In the west the sun is painting the sky with reddish flames and where the fiery inferno touches the calm surface of the sea, water and fire are giving each other a deadly kiss.
It is early evening when I’m walking out of Vardø and I am going eastward towards an eternal flame. The memorial for the witches burned during the 17th century is situated at a location called Steilneset. Actually, the memorial consists of two buildings. A pavillon built of steal and tinted glass. A symbolic stake is burning inside of the building. The flames are coming out of an iron chair like hands begging for help, seven round mirrors are looking down on the culprit like judges. Many stakes were burning in the Finnmark because here the fear for witches was higher than everywhere else in Norway, their pursuit relentless and the judgements were rendered quickly. In total, 91 persons were found guilty of witchcraft, 77 women and 14 men.
The second building looks like a very long kayak which is hanging in a kind of a drying rag for fishes and is situated directly close to the water. In those days water played an important role to find out if somebody is in league with the devil or not. Everybody was convinced that water is a holy element and, therefore, water rejects all evil. Hence, everybody accused for witchcraft was submersed into water. Did the suspect sink, then he was innocent and did he come up to the surface again, he was guilty. Of course, hands and feet of the suspects were tied so that they couldn’t perform any witchcraft. In Finnmark, one third of the persons accused for witchcraft were submersed into water and, oddly enough, despite the bonds, everybody came up to the surface again.
There is a door at the lean bow of the kayak which leads into the memorial. There are windows with light bulbs hanging in front of them on both sides of the hallway, each one symbolizing a person burned at the stake. Next to each window you can find the name of a person that was executed as well as the reason why they were accused of witchcraft. Sicknesses, accidents, sunken fisher boats, all those incidents were connected with witchcraft in those times. And even when the accused denied being guilty in the beginning, torture was always able to unearth the truth. Involuntarily I have to think of the torture museum in San Gimignano in Tuscany in Italy which I visited many years ago. It was scary to see how much inventiveness Homo sapiens has when it comes to inventing things just to make others suffer. The memorial for the witches in Vardø is a 120 meter long hallway through one of the darkest chapters of human history.
It is already dark outside when I leave the memorial at the other end. I take a deep breath and begin to go back to town. And this time I can see a different kind of fire reflecting in the sea. Northern lights are dancing gently in the sky.