Det Stora Oväsenndet [The Great Noise]
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A concept album with Azael Faunus travelling to frosty Sweden in 17th century...
But the appearance of the innocent snow is deceptive ... A.F. finds himself in the middle of one of the greatest witch hunts in Sweden's history. Be curious to see how he will manage to escape from this situation and what strange beings he will come across.
The "Great noise" of 1668–1676
The largest and most famous Swedish witch hunt took off in 1668 during the reign of Charles XI, when the hysteria called Det stora oväsendet (literary: "the Great Noise") resulted in almost three hundred executions (more than any period prior), during the eight years until 1676, when they were stopped.
They took place mainly on Northern Sweden and in the former Danish province of Bohuslän.
The witch hunt started when Lars Elvius, church pastor in Älvdalen in Dalarna, interrogates the little shepherd girl Gertrud Svensdotter, who pointed out Märet Jonsdotter for having abducted her to the Witches' Sabbath of Satan in Blockula.
This expanded in to a large trial in Mora in Dalarna in 1668, where 17 people were sentenced to death for having abducted children to Satan. The children who were supposed victims and witnesses were punished as well (not for having witnessed, but of having been to Satan and participated in the Sabbath, albeit by being kidnapped) - in Mora, 148 children were sentenced with being whipped or running the gauntlet.
The witch trial of Mora attracted attention and caused a hysteria in the country. The witch hunt of 1668-1676 was endemic to its nature: it spread as rumours by way of mouth from parish to parish rather than being confined to one place. The phenomena of witches abducting children to the Witches' Sabbath of Satan of Blockula, where they were exposed to sexual abuse and forced to sell their souls, caused widespread panic among the parents of the nation, and parents of several parishes, alarmed by the rumours among their children, started to demand that the authorities issue investigations in their parishes.
In this way, witch trials spread from parish to parish, when more and more parents demanded that their children's stories be investigated.
Eventually, the witch panic spreading around the provinces and the growing number of local witch trials caused the government to form a central national Witchcraft Commission in an attempt to take control of the situation. The rules of the Witchcraft Commission was issued by the king in 1673 and 1674.
The 1673 regulation stated that only those accused who confessed willingly and who had played a leading role were legal to execute. The revised rules of 1674 stated that people could be executed even if they had not confessed, but that torture were, from that point on, legal to use to make them confess (torture had been commonly used before but without legal permission).
The Commission was divided into two departments under the supervision of Governor Carl Larsson Sparre, who preserved to right to confirm all sentences before they could legally be carried out. All the condemned were executed by decapitation, after which their remains were burned at the stake.
The worst phase occurred in 1675, when about 110 were executed in Ångermanland and Gästrikland. In the Torsåker witch trials in Ångermanland, 71 people; of which 65 women (every fifth woman in Torsåkers parish), 2 men and 4 boys, were beheaded and then burned on the stake on June 1, 1675.
According to some sources, 9 people were executed already on March 28 and the remaining 62 on June 1, 1675 on a mountain in the border area between Torsåkers, Dals and Ytterlännäs parishes.
In June 1675 the hysteria reached the capital of Stockholm in the form of the migrating child witness Gävle Boy, who arrived to the capital from the provincial town of Gävle after having testified in his own mothers witch trial. Eight women were executed during the witch trials of the Katarina parish in Stockholm in 1676: Anna Sippel, Britta Sippel, Anna Måndotter, Anna Persdotter Lärka, Maria Jöransdotter, Margareta Matsdotter, Anna Simonsdotter Hack and Malin Matsdotter, the last one of whom was, uniquely, burned alive.
The witch trials of the Katarina parish in Stockholm were, however, to be the end of the whole Swedish witch hunt. During the proceedings in Stockholm, several members of the Witchcraft Commission, notably Eric Noraeus and Urban Hiärne, had a growing concern over the rights of those accused and the testimonies used to condemn them, particularly as the testimonies were given by children who were merely asked to confirm their former statement rather than to repeat them. On 11 September 1676, one of the child witnesses admitted to have lied in court.
This confession was followed by the complete breakdown of all the child witnesses before court, who admitted to having lied and who were instead charged with perjury.
As a consequence, the Witchcraft Commission immediately order a stop of the witch hunt nationwide, and started to issue investigation in how the witch hysteria could be effectively stopped.
In 1677, the Witchcraft Commission and the government ordered the clergy nationwide to stop all witch panic by conducting a prayer of gratitude in their pulpits, thanking God that the witches had now been banned forever from the Kingdom.
When some of the clergymen protested and insisted that the witches had indeed been guilty and the sorcery real, they were lectured by the Witchcraft Commission and forced to comply. By that act, the great witch hunt known as the Great Noise of 1668-1676 was ended in Sweden and the Witchcraft Commission was dissolved.
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