Board Games, Dancing, and Lost Shoes

This chapter analyses ideas related to witches’ gatherings in the northernmost part of Europe. In the district of Finnmark, in the far north of Norway, severe witchcraft trials took place between 1600 and 1692, with distinct panics in 1620–21, 1651–52, and 1662–63. It deals with cultural transference of ideas. The chapter presents the concept of witches’ meetings as expressed in the confessions of the accused during the first panic, in 1620–21. It contextualizes the concepts, drawing attention to similar ideas in other European countries and thus to the question of transference of ideas. The prominent features are dancing and drinking, joy and sisterhood, the decent behaviour of the participants, the shape-shifting, the flights, the playfulness of the Devil – and even playing board games with their demons.