Marko Nenonen

Witchcraft, Magic and Witch Trials

in rural Lower Satakunta, Northern Ostrobothnia and Viipuri Karelia, 1620-1700. Historiallisia tutkimuksia 165: Helsinki 1992. 453 pp. Summary, pp. 430-450. (Diss.)

Summary of

Noituus, taikuus ja noitavainot

Ala-Satakunnan, Pohjois-Pohjanmaan ja Viipurin Karjalan maaseudulla 1620-1700. Historiallisia tutkimuksia 165: Helsinki 1992. 453 pp. Summary, pp. 430-450. (Diss.)

Translated by Hal Martin (1992). Reprinted here with minor corrections.

1 Subject-matter

Map. My study has been concerned with trials arising from charges of witchcraft and magic during the period 1620-1700 in three distinct areas of Finland (see map), the rural parts of Lower Satakunta (1), Northern Ostrobothnia (2) and Viipuri Karelia (3). As data on trials for witchcraft and magic elsewhere in Finland are also available, a comprehensive picture of such trials in this country can be obtained.

The study first explains what was understood by witchcraft and magic in the 17th century and what was aimed at by these means. Next comes a detailed analysis of the trials in question and an examination of who the accused and the prosecutors were. There were two levels of study. At the level of verbal description the beliefs held and the trials conducted were shown in their main features, and the life and status of those accused were examined (Chapters III-VII). At the level of synoptic scrutiny the position held by witchcraft and magic in human life was inquired into, also the connection between trials and individual lives on the one hand and social administration and policy on the other (VIII-XII). Chapter XII presents a broad explanatory view of Finnish trials for witchcraft and magic and their variations of sequence and location; it is not until this chapter that the different features are explained.

The main sources were copied reports of lower courts of justice and a general list of land settlement derived from tax rolls. Most cases were found from a card index of court records made by the State Record Office and The Finnish Historical Society. Because this card index does not cover towns in the areas studied, no adequate data on the urban situation could be obtained by reasonable efforts. Investigation of trials in towns had to be omitted.

2 What were witchcraft and magic?

Witchcraft and magic are unclear as concepts, nor does modern usage exactly correspond to the earlier meaning of these words. Historians too have not always achieved logical interpretation of anthropological research definitions affecting different periods and cultures in terms of court case material.

The aim of witchcraft or magic was - or was believed to be -either injury or cure and protection. Throughout Europe injury by means of witchcraft was already an ancient crime in the period of witch persecution. Magic spells to secure health and fortune have been used at all times. Even benevolent magic came to be treated generally as a crime by secular justice in Europe of the 16th century or later. Earlier the learned clergy had been more or less consistent in resisting pagan rites and magic practices.

Unique to the European witch-hunts was the theory - dating from the 15th century - of witches travelling to a witches' Sabbath. Although at that earlier time the notion existed - and in many places still exists today - that the soul might detach itself from the body and act independently, the theory of witches wantoning with the devil at a witches' Sabbath was a special addition by European civilization to the tradition of witchcraft and magic.

Anthropologists have often studied witchcraft merely as a force of ill-will or evil spirit which could be used to harm a rival or opponent. They understand magic as a process which, with the aid of various tricks and objects, causes either good or evil.

In my study I have broadened the concept of witchcraft (Finnish: noituus, Swedish: trolldom) and narrowed that of magic (Finnish: taikuus, Swedish: vidskepelse). By witchcraft I mean all the malevolent force known as "maleficium" and by magic all the supernatural force which is curative, benevolent and protective. In statistics concerned with analysis of court cases I have regarded the so-called witches' Sabbath as magic on the ground that observance of a witches' Sabbath was severely judged (by death) regardless of whether harm had been caused. In general parlance a witch's trial can still be taken to mean any trial arising from witchcraft and magic. In old Swedish town and country laws witchcraft signified only malevolent magic (maleficium): In judicial procedure no distinction was made regarding the form of magic by which harm had been caused: malevolence was followed by judgment. The most common offence seems to have been threatening and ill-wishing words which were believed to have come true. In judicial sources harm caused by witchcraft is described by the Swedish words trolldom (witchcraft), förgörning (bewitchery) or undsägelse (threat). For benevolent magic (vidskepelse), on the other hand, there were no regulations in town or country law. As a general rule such magic practices became subject to secular law in the Finnish part of the kingdom only in the 1660s or later, when judicial procedure changed in this regard. In the kingdom of Sweden statutes for the treatment of magic as criminal had been enacted in the 16th century, but their observance appears to have been inconsistent.

In the areas studied the victims of witchcraft and magic leading to criminal charges were carefully selected. Two thirds of the witchcraft charges were for injury to a person, but in most cases the victim survived. Next in frequency came damage to livestock (including horses and milk churning). Benevolent magic was generally directed to the healing of human beings or livestock. Fishing, grain-growing and hunting, for instance, were rarely the subject of witchcraft or magic leading to a criminal charge.

Beliefs and customs connected with witchcraft and magic have long run through human history as a vein central importance. In various parts of the world many still believe in malevolent properties of witchcraft such as the evil eye, while magic spells and rites for healing, protection and good fortune are an everyday matter in many cultures. In part of the world, including Europe, it is only in the last few centuries that the old belief in magic has been replaced by theories and views of modern science which differ radically from the old notions. In the history of witchcraft and magic the period of European witch-hunt was a relatively short phase.

3 Main features of legal proceedings

As a basis for examination of court cases from the geographical and chronological standpoint I have been able to take the work of Antero Heikkinen (1969) and Timo Kervinen (1984, also Heikkinen-Kervinen 1987). When the material presented by them is augmented by the full data on rural court cases in Lower Satakunta, Northern Ostrobothnia and Viipuri Karelia which is used here, also by the material I have gathered with Kervinen on Häme and Upper Satakunta (Nenonen-Kervinen 1988), an excellent picture can be obtained of Finnish trials for witchcraft and magic in their geographical diffusion and chronology. With Kervinen we know of more than 1100 accused persons. A summary of this material is likely to appear shortly. Among matters still unclarified are the extent to which legal proceedings in towns differed from those in the countryside and in parishes.

On the basis of the material presented it is possible to estimate that in Finland from 1500 to 1750 at least 1500 persons, perhaps more than 2000, were accused in trials for witchcraft and magic. The greatest number of legal proceedings were in the 1670s and 1680s. Generally speaking, the further one went inland and to the north, the less charges there were for witchcraft and magic in district courts. This was at least partly affected by density of population because no suspicion of witchcraft or revelation of magic is possible without human intercourse.

In this study court cases have been compiled with care, as it was desired to clarify some very detailed matters in their analysis. The 511 accused persons found in trial reports from rural Lower Satakunta, Northern Ostrobothnia and Viipuri Karelia are a body so comprehensive that no new material can cause a change in the matters to be analyzed. In Lower Satakunta I know of 162 legal proceedings in which a total of 242 persons were charged. In my material for Northern Ostrobothnia the corresponding figures are 133 and 181. In Viipuri Karelia 88 persons were accused in 63 trials for witchcraft and magic.

Of persons charged in my areas of study at least half were acquitted. In lower courts 27 death sentences are known to have been passed, but as a rule the court of appeal did not confirm them. The most common penalty was a large fine of 40 marks. This corresponds to the general picture given by Finnish trials for witchcraft and magic. On the basis of the material previously mentioned it may be concluded that of about 150 death sentences passed in Finland the majority were not confirmed by the court of appeal. The proportion of acquittals was also great.

In European witch-hunts in the early modern period at least two of three accused persons were women. Finland is a special exception in this respect - with Iceland and Estonia. In various parts of Europe men were charged often or more than often, but in Finland they were charged with exceptional frequency. As we come to the 1660s more than half of those accused were still men. Even later than this, in Viipuri Karelia the majority accused were men throughout the 17th century. In the northernmost parts of Ostrobothnia men were charged more often than in Ostrobothnia on the average. It may roughly be said that the proportion of men was greater the further from the west coast a trial was held. This is inversely proportional to the frequency of court cases in various areas. I have compared this generality with the statement of Armas Luukko (1958) that prosperity in cattle decreased the further one went from the coast inland and to the east. Correspondingly, the proportion of burnt-over cultivation was greater inland and in eastern Finland.

The number of trials did not increase or decrease in all parishes simultaneously. In Lower Satakunta until the 1660s the number rose in all parishes, but later only in Eura, Eurajoki and Ulvila. In Huittinen, Kokemäki and Loimaa the figure remained as before or fell. In Viipuri Karelia too the increase was at different times. At first some trials took place along the Kymijoki River, then more to the east in the district of Jääski and Äyräpää along the Vuoksi. Later there were some also in northern parts of the province and in the south-east on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. In the second half of the century trials increased in almost all parishes of Northern Ostrobothnia. Trials in Kalajoki took place mainly after 1685.

Legal proceedings for witchcraft and magic did not compose an unbroken wave of similar trials. At some times there were more trials than at others, and there were differences of time and location. Regionally trials for witchcraft and magic can be classified on the grounds which unite those of Lower Satakunta and Northern Ostrobothnia and differentiate those in Viipuri Karelia. In the most northern and eastern parts of Northern Ostrobothnia trials in some places also resemble those in Viipuri Karelia.

Until the 1670s the most common charge in rural Lower Satakunta and Northern Ostrobothnia was for malevolent, that is deliberately harmful witchcraft. In secular courts benevolent magic was rarely dealt with and hardly ever condemned under the prevailing norms of justice. Men were charged with malevolent witchcraft more often than women and received more than their share of condemnations, which were, however, rarely pronounced. A charge for witchcraft was usually brought by a private person, as a rule the victim of the harm inflicted. In Northern Ostrobothnia it was not until the end of the 1660s that the majority of those charged were women. In rural Lower Satakunta the majority were women in the first half of the century; eight of these, however, were charged with holding an unorthodox but Christian prayer meeting, and cases of magic with two other women were left without investigation. From 1659 to 1673 material is incomplete for Lower Satakunta, but over two-thirds of known charges were against men - a fact which also emphasizes the predominance of men in trials before the 1670s.

The basic type of trial for witchcraft in rural Lower Satakunta and Northern Ostrobothnia changed after the first years of the 1670s if not earlier. After this dividing point a typical trial was one in which the public authority charged women with benevolent magic, that is with use of spells and rites for healing and good fortune. Fines were mainly for women who had performed magic. All in all the majority of sentences passed in trials for witchcraft and magic were for benevolent magic within a short period, the 1670s and 1680s. Although trials charging women with magic occurred in a shorter interval of time, both in Lower Satakunta and Northern Ostrobothnia there were more trials after the 1660s than before.

In Viipuri Karelia trials for witchcraft and magic were different. It is true of trials in eastern Finland that charges for malevolent magic, in other words witchcraft were generally brought by private persons. In a typical trial after the early 1680s (1684-1700), when legal proceedings became far more frequent, it was private persons who brought charges of witchcraft, while the public authority brought those for magic also. And, as before the 1680s, most of those accused were men.

There were few charges for observance of a witches' Sabbath in the areas studied. This is the main reason why mass trials are absent in these areas. In Viipuri Karelia there were no charges concerned with witches' Sabbaths, but the accused person's relation with the devil was investigated on several occasions for other reasons. As Antero Heikkinen has explained, depictions of the witches' Sabbath were presented with frequency only in Ahvenanmaa (Åland) in 1666-1670 (1678) and in the Swedish-speaking part of Ostrobothnia in the later 1670s. The only location worth mentioning elsewhere is Ulvila, where three women were accused of travelling to a witches' Sabbath (1677, 1686-88 and 1698-1700).

Detailed scrutiny of the trials reveals no features indicative of paranoia, mystical dynamism or other decisive presumptions. The character of these trials seems to have been affected by extremely practical circumstances. Features common to the areas examined are as follow:

The majority of judgments were always acquittals. For malevolent witchcraft there were few condemnations.
Charges of witchcraft and magic played a very small part in matters of crime and dispute - even when witchcraft trials were numerous compared with earlier times.
Charges of malevolent witchcraft were brought mainly by private persons, charges of magic healing and good fortune by public authority.
Trials did not increase or decrease in number in all parishes at the same time.
A charge brought by public authority was more likely to produce condemnation than one brought by an individual villager or neighbour. Almost all death sentences were passed in trials actuated by public authority.
When the number of trials grew, the number of those accused grew still more rapidly. Trials increased in number when benevolent magic came under secular jurisdiction and those who sought help became subject to justice besides the magician.
Most condemnations were made in a short period. The most common was a fine; less than one accused person in ten received the death penalty from a lower court.
In the area studied death sentences for witchcraft and magic were generally commuted by the Turku court of appeal.

The general picture of witch-hunts has been coloured mainly by the well-known mass persecutions of Central Europe, when the relation to the devil of an accused person attending a witches' Sabbath was examined. In Finland too, namely in Ahvenanmaa (Åland) and Ostrobothnia, persons suspected of attending witches' Sabbaths were the subject of several extensive trials. These have been studied by Antero Heikkinen (1969). Persecutions which began in Dalecarlia, motherland of the kingdom, and spread to Stockholm and elsewhere became so large in scale that they could be compared with the most notable waves of persecution in central Europe. Although such mass persecutions have shaped the general view of witch-hunting to the exclusion of all others, they were in fact exceptional, nor can an overall picture of witch-hunts in Europe from 1450 to 1750 be formed on the basis of trials for observance of witches' Sabbaths.

More apparent than belief in the witches' Sabbath were beliefs which were common and everyday, though peculiar from the standpoint of the present. As a rule legal proceedings followed the established judicial practice of the time and were by no means on an arbitrary basis.

Although condemnations could not be numbered in hundreds of thousands, let alone millions, those responsible descended here and there to wrongs and procedures which even according to the law and custom of the time were not justified. In Finland too some were guilty of high-handed action.

It would be interesting to observe when the fantasies arose of European witch-hunts costing hundreds of thousands, even millions of lives. I have had no opportunity to study this, but there are indications in literature which point to the period of Enlightenment.

4 Who were witches?

Fancies of many kinds have coloured our notions of those who were accused of witchcraft and magic. But who were witches? In folk poetry recorded since the days of witchcraft a witch was often described as spiteful (Finnish: kade). Spite signifies hostility to a fellow creature. And it can certainly be demonstrated that no witch living at a distance and feared by reputation was accused of witchcraft or magic. The accused person was always an acquaintance, generally a neighbour or at least someone from the same village.

It is known too that the majority of those accused were peasants or their wives, in towns also men of the middle or merchant class or their wives. Only one woman is known to have been accused in connection with midwifery. Hired personnel were a small proportion of those charged, as were beggars and parasites from the lowest social scale. In the areas studied the poorest of all did not fare worst in trials for witchcraft. Similar results have been presented in detailed studies of persecutions in other countries, and the matter has been observed by Antero Heikkinen (1969) in connection with Ostrobothnia in Finland. These studies correspond to earlier fancies only in the sense that in many places single women probably were a higher proportion of those accused than of the population as a whole. Everywhere, however, the majority of those charged seem to have been married.

Among accused persons one group, though not large, can be clearly distinguished from others: from 1649 to 1658 in Lower Satakunta many notable trials were held of itinerant beggars who were feared, notorious and suspected of witchcraft. I have called them beggar witches, and it was they who received most of the death sentences in witch trials. Such trials took place in Lower Satakunta during the 1660s also. Elsewhere in Finland no wave of trials with equal notoriety is known to me, though there were some condemnations of ill-reputed witches at the same time.

The age of accused persons and prosecutors must be estimated from material which is incomplete and open to various interpretations. It cannot be simply said that the former were usually old, but very young people among their number were extremely rare.

I have reached some peculiar results in analyzing the financial resources of accused persons. There are grounds for regarding part of them as without means - hired personnel, parasites and beggars- while the resources of farmers can be estimated only from data which are debatable and insufficient. Available material suggests that accused farmers or their wives came unusually often from very large farms, those, for instance, which were marked in tax rolls with an assessment unit of 2/3 or even more. If a farm appears to have paid its tax and kept hired personnel I have cautiously concluded that accused farmers did actually come notably often from the ranks of those who were at least reasonably successful.

The majority of prosecutors too were farmers of moderate wealth. It is interesting to note that accusations made by the public authority were generally against parasites and beggars.

Very few (5 %) are known to have been charged more than once with witchcraft or magic, and there is little evidence of several accused persons being offspring of different ages of the same family. A tradition of soothsaying and healing might run in the same family, but - in contradiction to the general notion - charges of witchcraft and magic were not often brought against professional soothsayers and healers. It should be noted that trials for witchcraft and magic in themselves give no exact description of the soothsaying and healing tradition.

Contemporaries did not persecute as witches a specific category of persons. If we are to classify an accused person, he or she was married, a farmer or farmer's wife, no longer young and fairly well-off. A more essential point is that any neighbour or villager could be suspected of witchcraft or magic. There may be a good deal of truth in the Finnish traditional poem:

"Envious are all the people,
Witches watch at every gate."

Later generations have regarded those condemned in trials for witchcraft and magic as innocent victims, but in fact they were often guilty of the action for which they were punished. Not only spell casting but threatening could be proved - whether a cow had been killed by a verbal sword thrust was another matter. Contemporaries believed that witches were persecutors, while later generations think the opposite.

5 How trials arose

Belief in witchcraft meant belief in the power of others to invoke evil. This ability came to light in disputes when the honour or advantage of another person was injured. Boasting and swaggering, rapid enrichment or indifference to the suffering of others might also lead to the invocation of curses. In addition witchcraft could be used as means of achieving an end. Threats of witchcraft affected human relations and intercourse because an injury to personal advantage or physical integrity might give reason for the practice of witchcraft. Witchcraft was, in fact, a form of guarantee for democratic conditions and equality, since fear of witchcraft served as a protection from injury. This fact should not be exaggerated, however. Threat of witchcraft was no more a guarantee of mutual respect than many other guarantees of social harmony.

Behind charges of malevolent witchcraft there generally lay some social dispute in which one of the parties concerned had suffered financial loss. Charges at district courts increased in the mid-17th century. I have been unable to determine quite clearly why charges of malevolent witchcraft increased exactly then. Charges of witchcraft and magic had already become general after the mid-16th century, but at the very beginning of the 17th century they appear to have decreased.

In charges of witchcraft the pressure came often from village communities, not from public authorities. This is also indicated by the scarcity of condemnations for malevolent witchcraft. Many trials led back to extremely sharp conflicts. Perhaps the unfavourable conditions of the war years intensified fear of economic setbacks, and hardships may have had greater importance in the first half of the 17th century.

It cannot be taken for granted, however, that social conflicts were channels leading to suspicions of and trials for witchcraft. Other factors certainly affected the spread of charges. Once a charge was convincingly presented, suspicions of witchcraft became a fashionable explanation of misfortune, and a trial was likely in itself to produce new trials. A further influence here may have been provided by examples from abroad and by public discussion of witchcraft in European countries, but I have not been able to prove this. Nor can I confirm suspicions that new testimony of atrocities performed by witches came by way of soldiers returning from the war.

It is more likely that suspected witchcraft was brought before district courts more often because judicial administration became more effective with the development of central state power. However, the background of a lawsuit brought by a private person was generally some social dispute for which the offender was made answerable, and so repeated charges of witchcraft were also a means of combating hardships such as poverty. Malevolent witchcraft which ended before the district court was usually brought about by a man, and we may therefore take it that during the wars of the century's first decades the spread of accusations of witchcraft was prevented by war itself. War also caused a manpower shortage on home fronts.

It is hard to find an unambiguous reason for the decrease of witchcraft charges. They decreased at the same time as charges of benevolent magic became more general, and in Finland accusations of flights to the witches' Sabbath began. Let us note, however, that except in the middle of the 17th century charges of malevolent witchcraft were made at an even rate at different periods, though less at the beginning of the century. I regard it as obvious that the system of justice restricted the number of trials for witchcraft. The majority of those suspected were acquitted. National legislation and the judiciary superintended by the central power guaranteed that cases of witchcraft were almost always dealt with objectively. Private interests were not allowed to dominate the law.

If it is thought that fear of witchcraft had a restraining influence on social aggressiveness, we may suspect that such control was effective only in fairly stable conditions. The life of village communities changed rapidly in the 17th century. During the first decades there were many empty farmsteads, but at the same time many large-scale farms were established. The influence of temporal and ecclesiastical authority on the actions of parishioners grew. Turmoil in social life could not be explained as a plot by witches. Villagers, and especially jurors, were unlikely to believe that results of otherwise good work were destroyed sometimes by means of witchcraft. Leading circles, moreover, might be losing their belief in witchcraft. Authority was guided by the latest doctrines of science and by firm reliance on its own increased power.

After analysis of court cases my study was directed by a paradox: condemnations for malevolent witchcraft by the official judiciary were rare, and in other respects also the successful pursuit of a witchcraft charge was made difficult by close examination. Yet at the same time the attitude of the authorities to benevolent magic became stricter. Halfway through the century secular justice began to take fumbling steps in the correction of those who practised magic, and by the early 1670s at latest judicial procedure had changed consistently. In the 17th century most judgments in trials for witchcraft and magic were passed in proceedings instituted by public authority in the 1670s and 80s against benevolent magic.

Practice of magic offended orthodox faith and the integrated culture of church and custom which had been adopted as the aim of the state. Magic became a worse threat than witchcraft to public authority because, although many of the latter's representatives feared illnesses and injuries to cattle caused by witches, there was no threat from witchcraft to the growing strength of the administrative machinery. Charges of benevolent magic became more important to authority for the same reason that those for witchcraft became less so. If social control of the community was exercised - by enacting and supervising regulations according to which people must behave - public authority did not need to bring charges for witchcraft but was obliged to engage in struggle against magic. The practice of magic was an offence to the faith taught by authority - regardless of the effect of the magic.

Charges of magic were still frequent in the 18th century. Charges of witchcraft also occurred then; to my knowledge the last case of malevolent witchcraft was brought before the district court in 1833.

6 Authority's dual role

In the study of witch-hunts two facts have been emphasized in different ways. On the one hand a background of social and economic upheaval has been perceived and with it social conflicts which intensified in village communities. On the other hand a change has been stressed which occurred in state and judicial administration and in religious policy at the beginning of modern history in the 16th and 17th centuries; this resulted in measures of control and supervision which were better organized, purposeful and with greater reserves of power.

I have been able to show that trials for witchcraft differed in origin from those for healing and protective magic. Despite this I have reached the conclusion that action taken by the highest secular and ecclesiastical authority had a decisive effect on the increase of witchcraft charges. The part played by authority may be called domineering in the sense that holders of secular and ecclesiastical power considered that they knew a better and more advanced way of life than that for which the lower orders were prepared and to which - after centuries of tradition - they were accustomed.

It is clear, however, that action taken by authority was not for the sole purpose of promoting trials for witchcraft and magic. Justice was extremely doubtful of malevolent witchcraft charges. With moderation and with the thorough investigation which was normal procedure at the time, authority restrained the bringing of witchcraft charges. And nothing indicates that jurors - who were often well acquainted with the life and affairs of villagers - gave judgment on inadequate grounds.

In trials for magic the part played by authority was especially great. But in these cases too its function was not merely to be the executant of persecution. In most trials for magic nothing emerged from action taken by authority which might point to the new theories of witchcraft which were already known in Finland. No attempt was made to cloak tales of gnomes and goblins in theories of witchcraft. In many parts of Europe great trials concerned with the witches' Sabbath were held when interrogators steered popular beliefs into a framework of diabolism. In Finland there was no authority based on witchcraft theories which was strong enough for such trials to be held repeatedly over wide areas. Secular and ecclesiastical power remained within the prevailing system of popular belief and does not appear to have spread doctrines concerned with theories of witchcraft in any way.

In Finland the judiciary controlled by authority influenced the beginning of legal proceedings for witchcraft and magic in a completely contradictory manner. On the one hand the judiciary with its increased power and the district court under secular control made it less easy for private individuals to avoid the court even if the parties to the dispute wished to do so. When dispute and altercation over works of witchcraft had reached the ears of authority it became difficult to avoid the district court. It was not good to live under suspicion, but accusation without grounds was severely judged. On the other hand courts were restrained in their attitude to charges of witchcraft, and the evidence required must be considered very exacting.

At the opening of trials for magic the part played by authority was also contradictory. The practice of magic was severely regarded, and the procedures of authority multiplied the number of trials. But connections with new theories of witchcraft were no more looked for in connection with magic than in connection with witchcraft. Thus the mass trials which were familiar in many other countries were not held as a rule.

7 The part played by men and women in Finnish witch trials

Those accused of witchcraft in Finland were often men, and it is natural to seek the explanation for this in the shamanist tradition or other features of Finnish mythology. This was the belief of Rafaël Hertzberg (1889). Yet nothing clearly points to the existence in that mythological tradition of elements which contributed special features to Finnish trials for witchcraft and magic in the time of European witch hunts (1450-1750). A few collapsing healers - some of whom were declared epileptics in their time - do not necessarily point to a shamanist culture.

Long before the period of witch hunts it appears that the shamanist witch culture had vanished or given birth to a new tradition of soothsaying. Among court cases in the areas studied no seers can be found who with drums and incantations prepared their souls for a journey to the underworld to have dealings with the souls of the dead. A tradition of Lapp witchcraft certainly existed to some extent, especially in the more northern parts of Finland. The fame of Lapp witches was great in the 17th century, but they were rarely brought to court in either Finnish or Swedish Lapland.

Because court records tell us very little of shamanist witchcraft sessions, it must be presumed that in the 17th century, especially in Finnish areas, this form of witchcraft had died out. This was the presumption of Martti Haavio - among others - in his studies based on folk poetry. My opinion is that in trials for witchcraft at the beginning of the modern period the influence of the shamanist tradition was slight, although some features of shamanism survived till later among the Lapps and also the Finns. I believe too that the high incidence of men among those charged cannot be linked with the shamanist tradition. According to information obtained from Per Sörlin the proportion of men charged in Sweden grew during the 18th century in particular, which proves that this proportion was not connected with shamanism alone.

Shamanism had largely disappeared, but court records tell of a later form of soothsaying. Fervent seers who did not fall into a trance or beat witch drums were known as enthusiasts or witchdoctors (Finnish: intomies, myrrysmies). It is not clear how this was connected with the shamanist tradition. A common feature was some kind of inspiration (cf enthusiast) or enchantment which was indispensable. Enthusiasts and witchdoctors raged, leapt about and mumbled. Lauri Honko (1959, 1960) has described the healing process of soothsayers as a great drama in which the mythical origin of a disease is pictured in ceremonial words. The healer recalls the beginning of the world, when disease appeared as a disturber of the universal order and the gods took a stand against it. In a drama of healing the seer repeats the same plan of battle and forces trouble and distress to retreat. In Finnish folk verse troubles are sent back to the underworld (Tuonela, Pohjola), whence they were sent to plague mankind.

Court records yield data of seers who acted in the style of enthusiasts and witchdoctors. They might include women. Some of those accused recited magic spells which have been noted, but court records have not revealed to what extent the actions of a seer were understood as a drama of healing of the kind described. In this respect reports of court proceedings are not fully appropriate as source material. And it was very rare for seers who acted like enthusiasts and witchdoctors to be charged in 17th century courts.

After statistical examination of trials it appeared that malevolent witchcraft was typical of men, whereas healing by magic was more typical of women. These statistics give a false picture. I believe I have shown that the attachment of women to the tradition of benevolence or healing was not so clear, and the part played by men in malevolent witchcraft not so absolute as appears in the light of court case statistics alone. Men were not charged with magic as long as magic was not treated as a criminal offence. And the share of women in accusations of malevolent witchcraft increased when the practice of charging women began.

As a reason for the change I am inclined to stress socio-political causes more than differences in the practice of witchcraft and magic. Popular notions and lack of a sufficiently strong authority with an assured theory of witchcraft maintained and preserved a traditional male stereotype of witchcraft which became familiar in district courts. Whatever the origin of such a stereotype, it was probably destroyed by two factors which were effective independently of each other. Certainly the change in judicial practice and the introduction of punishment for magic in secular courts increased the proportion of women among those charged, because many of the magic spells wrought by women were common and easy to prove. And even if villagers were suspicious when women were charged with magic, the clergy was probably more impartial: if magic was a crime, that was all that mattered.

It is a telling fact that punishment for casting of spells was instituted at the same time as the state was trying to extend its influence to other spheres of life which had previously been almost outside the range of official authority. The campaign against magic would hardly have succeeded if women using magic in domestic work and cattle raising had not been called to account like men for improper behaviour. Fornication and adultery were also deeds which required condemnation of women if it was desired to accord social intercourse with what was taught by the church and confirmed by the state. I do not believe that increased severity in the condemnation of women resulted from persecution by reason of their sex. It was a question of the growth of state influence in matters of everyday life which had earlier been part of human privacy or had belonged to an area governed by the family, the clan or perhaps the village community. For authority to conquer this new area was impossible without intervention in the work and activities of women.

Another fact which may have helped to break the stereotype of male witchcraft or wizardry was the doctrine and tales of flying visitors to witches' Sabbaths. Such tales certainly circulated in Finland in the mid-l7th century. All over Europe, including Ahvenanmaa (Åland), Dalecarlia and Ostrobothnia, witches who flew to Sabbaths were women for the most part. The change in judicial practice and the new tales of witchcraft did not destroy popular beliefs, however. For a short period in the 167as and 80s the proportion of women among those charged was exceptionally great, coinciding with the witches' Sabbath trials. After this the proportion lessened, though it remained high at least in the western part of Finland. Women were charged with witchcraft and magic more often in Lower Satakunta and Ostrobothnia than in Viipuri Karelia, but in general they rarely appeared in court in the latter area. In Viipuri Karelia there were condemnations for magic, usually men. In this respect judicial practice was the same, though there was a difference in the attitude of women to court matters. It appears that the special features of legal proceedings against witchcraft and magic were affected by utterly practical factors, not so much by well-known shamanism in the power of men or by the mythical lewdness of women.

8 On the borders of Europe

In some ways my study has moved in other directions than much of the latest research. The number of those accused of witchcraft and magic in Finland must be reckoned many times higher than earlier estimates. Most recent studies of the witch-hunts have been obliged to reduce massively the number of accused and condemned persons, whereas Finland is an exception: the number of trials is very considerable.

In estimating numbers, however, it should be noted that Finnish court cases have been collected from source material with extreme care. In the early work of Rafaël Hertzberg the pages of court judgment records were faithfully followed, and the work of later researchers has been no less assiduous. Local historical research too has often included trials for witchcraft and magic. In Finnish or in Scandinavian estimates in general there has been no initial assumption as in the rest of Europe, where estimates of the numbers charged and condemned have decreased many times over. The more closely judicial sources have been examined, the greater the share of trials for popular witchcraft and magic in comparison with those for witches' Sabbaths has usually become.

Another point is that I have very closely differentiated the various trials and have demonstrated that they arose in different ways. Behind a charge of malevolent witchcraft there generally lay a personal motive, and authority was interested only if the reputation and action of the accused person were a clear disturbance to the life of the village community. Toward magic spells the attitude was different: authority could not be indifferent even to healing if it were done by incantation, for it would then have tolerated crude religious dissidence against its own line of social policy. In addition judicial proceedings differed according to when and where they arose. The question of sex is also involved: men, who formed the majority of those accused, were charged in different trials and at different times from women.

In examining trials for observance of the witches' Sabbath and how they arose I remain close to the usual line of study. It was a fundamental fact that Finland lacked a doctrinal authority resting on the theory of witchcraft with sufficient influence to make possible the interpretation of popular beliefs in accordance with a new teaching of witchcraft. This fact is connected with a third notable standpoint: in the light of Finnish material the action of authority must be appraised by different methods from those used in many studies dealing with other countries. In the first place the judicial system's confinement of itself to normal procedures restrained the bringing of charges for witchcraft, nor did objective inquiry often enable private interests to assume a central part in judicial handling of cases.

This observation is of no special interest in itself: it has often been noted in other studies that higher organs of justice are generally more matter of fact and cold-blooded toward hysterical accusations and inflamed situations than are lower courts. In Finland lower courts seem to have kept calm as a rule. The likely reason is that the theory of the witches' Sabbath was not taken as a guideline for inquiry. The point, therefore, was not so much that calm and deliberation were able to reject the theory of witchcraft as that calm was easy to preserve when such a theory was lacking. Elsewhere too the traditional accusatory system of justice based on the action of a private plaintiff did not stimulate persecution as much as the inquisitorial system, in which the private plaintiff was replaced by authority as pursuer of the charge.

Finland was almost totally lacking in the authority which might have directed popular belief within the framework of necromantic interpretation. Bishop Johannes Gezelius the elder and District Judge Nils Psilander of Ahvenanmaa (Åland) seem to have been quite exceptional persons in this respect. The persecutions which took place in the Swedish-speaking area of Ostrobothnia were influenced - as Heikkinen (1969) has shown - by Swedish models and connections. It is evident that the Finnish clergy was generally not prepared to present interpretations in accordance with the doctrine of theoretical witchcraft, not even in trials where the practice of witchcraft and magic was heatedly discussed in other ways.

It was this dismissive or at least passive attitude of authority to interpretations of witchcraft theory which restrained to a decisive extent the spread of mass trials in Finland. This was so despite the eagerness of authority to put on trial persons who had cast spells. But the practice of magic was easily proved with its basis in old popular customs. Examination of court proceedings in many European countries has usually shown that in interrogations following the interpretations of authority and clergy matters which came to light were directed into the channels of the new theory of witchcraft.

The teachings of witchcraft were studied by King James VI of Scotland - later James I of England - who explained in his book "Daemonologia" (1597) that the special power of the devil in Lapland, Finland and the Orkney and Shetland Islands was due to the fact that the ignorance of people and the audacity of the devil in these areas was greatest. Perhaps the king was right. But - as Rafaël Hertzberg noted in his thesis of 1889 - their backwardness enabled the Finns to avoid going to the extremes of burning at the stake to which some of the more advanced areas of Europe went:

Finland and especially those parts of it nearest to Lapland, so notorious for witchcraft and ignorance, might yet serve as an example to the rest of western Europe, so calm and moderate was the thinking of their people and the judgment of their courts in regard to such matters.

Let it be noted, however, that in England, Russia and some other countries the teachings of theoretical witchcraft attracted little attention, so that the restraint - or ignorance - of Finnish authority was not entirely unique.