Off the northern-most coast of Norway lies the small island of Vardø, site in the mid-seventeenth century of a notorious series of witch trials. Anya Bergman's novel brings us a fictional account of those times, seen from two points of view - that of wealthy Anna Rhodius, imprisoned in this remote fortress by her former lover, the King; and that of sixteen year ago fisherman's daughter, Ingeborg, whose mother is falsely accused of witchcraft. Ingeborg desperately wants to save her mother, and will go to any lengths to do so. Anna meanwhile is interested in protecting herself and negotiating a way to return to her former life.
The numbers involved in the real trials were horrific (91 people executed over a period of years) but Bergman has reduced them to handful without losing any of the terror and helplessness that these women must have experienced. As is frequently the case, there's a trail of fear and misogyny behind the accusations - women denounced for 'seducing' married men, the local Sami people victimised for being 'different', anyone who vaguely steps beyond the rigid bounds of propriety being considered fair game. And the treatment of women in general, as totally subordinate to men, and threatened for voicing their own opinions, is unthinkable now.
Although I'd heard of many instances of witch-hunts, from Pendle to Salem, Scotland to Essex, I hadn't realised that the fervour for them had spread to Norway, apparently influenced by King James VI (Scotland) and I (England), and his writings on Daemonologie. Reading The Witches of Vardø led me off down a lot of wormholes, finding more about the historical events, and learning more about the remote landscape of its setting.
Manilla Press
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