Marketta Punasuomalainen

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Marketta Ristontytär Punasuomalainen, (1600 or 1610-1658), was an alleged Finnish witch. She was one of the first people executed for sorcery in Finland and also the perhaps most known victims for the witch hunt in her country.

Marketta and her husband Simo Antipoka had ben forced to leave their farm in the 1630s and made a living as travelling beggars in the country around the city of Vaasa. The uncle of her husband had in 1624 bee accused of sorcery. Marketta worked in nature medicine and had the reputation of being a magician, something she encouraged and attempted to use for her benefit.

The farmers begun to fear her and after a priest died after having preached against her in church in 1656, she was arrested. When she was put on trial in 1657, she was accused for making babies sick, enchanting beer, creating sickness and killing two men with magic. She responded that she had never harmed anyone, but the public opinion demanded a conviction, and she was judged guilty and sentenced to be burnt at the stake.

Both her husband and her daughter Katarina was also accused of sorcery but acquitted from the charges.