1pm, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, 2 Hope Park Square.
Liv Helene Willumsen (University of Tromsø, IASH Fellow): North Berwick Trials Revisited: Transfer of Witchcraft Ideas between Denmark and Scotland
[Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities Work in Progress talk]
I work with the transfer of ideas about witchcraft between Denmark and Scotland, a project titled North Berwick Trials Revisited: Transfer of Witchcraft Ideas between Denmark and Scotland. I have previously worked with transference of witchcraft ideas between Scotland and Finnmark, Northern Norway, studying printed material, travelling persons and witchcraft court records. In Finnmark, demonological ideas appeared in the witchcraft court records in 1620. Now my intention is to make a detailed study of the transfer of witchcraft ideas prior to the North Berwick trials 1590-1591. These trials took place before the Central Court of Edinburgh. The trials are famous in many respects; this was the first time demonological ideas came to the fore during the Scottish witchcraft persecution, and sensationally, the king of Scotland, James VI, interrogated himself some of the alleged witches at Holyrood Castle in Edinburgh. One of the main accusations, and a reason for starting the trials, was that witches had conjured up a terrible storm, preventing the Danish Princess Anne, the future bride of King James, to arrive in Scotland at the autumn of 1589. Therefore the king had to go to Oslo to marry his queen at the end of the year 1589, and the royal couple stayed in Denmark until spring and arrived in Leith 1 May 1590.
Allegedly, the raising of this storm against the ships carrying Princess Anne was due to cooperation between Danish and Scottish witches. In both countries this storm resulted in witchcraft trials. In Scotland, according to early confessions during the North Berwick trials, the witches from Copenhagen and Scotland should have met in the midst of the Firth to plan the witchcraft operation. In Denmark, witchcraft trials related to this storm also took place. However, these trials have never become as famous as the North Berwick trials.
Previously, attention has been paid to the North Berwick trials on the part of Scottish witchcraft scholars. However, less attention has been paid to what happened in Denmark before the outbreak of the North Berwick trials, as the Copenhagen witchcraft trials started in summer of 1590 and the North Berwick cases in December 1590. My work in progress this term aims at studying how transfer of witchcraft ideas from Denmark to Scotland took place, in order to throw light on the connections between the Copenhagen witches and the North Berwick witches. I would like to follow the same methodological approach as in the larger project, namely focusing on three levels: printed material, travelling persons and witchcraft court records, particularly demonological ideas coming forth in interrogation and confessions during the trials. In addition, questions related to direct transfer of witchcraft ideas will be highlighted, among these the importance of King James VI’s stay in Denmark the winter of 1589–1590 as well as the importance of messengers travelling between Denmark and Scotland after the failure of bringing Princess Anne to Scotland to be married there.