Magic, Body and the Self in Eighteenth-Century Sweden

237 Pages·2008·1.964 MB·English

by  Jacqueline Van Gent

Magic, Body and the Self
in Eighteenth-Century Sweden
Studies in Medieval and
Reformation Traditions
Edited by
Andrew Colin Gow
Edmonton, Alberta
In cooperation with
Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Berkeley, California
Sylvia Brown, Edmonton, Alberta
Berndt Hamm, Erlangen
Johannes Heil, Heidelberg
Susan C. Karant-Nunn, Tucson, Arizona
Martin Kaufhold, Augsburg
Jürgen Miethke, Heidelberg
M. E. H. Nicolette Mout, Leiden
Founded by
Heiko A. Oberman †
VOLUME 135
Magic, Body and the Self
in Eighteenth-Century Sweden
By
Jacqueline Van Gent
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2009
Cover illustrations: Front cover: Wall cover depicting a magical hare from Småland, late
18th century. Magical hares were central to milk magic and commonly represented
witches’ familiars in Sweden. Their appearance was often unusual and they were said
to be skilled musicians. Copyright: Smålands Museum, Växjö, Sweden.
Back cover: Book of magic which belonged to Neringe-Per (1759–1834) who was a
renowned magical healer in Skåne. These handwritten booklets contained spells,
Christian prayers and other formulas used in magical rituals. They were often passed
down within one family. Copyright: Nordiska Museet, Reference number: NM 41.652,
Stockholm, Sweden.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Van Gent, Jacqueline.
Magic, body, and the self in eighteenth-century Sweden / by Jacqueline Van
Gent.
p. cm. — (Studies in medieval and Reformation traditions, ISSN 1573-4188 ;
v. 135)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17114-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Witchcraft—Sweden—History—
18th century. 2. Magic—Sweden—History—18th century. 3. Trials (Witchcraft)—Swe-
den—History—18th century. I. Title.
BF1584.S85V36 2008
133.4’30948509033—dc22
2008029280
ISSN 1573-4188
ISBN 978 90 04 17114 5
Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission
from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill
provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance
Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ..................................................................... vii
Introduction ................................................................................ 1
Chapter One Honour and Social Control in Witchcraft
Trials ....................................................................................... 17
Chapter Two The Fluid Self .................................................. 59
Chapter Three Magic and the Body ...................................... 89
Chapter Four Healing as Counter-Magic ............................... 127
Chapter Five The Ambiguity of Magic .................................. 159
Conclusion .................................................................................. 193
Bibliography ................................................................................ 201
Index ........................................................................................... 223

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis is the product of many conversations with friends and col-
leagues over the years. In Sweden, I would like to thank several friends
who helped me to understand Swedish court records and whose hos-
pitality and encouragement were greatly appreciated. Bengt Ankarloo
has commented on a very early paper and given me the opportunity to
discuss my ideas at the initial stage of my research at Lund University.
Ingmar Brohed, Eva Kärfve, Inger Lövkrona, Catharina Raudvere,
Jonas Frykman, Jonas Liliequist and Per Sörlin gave valuable feedback
and supported this research in many ways. Britta Bensson’s hospitality
and friendship are particularly remembered. Archivists Carin Tilsälle
and Tora Wall from Nordiska Museet, Marianne Nicklasson from
Smålands Museum, and Elizabeth Reuterwärd from Landsarkivet Lund
have given me much support. Per Kjellberg from Kungliga Biblioteket
assisted kindly in locating manuscripts. The necessary archival research
has been made possible by a scholarship of the Swedish Institute and
a postgraduate travel grant from The University of Western Australia’s
Scholarship Committee and the History Department. Further assistance
was received from The University of Western Australia Faculty of
Arts Publication Grant. I also thank Nordiska Museet and Smålands
Museum for their copyright permission.
Manuscript drafts have been read and commented on at various
stages by Pat Baines, Peter Bedford, Peggy Brock, Patricia Crawford,
Philippa Maddern, Hans Medick, Megan McKinlay, Basil Sansom and
Charles Zika. I am grateful for their intelligent comments and insights
and any remaining mistakes are of course my own.
Peter, Sophia and Anna continue to share their love and daily
adventures with me and they are just as magical as eighteenth-century
court records.
Jacqueline Van Gent
June, 2008.

INTRODUCTION
Few scholars would today question the continuity of magical practices
across Europe in the eighteenth century. It now seems certain that,
contrary to earlier assumptions, witchcraft remained an important part
of the everyday life of Europeans after the witch persecutions ended.1
People continued to employ magical rituals for healing, love magic, and
fortune telling, and sustained the belief that ill-wishing neighbours could
harm them and their livestock by means of witchcraft. While juridical
frames for the crime of witchcraft changed in most eighteenth-century
European societies, we cannot speak of a decline in magical beliefs.2
Why should this be so? No one doubts that the period 1600–1800
witnessed revolutionary developments in scientifi c thinking. Among the
most fundamental changes was the emergence of Cartesian philosophy
and its radical division between body and mind. Another milestone
was the development of Carl Linneaus ’ new wide-ranging and rigorous
system for classifying the natural world.3 Scholars are now enquiring
as to why these signifi cant intellectual shifts did not simply supersede
older, magical world views. This rethinking of the Enlightenment and
the scientifi c revolution have also led to a fundamental shift in the way
in which scholars approach the history of witchcraft. No longer is the
rise and fall of witchcraft persecutions the central theme in historical
works; instead new research interrogates the wider cultural meanings
of witchcraft.4 As Roy Porter has so aptly put it:
1 See for example Ian Bostridge, Witchcraft and Its Transformations; Willem de Blécourt,
“On the Continuation of Witchcraft”; David Meili, Hexen in Wasterkingen; Wolfgang
Behringer, “Der ‘Bayerische Hexenkrieg’ ”; J. Geyer-Kordesch, “Whose Enlighten-
ment ?”; Owen Davies , “Witchcraft: The Spell That Didn’t Break”; Julian Goodare,
ed., The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context; Peter Maxwell-Stuart, “Witchcraft and Magic in
Eighteenth-Century Scotland .”
2 For discussion of Keith Thomas and a good summary of the ensuing historio-
graphical development, see J. Barry, “Introduction: Keith Thomas and the Problem
of Witchcraft.”
3 Peter Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences.
4 Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra, “The European Witchcraft Debate and the Dutch Vari-
ant,” esp. 191–92.