According to the curator I talked with, the timing was important too: all witchcraft prosecutions were in the 17th century, significantly later than mainland Europe. His take was that once Denmark finished hashing out the Reformation, they sent investigators over to their neglected possession to see if the Icelanders were being good little Protestants -- and what they found was that many weren't even very Catholic.
You'd probably also be interested in what the curator found about the prosecutors during the Burning Times. All were either a) newly appointed sheriffs, fresh off the boat from Copenhagen and needing to make a name for themselves, or b) related (son or son-in-law) of an Icelandic sheriff raised in Hamburg, who imported the paranoia.
You've heard about the milk-stealing worm that women supposedly could make, yes?
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Date: 25 March 2005 03:39 am (UTC)You'd probably also be interested in what the curator found about the prosecutors during the Burning Times. All were either a) newly appointed sheriffs, fresh off the boat from Copenhagen and needing to make a name for themselves, or b) related (son or son-in-law) of an Icelandic sheriff raised in Hamburg, who imported the paranoia.
You've heard about the milk-stealing worm that women supposedly could make, yes?
---L.