Fiction – paperback; Manilla Press; 385 pages; 2023.
In the winter of 1662-63, a total of 20 women died during the witch trials which took place on the island of Vardø, located in the extreme northeastern part of Norway, far above the Arctic Circle. The women had been put on trial for “making pacts with the devil”. Eighteen of them were burnt at the stake and two were tortured to death.
Anya Begman’s novel The Witches of Vardø is a fictionalised account of what happened. The characters are inspired by real people whose experiences are documented in court testimonies.
In writing the book, the author, who lived in Norway for a time, says her purpose was to “raise the lost voices of the women accused of witchcraft with tenderness while invigorating their seventeenth-century history with contemporary resonance”.
Dual storyline
I don’t tend to read historical fiction set earlier than the 19th century, so this novel took me right out of my comfort zone. It reads very much like a fable or old-fashioned tale, with lots of tell and not a huge amount of show, but once I got into the rhythm of the story (it’s a slow burn), I quite enjoyed it.
The narrative comprises two storylines told in alternate chapters from two different points of view. Both highlight the very real dangers of being female in a patriarchal society where men controlled every facet of a woman’s life, restricting them to domestic (and sexual) servitude.
Anna Rhodius, the daughter of a physician and a talented healer herself, was once the King of Denmark’s mistress. She has been banished to Vardø but she’s eager to return to her life of privilege and will do almost anything she can to go back to it, even if that means helping to prosecute other women for witchcraft.
Ingeborg Sigvaldsdatter is the teenage daughter of Zigri, a woman accused of witchcraft when her affair with a local merchant is discovered. Accompanied by Maren, another teenager whose mother has already been condemned as a witch, Ingeborg makes a long and treacherous journey to Vardø to try to rescue her mother who has been locked up in the governor’s fortress.
Anna’s story is told in the first person in a series of letters she addresses to the King, pleading to be reinstated in his eyes; Ingeborg’s is in the third person and takes a wider view, showing how her life was forever altered when her fisherman father and brother were lost at sea, leaving behind a wife and two daughters who were plunged into grief and struggled to find enough to eat.
Their stories are interleaved with folktales, including those of the Sámi people, and the mysterious appearance of a lynx with golden eyes.
Plot-driven story
The Witches of Vardø is a largely plot-driven novel that charts events leading up to and including Zigri’s trial.
It moves at a relatively slow pace and there’s a lot of detail (about Ingeborg’s journey and Anna’s past affair), which sometimes feels laboured. But the writing is atmospheric, chilly and Gothic by turn. The depictions of romantic love and the betrayals that can sometimes come with it are beautifully evoked.
Unsurprisingly, the witch trial that forms the climax of the novel is powerful and violent, but the aftermath, in which Maren and Ingeborg escape to lead lives of their own feels redemptive — and hopeful.
For another take on this novel, please see this review at Theresa Smith Writes.
A lasting memorial
Just to hammer home the point that the witch trials were a real thing, these photographs show the Steilneset Memorial in Vardø, which commemorates the 91 victims who were convicted of witchcraft and executed in Finnmark in the 17th century. A collaboration between the artist Louise Bourgeois and the architect Peter Zumthor, it comprises a 125m memorial hall (above) and a burning chair (below).
You can read more about the memorial at this Norwegian tourist website (note, it’s in Norwegian but you can translate it) or via this Wikipedia page.
This is my second book from the 2023 Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year shortlist. I am trying to read them all (there are five) before the winner is named at the end of May.
Reading Matters 
I was interested in your sentence ‘I don’t tend to read historical fiction set earlier than the 19th century’. I understand not liking historical fiction – though it’s a genre I enjoy. But I was quite puzzled by the limit you’ve set yourself, and wondered whether that was one of those quirky, but illogical, limits we all set ourselves on our reading habits, or something else? I’m just being nosey – feel free to ignore me. However, this book had already been vaguely on my list. I think you’ve properly put it there now.
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It’s not really a limit I’ve set myself, I’m just aware that most of the historical fiction I’ve read is from 1800s onwards. I don’t read a huge amount of historical fiction anyway so I don’t think I’m missing out, but I just don’t gravitate to those kinds of stories. I’m not sure why.
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Fair enough. We all have to set our limits somehow. There’s far too much to read as it is.
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The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave is about the beginning of this episode.
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Ah, thank you, I didn’t know this. I have looked it up and it sounds good. I’ve added to my wish list and will check if the local library has it in stock.
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I read more historical fiction than I let on, and I find the earlier it is the more I enjoy it because I’m not invested at all in the truth of the story being told.
That said, I might still find the redemptive aspect of the girls’ journey unconvincing.
I can see though why a book like this might be of contemporary relevance. There are an awful lot of men still working very hard to bring back witch trials, both metaphorically and more or less actually.
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I thought you would have been a stickler for getting the facts right in historical fiction, Bill, cos I know you have a “thing” about basing contemporary fiction in real (named) places, so this seems like an anomaly! 😉
And yes, there are certainly some men (mainly US Republicans) who would love to bring back witch trials as a way to regain their so-called lost power, which was never rightfully theirs to begin with. In the first place 🙄
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I think it would take a great deal to make me read another historical witch novel, but I love the pictures in this post! (I also loved The Mercies).
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This is the first historical witch novel I have read… like I said, it’s a bit out of my comfort zone and so I wasn’t even really aware that this topic was a “thing”. Now I’m intrigued about what other novels are out there on this issue…
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SO many, at least in Britain… The Mercies is really good though, would recommend.
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To follow on from Margaret’s train of thought, I mostly read historicial fiction from any era as well as contemporaneous fictions that are now ‘historical’. I like seeing how other times managed times of crisis, although it’s also rather frustrating seeing how little we learn from our history. Curiously though, witch stories have never really been my thing. I cannot think of any one that I have read. Although you have made this one sound tempting.
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It’s interesting the part witches play, or the idea of witches plays, in The Scarlet Letter
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I’ve not read that one… but remember owning copy as a teenager but must have been culled at some point.
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Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot is about as witchy as I have ever read. Oh, and The Wizard of Oz. LOL. My issue with historical fiction is that the characters often have modern sensibilities … but maybe I’m just not reading the right ones.
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