ABSTRACT
Compared to the heartland of the Reformation, Danish prosecutions of witchcraft peaked late, and they were preceded by a period in which witchcraft gradually came to be constructed as a criminal offence. This chapter argues that this process took off in the second half of the sixteenth century, and the final decades of the century were the most significant. Popular tales of evil women interacting with the Devil were common, and the reality of a diabolical conspiracy lurking in the dark was confirmed when the royal fleet in 1589 was the target of evil people. In 1617, a comprehensive law against witches was issued, which implied a dramatic change in attitudes towards witchcraft. Instead of securing the rights of the defendant, it explicitly promoted trials against witches. All men in the service of the crown were obliged to initiate trials. This was a strong signal that the religious environment of the kingdom had changed. The king was clearly a Lutheran prince, the master of the household, who has a divine duty to eradicate witches in order to protect the kingdom from God’s wrath.
