Stordalsholmen

Stordalsholmen has an exciting history as a fjordside farm, boatbuilding yard, coaching inn, emergency harbour and trading place. But Stordalsholmen is also known for being the site that saw the last witch-burning in the Sunnmøre region. In 1664 Marit Rasmusdotter Bjørdal, nicknamed Sva-Maska, from Hellesylt, was sentenced to death for witchcraft and sorcery. The court decided that she should be decapitated, and that her body should be burnt at the stake. This happened just below the site of today’s lighthouse. This event links in with the widespread witch trials elsewhere in Norway and Europe at that time. 350 years ago, witches were burnt in their thousands all over Europe. Most of the people who were charged, tortured and convicted for witchcraft, were women. In this country, the years between 1600 and 1670 saw the most witches burn at the stake: 14 in Møre and Romsdal. So, what did Sva-Maska do that was so wrong? There were rumours that she had dealings with the devil. Sva-Maska was very good with her livestock, and her cows produced more milk than those of her neighbours. Perhaps someone threatened to revoke her and her husband’s access right to common grazings, and perhaps she had a sharp tongue and gave them what for. In a society where beliefs in goblins and demons were mixed with ideas of a strict and authoritarian god, it would probably not take much for village gossip to pave the way to the stake for women like Sva-Maska.