the nice thing about the ice that was not nice, it's all horrible, but the ice and witch trials is kind of like women, like, where are you in this? Like, they're not being killed, but they're sort of like taking a backseat,

and then you meet Helga and you're like, Helga, stay out of us. Damn it, Helga. God damn it. So she, oh, let inside down. So she starts to exhibit all of these illnesses, much like John Magnuson was doing, and she has night terrors, sweats, screams. She's not herself.

She's in pain. She says that she's been bewitched, obviously. And it just so happens that her husband has written this really influential tract on witch finding looking out. Right. And then the person that they reckon did it is this guy, John Leifson, who did ask to marry one of her maids, and she said no.

So there's a lot of marriage-y stuff going on. Ownership still going on. Yeah. Like, why would someone be mad at you? Well, they might be mad at me, because I didn't give them permission for this, that and the other. So poor old John Leifson is hauled off, found to have a runic inscription about his person somewhere

and is similarly tried and then executed, burnt to death, another one. And you'd think that would shut Helga up, but she gets sick again. She gets sick again. And then more people are rounded up and accused of witchcraft again and more people are executed. I think by the time she's finished with this, like a third of all the people that are going to be executed in Iceland, and she's taking them all out.

She has. Yeah, just by saying that she, I'm sick again. I'm poorly again. And her mad husband running around. With his book. With his book saying, you know, you're a witch, you're a witch and you're a witch. There's two things going on there with Helga, I think, to bear a mind. One is she could be lying, right?

She could be lying. She could be manufacturing this to just exert power and to be influential. And also there's this thing always in these witchcraft trials where sometimes the finger does get pointed back. But actually, if you're the one doing a lot of accusing and pointing the hardest, it doesn't always turn itself around to you because you're the victim and you've positioned yourself as such. You see that in Salem as well.

But the other thing is, in the fervor, the religious fervor of what you believe, and we've talked about the landscape earlier in the episode where the green lights are in the sky, the lava's on the ground, the ruins are in everyone's house.

To believe that strongly, you could, and you know, it's all very tempting to try and, understand from our perspective and to psychologicalise it, technical term, you could make yourself ill.

I think a lot of this would be psychosomatic. Right. I think because you have to think, Helga believes in witches. She believes absolutely. This isn't, in fact, it's not even something you believe in. It's real. This is just what happens.

And her husband is the one who's going to help us find who these witches are. I mean, you could easily be psychosomatic. Or it could be any one of the nameless illnesses that people just couldn't identify at the time or be a, maybe it was a mental illness. Who the hell knows? Yeah.

Who knows what it was. But she was certain that she's been cursed. Yeah. And I guess that's my point. It's that she, from her position, probably believes what she's saying and is is strong in her convictions. What happens to him then? Oh, they're all executed.

They're all executed. They're all dragged off to the Icelandic parliament called the, at a place called Thingvetia, to the thingly, which is their parliament, and they would be burnt to death. And there was one that Helga accused, his name was Lassie, I think. And they tried to burn him and it started raining and it came and it was put out the fire three times

before they could actually finish it. But they kept going. And then the priest on the, Paul Bieson, on his way home fell over and broke his leg and everyone thought that was a sign that Lassie must have been innocent. I found particularly freaky when I learned this history is right. Iceland doesn't have a lot of trees, right?

So the Vikings turned up there and went, oh, there's loads of trees, and they cut them all down. But because it's dark all winter, they don't grow very fast. They grow really, really slowly the trees. So they're very much preserved. Wood is very, very precious. By the time you get to the 17th century, wood is extremely precious,

which is why most of their houses have built a peat. They had to go to special lengths to build the bonfires. Whoa, yeah. They had to go really scavenge and find enough wood to be able to burn these people to death. And I don't know why that just makes it even more horrible. Yeah, we're willing to sacrifice. Yeah, this very, very precious resource to do this.

But yeah, Helga, she seems to keep being poorly and more people are being executed. And then eventually she moves. And I'm not even sure what happens to her at the end of it, presumably she kept being sick. But by this time, people are, as with all of the witch trials, eventually somebody somewhere at the back goes, I have a question.

Yeah. Yeah, eventually. And then as soon as people started going, hang on a minute. Like the whole thing crumbles. Unravels so quickly. Like in the Essex trials, when people started publishing things about that lunatic, Matthew Hopkins, people started going, they're just old women. What on earth are you doing? And then when people start, common sense starts coming into it, it unravels really, really fast. And that's what happened in Iceland as well.

We're going to talk in cold hard numbers or try to when we come back after the break. and talk about the impact and legacy of these witch trials in Iceland. Right, let's talk about what can be very hard in all witchcraft cases, which is to try and talk about numbers in terms of like how this actually impacted how many people were killed, say.

I have here in front of me that it's about 21 or 22 people who are executed. Yes, it's 21 definitely, 22 possibly. There is a reference to maybe a woman being killed, but we're not sure. And this is over that whole time period from 1617 to 1685 of the last one. Okay. Okay. So it's it's a good old span. Yeah.

Still 21 people, potentially 22. So it's not, it's not nothing. Total accused. But this is interesting. 170 individuals are accused over that period of time. It's a lot really, especially in small communities. The last thing he's got a member is it's very much concentrated in the West fjords and these are very small rural communities you absolutely would know the people who were being accused

it's not like a big sprawling metropolis is these are just isolated little clusters of peat houses living together little villages everybody would know everybody and this is the male witch trial of the most famous male witch trials to some

people how do we know what percentage were men? 93% of them well so totally skews against everything we think we know. Absolutely. And do you know the leading theory why? Again, this comes from Ronald.

It's true. It's just right. It's just true. We don't need to look any further. But I think that he makes a very, very good point as if I can judge what he says. But his argument is that wherever the people were targeted, the demographic is whoever had a pre-existing association with witchcraft.

So in England and in Scotland and in America, and in the Germanic countries, there is an idea that women are naturally more inclined towards witchcraft and men are. You see that in the Malifist Malaphaerab. That's a really ancient thing. Like the Orophiculs at Delphi, they were all women. And like when we think about the figure of a witch, you think of a woman. It's quite a gendered word even.

Like you'd say like witches and wizards, wizards are the boy ones, right? So we have a real association that women are the more magical sex. But in Iceland and in Slovenia and Russia and Normandy, it was men who were considered to be more magical. And particularly in Iceland, it's because the crime involved reading. You had to be able to read, to educate yourself, to carve these runes, to conduct the magic. And that was a male preserve. Oh, that's fascinating. In northern France, shepherds were accused and targeted. The biggest demographic by far. And it's because shepherds were thought to have like magical qualities. Right. So, and in Russia, it was wandering itinerant people

who are almost always men because it's much harder for women to be wandering around and you know, right? Frely for obvious reasons. So it was wanderers, beggars, people like that in Russia. In Iceland it was associated with written magic which was a male preserve. That's amazing.

I love that detail. That's why they were more targeted. So what you're looking for is any group of people that have that association, that there's something they are able to channel magic and in Iceland, women just weren't. It's so interesting that it comes down to something as practical as that sometimes. As practical as that, yeah.

Can you have the literacy to do this? Right. Yes, no. It was just more believable to them. Of course it would be a man. Of course it would be a man that could do it. Men have to read and write to be able to do it. Whereas over here in this country, our tradition was like, well, yeah, old women.

They're witches. And so divorced from literacy. Or from the written word rather because there's a literacy in terms of plants, understanding plants and all that kind of thing. And that is more associated with women. But actually, you never hear she wrote down a spell in the 17th century England. No. They never hear you.

She said it. Yeah. That she was mumbling it or she was or she crushed something or she burned something or she made something, poppets, etc. Yes. But never she wrote something down. No. Because you've got to be literate in order to be able to do that. So I think, and I think that that's a really strong reading of what was going on there.

Yes. Is that it's whoever had the most immediate association. whoever you believed possible of doing magic and it wasn't women in Iceland because they couldn't write. So you went, you were filming this what, a year ago now? Yeah, something like that.

How present do you think it is in the like in the tourist thing? Oh, they love it. Is it really there? Is there a huge impact basically? Yeah, it's like Pendle. It's like they've got the museum of witchcraft and sorcery which is fabulous and I recommend anybody to go there. How did I not go there when I was there?

I didn't even have. They've also got a penis museum which we didn't get. time to go to I did know that that was there. I didn't go to that one either. Yeah. No, but I didn't go.

Next time. Next time. Penises and witches. If the Icelandic tourist would want to fly Kate and I over to the Witch Museum and the Penis Museum, we'll both go.

We'll make the weirdest ever. Yeah, yeah, it would be quite weird. I'd love it. Still do us. Still do it. It's fine. To do it.

Yeah. How did it impact the culture? I mean, how did the witch trials impact any culture? I often think of that. You think of the witch trials that they're absolute

their peak when they're burning neighbours I haven't they like what was it like in the aftermath like when things had calmed down and when it had basically fallen out of fashion and when the person at the back had gone you've got to try and live in this community and you burnt Margaret's

and you burnt Margaret's you bunch of bastards and like you've got to sit there and look at Margaret's daughter at church and like know what you did and like the aftermath of that how people process that that blows my mind I can't even begin to think of it So it was very much like it wasn't the rest of Europe.

It kind of just died away. And something else that was interested, it was a guide for the National Park in Iceland. And he said that another thing that you see in the witch trials is it's not just who's the most closely linked with magic. It's where you get communities trying one another, then you get the witchcraft. As soon as that is decentralized and taken to a bigger court,

like in Scotland, the witch hunt suddenly came to nothing because they started to say, you have to send the witches to London to be investigated. In Iceland, suddenly they have to start sending them over from Denmark or get somebody over. And now it's not communities trying one another. There's an oversight. And that has an impact as well. It suddenly falls away.

So actually, within that, you could kind of conclude that witchcraft in the 17th century, generally speaking, is very useful for communities, very harmful. But it's useful for certain maneuvers, power maneuvers, local maneuvers. and in that sense it does introduce this idea of manipulation and yes belief. I don't think we can lose sight of that but also the idea that there are power structures here and they're being manipulated.

There's always someone on the make. There is always someone who wants to make their name whether it was Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, whether it was King James, the sixth and first writing is demonology, whether it was Paul Beardson waving his book around. There's always someone somewhere

who's going to make a name for themselves in this community by ridding it of witches. And what an easy way to do it as well To point the finger go That's the devil I found them and got rid of them And it's never a woman No

That I'm That's not coming to mind very quickly I mean well women did play a part in this Because we know that they were employed As witch prickers in the Essex witch trials They were the ones that would like Torture them basically And try and find these marks on their body

Yeah but they're never the ones on the make No No They're much stranger like Helga What you're doing? Yeah yeah It's second it's insidious and it's dangerous.

Don't get me wrong. And they're not leading it. But they're never the one waving the book. And actually, I wonder what would have happened if a woman had emerged to the one going.

Actually, I'm a woman. I can speak on this. It's her. Which kind of actually, I'm a liar and a thief. I've completely overlooked the most obvious witch trial.

Salem. Salem, yes. They're girls. Well, they were accusing one another, weren't they? Yeah. They were all accusing one another. So that is.

okay they're their teenage girls or very young adults in some cases but it's definitely female ed but under the auspices of that pastor guy your man yeah yeah matter yeah he's the one on the make yeah exactly so there still is

something else there still is a man up there that's going to write the book that's not going to make him that much money actually but that's his intention is to make him slightly famous so again there's yeah so he's the one on the make as well yeah scaring people manipulating people and as you said Like, they did believe this stuff.

Yeah. It's, I don't think, I mean, it's interesting, one of the girls from Salem years later did actually confess that she just went along with the others. I can't remember her name, but you don't see that very often of people going, actually, yeah, I did, I did make that up. I think a lot of the time, like you were saying, they do believe this.

They get really swept up in it and away with it, and it must seem terrifying. Like, the devil's here. He's going to get you. Yeah, yeah, because he exists. He exists. Where can people watch this documentary? You can watch it on History Hit.

And what's it called? It's called Witchman, Witch Trials in the Land of Ice and Fire. Oh, it's a good title, isn't it? I didn't think of that. Annie thought of that. Yeah, she's very good. She is very good. The old history of TV team are great. Like, the work that they do.

They're very sturdy. They are. Oh, my God. They're a sturdy breed on TV. Oh, my God. By day five, I was walking around Iceland, winging. It was just like, and Annie talks to me like a small toddler as I'm walking around, going, I'm hungry, I'm cold.

I want a sandwich. You said we could sit down. Can we stand? I don't want to be here. I can't have a cup of tea. I don't want to do. I'm not saying my lines. Give me a dike.

She's got snacks in a bag. She goes, have that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll do the next scene now. That's how we make documentaries. That history here. Go and watch the documentary and go and listen to you. Where can they listen to you, Kate?

They can listen to me on your sister podcast, the Twix the Shoots, the History of Sex Scandal and Society. We do have an episode all about the Icelandic witches as well. And if they were like, do you know what? I can never get my fill of Catherine Lister, Dr. Catherine Lister. where can they read now a brand new released book? Oh, they can.

Yes, that's right. So it's Flick the story of female pleasure and it'll be available at all good and bad bookshops from May of 20. The bad ones as well. The bad ones too from May the 20th. Can I encourage your very devoted readers to turn the book on its side

and look at the title of the book and what that spells that way as well because she's clever. She's clever marketing genius is our Kate Lister. Right, go on with yourselves. Thank you so much. much for watching, listening and commenting along on YouTube. If you're not aware, if you're just listening on podcast platforms, we also have a YouTube channel now where all the young people are

watching along as they listen. So go and make yourself cool and watch us on YouTube. You can leave the five-star review wherever you get your podcast. It helps other people to discover us and of course leave the Twix to Five-Star reviews wherever you listen to them to. The award-winning betwixt the sheets. If you have any ideas for future episodes, Witchcraft, other Icelandic folk traditions that you might want us to cover anything at all, send us an email. Freddie and Stu will pick them up on AfterDark at Historyhit.com. Until the next time, happy listening.