Malin Matsdotter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Malin Matsdotter (1613-1676), called "Rumpare-Malin", was an alleged Swedish witch and one of few people in Sweden to be executed by burning at the stake (two of the others were the heretic Botulf Botulfsson in Gottröra in Uppland in 1311, and Lars Nilsson in Norrland in 1693).
Malin Matsdotter was an old Swedish woman of Finnish descent, one of many victims of the witch hunt hysteria called "Det Stora Oväsendet" ("The Great Noise") in Sweden between 1668 and 1676. She was the only known witch in Sweden who was burned alive; normally, the witches in Sweden were decapitated before they were burned. Before this time, very few people had been accused of this crime in Sweden, but during these eight years, about 300 people, both women and men, were decapitated and burned as witches. The Swedish witch frenzy reached its peak with the Torsåker witch trials, and it reached Stockholm in 1675, where it lasted until 1676.
The witch hunt of Stockholm was mainly concentrated not on sorcery, but on the belief that the witches abducted children to the sabbath of Satan, and Malin Matsdotter was one of many people accused of having done this.
Contents |
[edit] Trial and Verdict
Malin Matsdotter was a poor widow after a man executed for sodomy who lived on Mariaberget in Stockholm. She was accused by her own adult daughters, who claimed she had abducted their children, her grandchildren, to the Sabbath of Satan in Blockula. Malin cursed her daughters for their lies. She was judged guilty by a unanimous court on the testimonies of her daughters. She refused to say farewell to them after she received her verdict and she refused to shake their hands. She stood stern in her denial before the court; such firmness was often considered a sign that the Devil helped his witch to withstand interrogations.
Malin was sentenced to be burned alive because of her refusal to plead guilty, despite the torture she was exposed to. One of the previous accused, Anna Lärka, had also received the same sentence for her refusal to admit guilt, but it was revoked when she finally did so; in the case of Matsdotter, the sentence was to be carried out. This caused a debate among the authorythies, as this method of execution was very uncommon in Sweden; though several crimes stated public burning, this actually meant that the condemned be "executed and burned", which meant that they were first executed by decapitation or hanging, after which their corpse were burned on the stake in public; the method of burning someone still alive are only known to have happened in the country a very few times before, and was therefore controversial. No other person executed for sorcery in Sweden are confirmed to have been burned alive. It was also against normal praxis to execute someone who had not admitted their crime. One suggestion was, that on the execution, she would be given a last chance to confess her sin; if she did so, she would be decapitated before she was burned. One member of the commission suggested that she be tortured with hot irons before the execution, so that she would be unconscious and not aware of the pain, but the suggestion was revoked with the view, expressed by a priest, that the honor of the name of God was more important then Malin's personal feel of pain, and she was instead to have a bag of gunpowder around her neck to make the death quicker.
[edit] Execution
The execution was carried out in the square of Hötorget in Stockholm on the 5th of August 1676. Malin was to be executed with another woman, Anna Simonsdotter Hack, who was to be decapitated the usual way before burning, and the differences in their behavior have given Malin the admiration of history.
Anna Simonsdotter stepped up to her execution with great humility, full of respect for her judgment; though she did not directly say she was guilty, she behaved as was expected of her, and by her remorse, by her psalms, and by falling on her knees and lifting her head and her hands to the sky confirmed the justice in the verdict and the justice in the world. Malin Matsdotter, on the other hand, described by witnesses as proud and firm, received the gunpowder with a smile and climbed up the stake showing no fear, talked calmly to the executioner and let him chain her by her hands and her feet without fighting back. She talked back to the priests with her head held high when they pledged to her to acknowledge her sin, maintaining her innocence. Standing at the stake, she once again stated her innocence. When her daughters in the audience, who were the ones who had accused her of witchcraft, called out to her to admit her crimes to save her soul, "She gave her daughter into the hands of the devil and cursed her for eternity." After this, the stake was set on fire.
It is said that she died with no pain and without screaming, which was taken as another proof of her guilt. This was the end of the witch trials in Sweden; soon afterwards, the judges, led by Urban Hjärne and Eric Noraeus, began to express their skepticism against the child-accusers and witnesses. The rest of the accused witches were let free, and three of the main child-witnesses, the Gävle-Boy and the Maids of Myra, were arrested and executed instead, and several of the other witnesses where whipped for their perjury. One of the perjurers who was executed at the end of this year was the daughter of Malin Matsdotter.
In 1677, all the priest of the country were ordered to tell their congregations in the churches, that the witches had now been expelled from the country forever to avoid further witch trials. There was to be no witch trials in Sweden until 1704, when Anna Eriksdotter (or Ersdotter) were decapitated as the last one to be executed for sorcery in Sweden.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Peter Englund, "Förflutenhetens landskap" (The country of past times), (In Swedish).
- http://www.genealogi.se/avrattade/comment.php?id=1495
