Anne Palles - Aftermath

Aftermath

Anne Palles was the last person to be legally executed for sorcery in Denmark, but her case was not the last Danish witch trial. The last large witch trial in Denmark, Thisted witch trial, took place in 1698, were several women were sentenced to death accused of having caused fits by sorcery. After the fits was proved to be false, however, the condemned were freed. After that, the Danish authorities were reluctant to accept any more charges of witch craft. When the local court of Schelenburg condemned two women to be burned at the stake for witch craft in 1708, the sentence was revoked by the high court.

Anne Palles has been called Denmark's last witch, but the very last person to be legally executed for sorcery in Denmark was in fact a soldier, who was executed in Bremerholm in 1722. He was, however, judged and executed by a military court. The courts also sentenced people guilty of sorcery long after Anne Palles, even if it did not lead to death sentences. In 1733 a student and in 1752 a farmer were sentenced to life imprisonment and forced labour after having been judged guilty of a pact with the Devil, and as late as 1803 two craftsmen were sentenced for the same crime. None of them were executed however.

Long after the legal courts stopped executing witches, however, the belief in witches led to private trials and lynching of alleged witches. In Øster Grønning in Salling in 1722, the villagers apprehended Dorte Jensdatter, whom they suspected of having caused death by magic, and executed her by burning after a private witch trial by tying her up and burning down her home with her in it. The last case is often said to have been that of Anna Klemens, who was pointed out as a witch in Brigsted at Horsens and beaten to death in the year of 1800.