In late December 1617, a violent storm hit the Barents Sea off Vardø, in Norway’s far north.
On Christmas Eve, ten boats sank and 40 men died within sight of their homes. Over the next years, the Finnmark region saw some of Europe’s most intense witchcraft trials.
Modern research now joins these two events, showing how a weather shock fed a climate of suspicion. Between 1620 and 1692, authorities prosecuted 135 people for witchcraft in Finnmark, executing 91—77 women and 14 men.
A Storm and Its Aftermath
The Christmas storm of 1617 struck during the colder years often called the Little Ice Age.
Fishing communities in Finnmark depended on the sea for survival. Losing dozens of experienced sailors in a single night shook the area’s economy and social order.
Soon after, local authorities began prosecuting mostly women for witchcraft, accusing them of raising storms and causing shipwrecks. The first major trials occurred in 1620-1621, when women confessed under interrogation to tying knots in string, spitting and reciting incantations to summon the storm that killed the fishermen.
Liv Helene Willumsen, emeritus historian at the University of Tromsø, has documented how court records show accused women claiming they flew through the air, shapeshifted into animals and met with the Devil at gatherings.
By 1692, Finnmark had recorded the highest per capita rate of witchcraft executions in Scandinavia.
Fear, Faith and Scapegoats
Witchcraft trials did not come from superstition alone.
They arose where fear met fragile institutions. In Finnmark, sparse state presence, imported Lutheran ideas about the devil and older coastal beliefs blended into a harsh system of blame.
When the storm killed many of the town’s men, widows and marginalised women became convenient targets. Confessions were extracted under torture at Vardøhus Fortress. Some women admitted to flying to Lyderhorn mountain in Bergen, over 1,600 kilometres away, to attend the Devil’s Christmas party with dancing and drink.
The chain is uncomfortable but familiar: an unexplained shock, a frightened community and authorities willing to see individuals as causes rather than casualties. Three main “panics” occurred—1620-1621, 1652-1653, and 1662-1663—with the final wave seeing 20 women executed by April 1663.
Climate Panic Then and Now
Economic historians have linked colder, unstable weather in early modern Europe with surges in witchcraft accusations. Regions that suffered crop failures or repeated storms often recorded more trials. Finnmark, with just 0.8 per cent of Norway’s population in the 1600s, hosted 16 per cent of the country’s witchcraft trials.
Today, climate anxiety takes different forms. Floods, fires and heatwaves spark arguments over policy, not sorcery. Yet the urge to find simple human villains for complex environmental crises has not disappeared. Migrants, city dwellers or even teenagers on social media become stand-ins for much wider structural problems.
The Finnmark story warns that climate stress does not only destroy roofs and boats. It can also push societies to turn against their own members.
Learning from a Misread Disaster
Remembering the 1617 storm as part of the Finnmark witch hunts changes how this chapter of history is read. It becomes less a tale of distant superstition and more a study in how communities interpret disaster.
Modern Norway opened the Steilneset Memorial near Vardø in 2011, designed by architect Peter Zumthor and artist Louise Bourgeois. The 125-metre-long corridor contains 91 small windows, each with a single lightbulb representing one victim. The design evokes the lamps in curtainless windows of Arctic fishing villages.
Queen Sonja, who opened the memorial, noted that “Steilneset is a symbol of the intolerance of the period, but can also serve to remind us of the prejudices, injustices and persecution that exist today.” The new climate research adds another layer.
It suggests that better understanding of natural risks, and more honest communication after catastrophe, can reduce the appeal of magical explanations. That lesson travels well beyond the Arctic. As extreme weather grows more frequent, societies will face similar shocks, even if the targets of blame change.
The Finnmark storm shows that the line between grief and accusation is thin. How authorities talk about loss, and whom they choose to protect, still decides which side of that line people fall on.
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