Iceland review - 2016, Page 67

had a nun executed for her dealings with the
devil, blasphemy and immorality—the first
case of witchcraft heard by Icelandic courts
was in 1554. In 1608, the courts sentenced a
woman to death by burning for murdering a
child, and a man on charges of witchcraft in
1625. The events in 1654 started a wave of
persecutions in Iceland, resulting in 20 fur-
ther people being burnt at the stake before
1685, primarily in the West Fjords. The 17th
century is known as Brennuöldin in Iceland,
or ‘The Age of Burnings.’
Although they started much earlier, the
European witch hunts peaked roughly
between 1450 and 1750. It is estimated that
tens or hundreds of thousands of people,
accused of witchcraft, were burned alive—
mostly women. The persecutions were justi-
fied by the infamous Malleus Maleficarum, the
1486 treatise on the prosecution of witches,
reasoning that the alleged perpetrators were
conspiring with the devil on world domi-
nation. Prior to the so-called witch craze,
W I T C H H U N T S
In 1654, three men were executed
by burning in the ravine Kista
by the sea in Trékyllisvík.