15th October, 1675. Torsåker, Sweden.
Seventy-one people condemned for witchcraft. One day of executions that would leave a scar on Swedish history.
The Torsåker witch trials of 1675 were the largest witch trials in Sweden's history. In a single day, 71 people — 65 women and six males, including four boys — were executed, first beheaded and then their bodies burned. The scale was extraordinary: around a fifth of the women in the affected local area were killed.
Torsåker came at the height of Sweden's 1668–1676 witch panic, remembered as Det stora oväsendet — “The Great Noise.” Accusations spread through communities, children testified that witches had carried them to the legendary Blåkulla to meet the Devil, and special witchcraft commissions helped turn supernatural fears into prosecutions and death sentences.
But those beliefs did not simply disappear when the trials ended.
In this episode of Haunted History Chronicles, we travel into seventeenth-century Sweden to uncover what happened at Torsåker, the fear and persecution that made such an event possible, and the surprising traces those old beliefs have left behind — including Sweden's colourful Easter traditions surrounding witches and their journeys to Blåkulla.
From persecution and execution to folklore and tradition, what happens when the darkest parts of history become woven into the customs of the present?
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