Liv Helene Willumsen is awarded The King's Medal of Merit



In connection with the award of the Norwegian King’s Medal of Merit, Liv Helene Willumsen has met His Majesty King Harald and Her Majesty Queen Sonja at the Royal Palace in Oslo.



• The 16th of August 2019, Liv Helene Willumsen was awarded The Norwegian King's Medal of Merit at the Regional State Archives of Tromsø by the Mayor of Tromsø, Kristin Røymo. Willumsen was presented this medal for extraordinary research and dissemination of scholarly knowledge. The Norwegian King's Medal of Merit was instituted in 1908 to reward meritorious achievements in the fields of art, science, business, and public service.



Article in Archives and Records

• Liv Helene Willumsen has published an article dealing with Steilneset Memorial in Vardø, Finnmark, Northern Norway and the impact of archival sources she used when writing the Memorial's commemoratory texts. The article is titled "Steilneset Memorial: 17th-century archives on witchcraft trials connecting past and present". Archives and Records, Vol. 44, No. 3 (2023). ( https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/XQDRTKN8IYFJXITCBSSF/full?target=10.1080/23257962.2023.2255829 )

Lecture given at the University of Victoria, Canada

• On 30 March, Liv Helene Willumsen gave the lecture: 'The Finnmark Witchcraft Trials and Steilneset Memorial' to students of History at the University of Victoria, Canada. The lecture was part of the course: "Laws and Notions of Law in Premodern Cultures", lead by Dr. Joshua Timmermann, Department of History.

17th-Century Ghost Story from Troms, Northern Norway

• An article about a ghost story from Troms in Northern Norway is published in ARV Nordic Yearbook of Folklore. The title of the article is 'The Money Chest Lay by His Head'. The Narration of a Ghost Story from Troms. Isaac Olsen wrote down this ghost story in 1716. The article is written by Randi Hege Skjelmo and Liv Helene Willumsen.

Biography of Regine Normann in English

• Liv Helene Willumsen's biography Havmannens datter. Regine Normann - et livsløp is now translated into English, titled The Merman's Daughter. Regine Normann - The Course of a Life. Professor John M Weinstock at the University of Texas has translated the biography, and Sandra Saari is the editor. The Merman's Daughter: Regine Normann – The Course of a Life: Willumsen, Liv Helene, Saari, Sandra, Weinstock, John: 9798388541475: Amazon.com: Books

Participation Festschrift to Arne Kruse

• In the Festschrift to Arne Kruse, Islands of Place and Space. A Festschrift in Honour of Arne Kruse, Liv Helene Willumsen has written the article ‘Language and Landscape: Focalisation and the Arne Kruse Method’. The article deals with analysis of witchcraft court records. It takes as its outset one sentence from the 1590 confession of Agnes Sampson during the North Berwick trials. She confessed that she had been to a witches’ gathering close to the East Lothian kirk of Bara, and said that they convened by east the kirk at the burn side. This brief sentence written down in a 430 years old document made me ask Arne Kruse whether we might take a trip to the Bara Kirk and look at the place. A positive answer led to the Bara Kirk Experience and to the beginning of this article, which combines a practical experience on pragmatic grounds with a linguistic and historical approach on theoretical grounds. Interdisciplinarity is a keyword in Arne Kruse’s research, as the subjects of linguistics, history, and geography are intertwined. The aim of the article is threefold: First, a close reading of the court records is performed, paying attention to linguistic aspects. The linguistic aspect implies looking for etymological explanations, be that traced in Old Norse, the older Scottish tongue, or Gaelic. Second: The historical aspect pays attention to context, emphasizing that a word, a sentence or a formulation is pronounced within a given situation and must be interpreted within a larger historical frame. These aspects will form the backbone of the article. Third: The geographical aspect. By sticking to the formulation in the original source, as well as what the landscape in itself may reveal, the geographical aspect implies that there is in insight given to you by standing in the landscape and getting a view of the place described in the source. The analysis heeds language as well as landscape. By echoing the research method applied by Arne Kruse, the article aims at exploration of language by bridging practical experience with theoretical knowledge. In a truly hermeneutic effort to read Early Modern historical documents anew and pose new research questions, the possibility is there for novel interpretations. The characteristic methodology of Arne Kruse’s research is mirrored in the analysis carried out. The urge to turn another stone is prevalent, just as it is the motive power in Arne Kruse’s scholarly work. The methodology applied in this article pays tribute to Arne Kruse as a scholar. ( PDF )

Participation Conference in Vancouver

• Conference at Simon Frazer University, in Vancouver, Canada, 18-19 November 2022:
  Title of conference: Interactions, Exchanges, and Transformations: European Legal Traditions and their Impact on the Construction of Gender in a global Context. Paper of Liv Helene Willumsen: The Devil into the Laws: Demonological Ideas’ Impact on Gender in Witchcraft Trials in Denmark, Scotland and Finnmark, Norway.
  This presentation deals with witchcraft, which was a crime handled by criminal courts in Early Modern Europe. Focus is on how ideas from the European doctrine of demonology entered the laws and influenced witchcraft trials in Scotland, Denmark and Finnmark, Norway during the late 1500s and early 1600s. The impact of demonological ideas was closely related to the gender element, as misogyny is prominent in demonological thinking. Through analyses of court proceedings from the three countries in question, emphasis is put on the way the demonological content of the laws influenced the development and the outcome of the trials. By going into witchcraft trials in three countries, transnational transfer of demonological ideas is taken into account, again highlighting the gender question

Participation 30th Congress of Nordic Historians, 2022, Gothenburgh



Liv Helene Willumsen was the moderator of the session Witchcraft, Court Records, and the Voices of Women: Local and Global, held during the 30th Congress of Nordic Historians, Gothenburgh, 8 August 2022. Jari Eilola and Raisa Maria Toivo also participated in the session. The session had three presentations:
1. Jari Eilola: A Witchcraft Case from Vaasa: Power relations, hierarchies and methods of conflict solving Jari Eilola is Senior Researcher, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
2. Raisa Maria Topivo: Constructing the Experience of Witchcraft: Early Modern Testimonies Raisa Maria Toivo is Professor, Tampere University, Finland.
3. Liv Helene Willumsen: The Voices of Women in Witchcraft Trials: Northern Europe Liv Helene Willumsen is Professor Emerita of History, University of Tromsø, Norway.

Participation ICHORA 2022

• 

  Liv Helene Willumsen participated at ICHORA 2022, The International Conference on the History of Records and Archives, 25 July 2022. The presentation was called ‘Steilneset Memorial: 17th-Century Archives on Witchcraft Trials Connecting Past and Present’ and was part of an online session called Spatial Chat.

Participation IMC 2022 Leeds

• Liv Helene Willumsen participated at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds 2022. Her presentation had the title ‘A Witchcraft Triangle: Transmitting Ideas of Witchcraft across Borders in Europe’. It was part of the session The North in Transition II: Circulating and Re-Narrating Ideas of Demons, Infidels, and True Believers across Northern Borders. The other two presentations during this session were: Stefan Figenschow: ‘Substance or Just Rhetoric?: Expressions of Crusading Ideology in the Norwegian and Swedish Expansion into Fennoscandia’. Stefan Figenschow, University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway. Martin Brockett: ‘Boundaries of Sorcery: The Role of Seiðmenn in Viking Age Society’. Martin Brockett, Institute for Northern Studies, University of the Highlands & Islands Moderator: John McNicol, Institutt for arkeologi, historie, religionsvitenskap og teologi, Universitetet i Tromsø.

Article about the Witchcraft Trial against Anders Poulsen 1692

• Liv Helene Willumsen has published the article 'The Witchcraft Trial against Anders Poulsen, Vadsø 1692: Critical Perspectives' in Håkan Rydving and Konsta Kaikkonen (eds.) Religions around the Arctic (Stockholm, 2022). ( Link to Stockholm University Press )

New book: The Voices of Women in Witchcraft Trials: Northern Europe



• Liv Helene Willumsen has published her new book, The Voices of Women in Witchcraft Trials: Northern Europe. The book is a close reading of courtroom discourse in eight countries around the North Sea: Spanish Netherlands, Northern Germany, Denmark, Scotland, England, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. In addition to the voices of women, the voice of the law, the voice of the interrogator, the voices of the witnesses, and the voice of the scribe, come to the fore. Link: The Voices of Women in Witchcraft Trials: Northern Europe - 1st Edition (routledge.com)

Steilneset Symposium, Vardø, Northern Norway, 8 March 2022



• Steilneset Symposium 2022 will be arranged on 8 March in Vardø, Northern Norway. The Symposium is related to Steilneset Memorial, built to commemorate those who lost their lives during the Finnmark witchcraft trials 1600-1692. Vardø Museum arranges the Symposium together with The Women's Network, Vardø. The event is hybrid; a few of the lecturers will travel to Vardø, the rest will present their speeches online. One of the lecturers is French Christelle Taraud. She comes to Vardø to present her new book Femicide. A World History. (Link)

Article on witchcraft trial records, narratology and experience

• The article 'A narratological approach to witchcraft trial records: creating experience' is published in Scandinavian Journal of History. Using a narratological approach, the article analyzes how experience as a category of knowledge surfaces in original witchcraft court records. The article is written together with Raisa Maria Toivo. ( Link to article )

Lecture for Sons of Norway

• On 21 November 2021 Liv Helene Willumsen gave an online lecture for Sons of Norway, Lodge Washington DC, ‘The Finnmark Witchcraft Tials and Steilneset Memorial‘. The lecture had a good turnout and was appreciated by the members of Sons of Norway.

Article on transmission of ideas about witchcraft

• ‘A Witchcraft Triangle: Transmitting witchcraft ideas across early modern Europe‘, in Marina Montesano (ed.), Folklore, Magic, and Witchcraft: Cultural Exchanges from the Twelfth to Eighteenth Century (Routledge: Abingdon, 2021), 247–264 ( PDF )

Participation Webinar 8 March 2021

• On 8 March 2021, Liv Helene Willumsen participated in a webinar together with Scottish women working on the project: The Paisley Witch Trials of 1697. The aim of the project is to build a Memorial commemorating the Paisley witchcraft trials. ( Video)

Enigmas of the Horizon. Liv Helene Willumsen, Alison Karasyk and Youmna Chlala in Conversation

• The text ‘Enigmas of the Horizon’ is a conversation between historian Liv Helene Willumsen, curator Alison Karasyk, and artist Youmna Chlala. The text is published in Alison Karasyk and Jeppe Ugelvig (eds.), Witch Hunt: A Reader on the Nordic Witchcraft Trials (Copenhagen, 2020). The book is part of the exhibition Witch Hunt, 7 November 2020–17 January 2021, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark. The conversation focuses on meeting points between history, artistic expression and museum exhibitions. It includes topics like a historian’s work with original sources, an artist’s work with memory and futurity, and a curator’s work with the museum as an ever-evolving space. The conversation took place on 13 August 2020. ( PDF )

Article on magic numbers and Orkney women

• The article ‘The ninety-nine dancers of Moaness: Orkney women between the visible and invisible’ draws attention to magic numbers in folk belief, witches’ meetings, and the imagination of seventeenth-century Orkney women. Departing from a witchcraft confession 1643, wherein a striking tale about ninety-nine dancers in the landscape of Moaness in Orkney is told, a detailed analysis is carried out. The article sheds light on the mentality of ordinary Orkney women, who on the one hand struggled to maintain daily existence, on the other hand maintained beliefs in the invisible and unrealistic. ( PDF )

Witches' Gatherings in Finnmark

• This essay is part of the book Demonology and Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Europe. It 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. The essay deals with cultural transference of ideas. It 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.( PDF )

Article on Witchcraft against Royal Danish Ships in 1589 and Transfer of Ideas

• Liv Helene Willumsen has published an article in International Review of Scottish Studies, 2020. The article deals with witchcraft against royal Danish ships in 1598 and transnational transfer of ideas about witchcraft from Denmark to Scotland. The outset is alleged witchcraft performed against a royal Danish fleet that was to carry Princess Anne across the North Sea to her husband, King James VI of Scotland, autumn 1589, and following trials in Copenhagen. These include court records from witchcraft trials and diplomatic correspondence between Denmark, England and Scotland. By close-readings of these texts, a multi-layered narrative emerges. The article sheds light on the routes for transmission of witchcraft ideas, as well as the contemporary context for interpreting witchcraft notions. ( PDF )

Book on Demonology and Witch-Hunting



• The book Demonology and Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Europe has recently been published. Liv Helene Willumsen has edited the book together with Julian Goodare and Rita Voltmer. The book brings the intellectual study of demonology together with witch-hunting. It contains 17 chapters written by leading witchcraft scholars, covering most regions of Europe.

Article on Orkney and Steilneset Memorials

• An article on Orkney and Steilneset Memorials to the Victims of the Witchcraft Trials has been published in New Orkney Antiquarian Journal, no. 9, 2020. This issue of the journal is related to the opening of the Orkney Witch Memorial in Kirkwall on 9 March 2019. ( PDF )

Article in Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft

Liv Helene Willumsen has together with Arne Kruse written a new article titled ‘Magic Language: The Transmission of an Idea over Geographical Distance and Linguistic Barriers’. The article deals with a fascinating transnational path regarding the transfer of ideas concerning witchcraft. Published in Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, Volume 15, Number 1, Spring 2020, pp. 1-32. ( PDF )

Article in Folklore

• Liv Helene Willumsen has recently published an article about the Sami Shaman Anders Poulsen, who was accused of witchcraft in Finnmark, Northern Norway, in 1692. The article is published in Folklore, (2020), 131:2, 135-158. ( PDF )

Article in Historisk Tidsskrift Denmark

• Article published on transnational transfer of ideas about witchcraft. The article takes its outset in alleged witchcraft against the Danish King's ship in 1589 when Princess Anne should be brought over to Scotland to marry King James VI. ( PDF )

Honoured Guest at Inauguration Day Orkney Memorial



• Liv Helene Willumsen was invited as Honoured Guest at the Inauguration Day of Orkney Witch Memorial, Kirkwall, on 9 March 2019, where she gave a lecture: ‘Painful history in the public space: Steilneset Memorial, Norway’. Inauguration Day, Memorial to the victims of the witchcraft trials, Kirkwall, Orkney, 09.03.2019. Orkney Heritage Society. Web page for the event

Article on early mission in Finnmark

• This article deals with Isaac Olsen, one of the earliest missionaries among the Sami people in Norway. Isaac Olsen worked as a teacher and preacher in Finnmark from 1703 until 1716. Isaac Olsen was the forerunner of missionary Thomas von Westen. ‘Isaac Olsen – The First Missionary Among the Sami People in Finnmark?’, Nordlit, no. 43, 2019. ( Link )

Performance Closing Ritual in Vardø



• Liv Helene Willumsen was invited to Vardø by Laterna dance group, Marianne Skjeldal and Inger-Reidun Olsen, in connection with Laterna’s performance Closing Ritual in Vardø June 2019. This performance was part of the art project CoSA - Concerning the Spiritual in Art (2018-2020) - 'Steilneset'. Willumsen gave lectures during the project. Facebook, and Webpage.

Book review

• In a book review of Gunvor Simonsen’s book Slave Stories, the analyses of narrative structures in court records are emphasized and evaluated. Slave Stories: Law, Representation and Gender in the Danish West Indies, Aarhus University Press, Aarhus, 2017. In Sjuttonhundratal, 2019, p. 161–163. ( PDF )

Talk at Birmingham Conference

• In November 2018, I gave a talk about Steilneset Memorial in Norway at a conference arranged by National Archives and National Library, England: ‘Painful history in the public space: Steilneset Memorial, Norway’. #DCDC 2018. The conference was arranged by National Archives and National Library, England. Birmingham, 20.11.2018.

Article on an adult son's assault on parents

• This article is an analysis of court records from a trial against an adult son's assault on parents in a seventeenth-century Sami community in Northern Norway. (PDF)

Article on oral transfer of ideas about witchcraft

• This article examines oral transfer of ideas about witchcraft in seventeenth-century Northern Norway, using close-reading of court records as a method of analysis. (PDF)

Article on child witches in Oxford Bibliographies

• 'Historical Approaches to Child Witches'

  Click here for PDF

Books

• Steilneset Memorial. Art Architecture History

  Book about Steilneset Memorial in Vardø, Finnmark: Steilneset Memorial. Art Architecture History (Orkana forlag, Stamsund 2014).

• Witches of the North. Scotland and Finnmark

  Witches of the North. Scotland and Finnmark is a comparative study of witchcraft persecution in Scotland and Finnmark, Norway. A wide range of quantitative and qualitative analyses based mainly on legal documents shed light on the witch-hunts in the two regions during the seventeenth century. Statistical analyses give information about tendencies in the source material in total. The qualitative chapters contain close-readings of trial documents, wherein the various voices heard during a trial are analysed: the voice of the scribe, the voice of the law, the voice of the accused person and the voices of the witnesses. The analyses combined provide a broad view of the historical phenomenon in question as well as in-depth studies of individual witchcraft cases.
  

• The Witchcraft Trials in Finnmark, Northern Norway

  This book contains the original sources of the Finnmark witchcraft trials during the period 1620 to 1692. The court records of the 17th century witchcraft trials were entered into protocols by a magistrate. In this book the original facsimiles are rendered together with transcription of the sources. The Witchcraft Trials in Finnmark, Northern Norway. Bergen 2010. The book is published by Varanger Museum and Skald Publisher.

Article on John Cunningham

• ‘Exporting the Devil across the North Sea. John Cunningham and the Finnmark Witchhunt‘

  An article related to transfer of ideas about witchcraft: Willumsen, Liv Helene: ‘Exporting the Devil across the North Sea. John Cunningham and the Finnmark Witchhunt’, in Goodare, J., Witches and Witch-Hunters (Basingstoke, 2013) (PDF)

Article on children accused of witchcraft

• Children accused of witchcraft in 17-th century Finnmark

  Six small girls were accused of witchcraft during the Finnmark witchcraft trials. The cases of these children are discussed in the following article, which will be published in 2013: Children Accused of Witchcraft in Northern Norway, Scandinavian Journal of History, nr. 1, 2013 (Abstract and PDF)

Article on witchcraft historiography in Norway

• Historiography Norway

  At the Nordic History Meeting August 2011 in Tromsø, the following presentation about witchcraft historiography in Norway from 1994 to 2011 was given by me. Click here for text (PDF).

On 23 June 2011 Steilneset Memorial, Vardø, was opened by Her Majesty Queen Sonja of Norway. Steilneset Memorial commemorates those who lost their lives during the seventeenth-century Finnmark witchcraft trials. Steilneset Memorial consists of three components: Art, Architecture and History. The French-American artist Louise Bourgeois has created an installation; around a chair with a burning flame in the middle, seven mirrors are placed, reflecting the flame from different angles. The installation is placed inside a glass pavillion, which is drawn by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. He has also drawn the Memorial Hall, a 135 metres long building. Inside the Memorial Hall there is an exhibition of 91 texts, one text for each individual who lost her or his life during the Finnmark witchcraft trials. These texts are written by historian Liv Helene Willumsen, on the basis of original court records from the seventeenth-century witchcraft trials. The exhibition texts are also published in a book, provided in four languages; Norwegian, English, German and Finnish.

Liv Helene Willumsen has written the exhibition texts in the Memorial Hall at Steilneset Memorial

My profile

My profiled areas are the following:

• Transfer of ideas about witchcraft in Europe


• Demonological ideas in Europe


• Witchcraft trials in Germany


• Witchcraft trials in Scotland


• Witchcraft trials in Finnmark, Northern Norway


• Witchcraft trials in Norway


• Witchcraft trials in Scandinavia


• The beginning of teacher training education in Norway


• The Witch Figure as a Motif in Literature


• Narratology as a text-analytical tool


• Discourse analysis of historical court records


• Regine Normann (1867–1939): Biography


• The authorship of Regine Normann, narratological analyses


• Traditional legends from Greenland, Iceland, the Faroese Islands, Sapmi, and Norway


• Thomas von Westen's life and work


• Isaac Olsen - teacher and catechist in Finnmark early 1700s