Anna Eriksdotter

Anna Eriksdotter (or "Anna Ersdotter"), (1624-1704), called Sotpackan (English:Soot-witch) was an alleged Swedish witch. She was the last person to be executed for sorcery in Sweden.

Anna Eriksdotter was widely rumored to be a witch for decades before she was put on trial. She was originally from Bollnäs and mowed to the village Skomakarbacken in Lista parish with her husband, who was a soldier, in about 1680. Her ability to heal blood-wounds and her unusual good hand with animals gave her the nickname 'Sotpackan' and cause gossip that she had a pact with Satan. She was for a period a servant of the village vicar, but he fired her when he heard of the gossip. One morning when the vicar was going to the church to give a sermon, seeds was planted on the road to the church, and when he got there, he could not speak.

In 1704, Anna Eriksdotter was arrested and imprisoned in Eskilstuna. She was put on trial accused by Nils Jonsson of having caused him blindness, mutness and deafness by the use of magic. Her motive was that Nils had refused to give her tobaco. She had then asked him to give her sausage, a cake and wool, which he had given her, and then went home. A time later, he had been standing talking to dowager Karin when he suddenly felt a whiff of air touch his cheek, and he could feel his face become paralysed, water had came from his right ear and his mouth became twisted. Anna was suspected of having cast a spell on him. She had been called for and asked to remove her curse, of which she had agreed, and he had then felt better. Witnesses confirmed this. She also confessed to having put a curse on the vicar as vengeance after he fired her.

Anna herself freely confirmed the whole story. She claimed that she had performed some spells because Nils Jonsson had acted "Somewhat disgusting" towards her. She claimed to have been in the service of Satan since here childhood, when she had created wolves to attack the neighbour's sheep. When she was a girl, her mother had smeared a veal with ointment and flew with her through the chimney to Blockula. The local court judged her as guilty of sorcery and sentenced her to death. The national high court revoked the death sentence, but the monarch confirmed the death sentence, despite the high courts recommendation that she should be spared the death sentence because she was old and confused and "full with mad imaginations". She was described as remorseful and "very devout in her prays and invocation." She was executed in Eskilstuna by decapitation.

Anna Eriksdotter was executed by decapitation as the last person to be executed for sorcery in Sweden. Her case was an isolated one; few people had been accused of sorcery in Sweden after Malin Matsdotter in 1676, and she was also to be the last one. There was, however, to be one more occasion of where people were judged guilty of sorcery, though they did not lead to death sentences. In 1720, a girl in the village Södra Ny in Värmland accused eleven women of abduction to Satan, and in 1724, those among the accused which had confessed were sentenced to be whipped, which was the last time anyone was judged guilty of sorcery in Sweden. In 1757, a witch hysteria broke out in the parish of Ål in Dalarna, were thirteen women and five men were accused of child abduction to Satan. The governor Pehr Ekman allowed for them to be arrested, interrogated and tortured. The matter was treated by the local authorities and church, and when it became known in the country, it was treated as a scandal; the parliament issued an investigation, the accused were all freed and paid compensation, and governor Ekman, who had accepted charges of witch craft and allowed torture was sentenced to jail and stripped from his position. Formally, the law of witch craft was to remain until it was abolished in 1779.

References

* Herman Lindqvist, "Historien om Sverige; Storhet och fall."
* Bengt Ankarloo, "Satans raseri"
* http://www.ekuriren.se/hermes/article/EK_20040408_06_06_2.html
* http://www.perm1949.se/haxor.htm