Le Sabbat des sorcières, Hans Baldung Grien, gravure sur bois (1508), detail. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
The 2nd Symposium on Spiritual Technologies explores the history of witchcraft in Norway and Europe and the capitalization of health in the Middle Ages as well as its repercussions today. The symposium is curated by Invisibledrum Art Platform, an artistic research collective investigating holistic practices and spiritual technologies within the field of arts and new ecologies, founded by Amalia Fonfara and Nazaré Soares. All events are organized with Invisibledrum Art Platform in collaboration with Kunsthall Trondheim and the Norwegian Historical Association (HIFO).
This program offers the format of the walk as a tool to explore history’s fabric. To deal with history is to deal with time. On this walk, creative tools and urban mises-en-scène are used to propose different relations with time and communicability of languages and forms.In the 16th and 17th centuries, the witch bonfires burned in Europe. In Norway, about 800 people were accused of practicing witchcraft, and of these, about 300 were executed for witchcraft. Even though we know the period of the witch trials was cruel, what do we actually know about its effects in our local area? This walk will explore the history and locales of the witch trials in Trondheim, which are mostly hidden in plain sight. The walk will start at Kunsthall Trondheim and conclude in Ila.
Click here for free registration to join Historical Walk in Trondheim
Witchcraft, Trials, and Demonology in Trondheim
Linda Fjølstad
Historical city walk
Duration: 120 minutes
Place: Starting at Kunsthall Trondheim
During this historical city walk, we will talk about the witch trials of Trondheim and explore the relationship between religion and local society. Why did some people hurt under demonology and when did it end? In historical accounting we can find records that show how the executioners got paid for their services, including torture, the tools they used, and later the executions. We can also see what nutrition the witches were provided in prison at Erkebispegården. Linda Fjølstad will guide the walk and focus on three different cases: the trials of Grøtkall-Marit, a widow who was burned in 1656; the married couple Lisbeth and Ole Nypan, who were executed in 1670; and the Sámi woman Finn-Kirsten Iversdatter, who was the last witch executed in Trondheim in 1674.
Linda Fjølstadwas born in Trondheim in 1989. She started her education at The University of Tromsø in 2012, where she was introduced to witch trials as studies, and obtained a master’s degree in history from The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2016. Fjølstad’s master thesis focused on the witch trials of Lisbeth and Ole Nypan in 1670. After her studies she remained at NTNU, at the Department of Historical Studies as a Research Assistant. In 2018 she became a Senior Executive Officer at the Faculty of Engineering. She also joined Heimdal Historielag in 2018 and is an active writer.