Spångmyrholmen

Härjedalen · Sweden · Execution site

Here Big-Märet was beheaded and burned – and three centuries later a bishop came to the islet to pronounce peace over the women the church itself had killed.

Here ended what became known as the Great Noise, Sweden's worst wave of witch trials. The accusations began in 1668, when a girl accused Märet Jonsdotter of Lillhärdal of carrying children off to Blåkulla. Märet, called Big-Märet to distinguish her from her younger sister, denied it stubbornly throughout the proceedings. The Svea Court of Appeal convicted her anyway in 1672, on witness testimony and a mark on one finger, and sentenced her to beheading and burning. The sentence was carried out at Spångmyrholmen outside the village. With her died her twenty-year-old sister, Kerstin Halvarsdotter and the seventy-one-year-old Påls Märet Biörsdotter. The accusations spread from there through Dalarna and Hälsingland all the way to Stockholm; in barely ten years some three hundred people were executed. At the turn of the millennium the Bishop of Härnösand travelled to the islet and pronounced peace over the dead – an unusually concrete act of atonement. A memorial stone and information board stand there today.

FAQ

Where is Spångmyrholmen located?

Spångmyrholmen is in Härjedalen, Sweden.