The Kirkjuból Witch Trial

On Monday October 22, 1655, in what is today Ísafjörður, Iceland, pastor Jón Magnússon was overcome with sudden sleepiness, tingling sensations, and unclean thoughts. Recognizing these as symptoms of a supernatural attack (despite the fact that he had been in poor health since 1654) Magnússon valiantly defended himself with prayer. Over the coming months, Magnussen would suffer several more attacks, which he became increasingly certain where caused by two of his parishioners: a father and son both named Jón Jónsson.

After months of preaching the dangers of witchcraft, Magnússon enlisted the help of an eager congregation and a reluctant sheriff to stop the Jónsson sorcerers. The Jónssons were eventually arrested and subjected to a trial with the following entered into the court record:

Sira Jon Magnusson’s Declaration

I the undersigned, called a minister of God’s word, who am still lying bedridden in the torments of magic and witchcraft, according to the permission and will of God because of neglect and postponement of the duties of my calling, as the facts of the origin and development of this affair demonstrate in the account of the evidence, announce and make public that I absolutely charge both father and son, the elder and younger Jón Jónsson of Kirkjuból, with having caused the magic and witchcraft which has during this winter afflicted this parish, my household and in particular my own person

— Sira Jon Magnusson, 1656 [2]

The Jónssons, having been tortured, confessed to owning a spell book (possibly an early version of the Galdrabók ) and using it against Magnússon and a local girl who had spurned Jón junior’s advances. They confessed to using many curses, including the following spell for humiliating your victims.

Fretrúnir

Write these staves on white calfskin with your blood. Rouse your blood from your thigh and say: I carve you eight áss-runes, nine nauð-runes, thirteen þurs-runes, which are to afflict your belly with great shitting and shooting pains, and all these may afflict your belly with very great farting. May your bones split asunder, may your guts burst, may your farting never stop, neither day nor night. May you become as weak as the fiend, Loki, who was snared by all the gods. In your mightiest name Lord God, Spirit, Creator, Óðinn, Þor, Savior, Freyr, Freyja, Oper, Satan, Beelzebub, helper, mighty God, protect with your followers Uteos, Morss, Nokte, Vitales.

— Galdrabók, ca. 1600 [1]

Both father and son were found guilty of sorcery and were burned at the stake. Curiously, Magnússon’s symptoms did not improve upon their deaths. Here’s how the Fretrúnir might have worked:

Rune of Unstoppable Farting

You draw runes that cause waves of shooting pain and relentless farting. The runes must be drawn in blood on a white calfskin. If a target has 100 hit points or fewer, it becomes Nauseated for up to 1 hour or until they pass a constitution check. After Nausea subsides, victims continue farting but are not distracted by it. This spell is most effective on targets who have eaten recently, but will have minimal effect on targets who have not eaten in over 4 hours.

References

1. Flowers, Stephen E. “The Galdrabók: An Icelandic Grimoire”. Red Wheel, 1989.

2. Ellison, Ruth C. “The Kirkjuból Affair: a seventeenth-century Icelandic witchcraft case analysed.” The seventeenth century 8.2 (1993): 217-243.

Art Credits: (Top)“Man Suffering From Wind” by Conrad Lycosthenes, 1557

(Bottom) Fretrúnir from the Galdrabók, ca. 1600