Captain Elin's witchcraft

Unknown 1700/1800

Nordiska Museet
Stockholm, Sweden

A collection of magical objects that, according to tradition, belonged to 'Captain Elin'. There is an animal horn, a fragment of a skull, a bear claw, a cock's foot, a small 'idol' and a stick with a piece of fur threaded on to it. The items come from the Göta court of appeal in Jönköping.

Details

Title: Captain Elin's witchcraft
Creator: Unknown
Date Created: 1700/1800
More Information: Captain Elin' appeared in many legends about witches told in the 1800s. They originate from a trial in Näs, Värmland from 1720. A number of women – with crofter's wife Elin in Mofikerud as their leader – were accused of having sworn allegiance to the devil and taken trips to hell. Despite the widespread persecution of witches having ceased in Sweden in 1667, belief in sorcery lived on until the start of the eighteenth century. Elin was sentenced, among other things, to be flogged near the church. The sorcery clause did not disappear from the statute book in Sweden until 1779. Of the objects that form part of 'Captain Elin's witchcraft', only the animal horn and the stick are described in the record of the trial. The horn is described as a 'grease horn'. During interrogation, most likely after physical and psychological torture, Elin said that the devil gave her “a small horn the length of a finger with grease inside [...]” with the admonition that she should “grease rakes, sticks, brooms and whatever she wants and sit down with people who come to her and wish to follow and say thus: now go up and down and all the way to hell.” The horn was alleged to have contained some kind of magical flying ointment. Studies to find traces of the content of the horn, such as narcotic herbs like henbane, have only resulted in finding ink residues. The stick with the piece of fur, according to the museum's catalogue card, was used by Elin “partly as a riding horse for her trips to Blåkulla (the traditional meeting place of Swedish witches) and partly as a so-called milk hare”. A milk hare was a magical object, believed to suck the milk out of the neighbours' cows and transport it to the owner of the stick. The other objects are probably trial material collected from various witchcraft trials. A skull fragment and a small idol are said to be made from human bone. However, osteological investigation has shown it to be cattle bone.
Dimensions: Milk hare: length 72 cm, width 2.5 cm. Hen's foot: length 6,5 cm, width 2.2 cm. Grease horn: length 11 cm, width 5 cm. Bear claw: length 8.2 cm, width 7 cm. Skull fragment: length 14.5 cm, width 2.5 cm. Idol: length 5 cm, width 3.5 cm.
Type: Ritual object
Rights: Photo: Sören Hallgren, © Nordiska museet

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