dichotomy becomes a perversion: rejection of God, compact witii Satan, baptism, being entered in the black book, prayers of damnation (Our Father which art in Hell). Left to itself. Blåkulla functions in the chiefly pleasant manner described. However, he who breaks his agreement with the Devil is subjected to mistreatment; the food is turned into frogs and mire, the dining-hall becomes cold, dark and painful. Satan who to begin with appeared as a friendly bearded man suddenly becomes hairy, with horns and a tail, nakedly diabolical. Snakes are woven into lashes to be used on those who confess. Some witches assume the guise of crows, ravens or other black birds. The apostates are flayed alive and their skins are put on spikes on the wall, or filled with air and light, so that they seem to occupy the place of honour like empty ghosts, ”luminescent”. But horror, too, has its bounds. Hell lies below, in the nether regions. The Devil is chained under the table. White angels step in to protect the tormented children. All these things appear simultaneously, alongside each other; Good and Evil are mixed together, to be experienced differently by different witnesses. This lends the descriptions a bizarre and contradictory air. In this unstable, chaotic environment the struggle between Good and Evil is illustrated by the white angels coming to defend the children, the innocent. Clearly eschatological concepts are connected with this graphic confrontation between light and dark. The transvection of children received the most attention and was the most severely condemned. Contemporary and recent scholars alike have described it as something unique in the great Swedish trials. However, a comparison between continental and early North Scandinavian cases shows that it is more question of a shift of emphasis, highlighting certain particular elements in a fairly general sphere of ideas. Maleficium in traditional meaning, physical damage by magical means, plays a minor role during the last great persecutions. There is, however, a tendency to interpret the transvection or seduction of children as a dangerous maleficium. It is not so much the tender body as the immortal soul which is endangered by the journeys to Blåkulla. This terminological confusion would appear to be intentional, as is also the case for the variant of maleficiumcalled taciturnitas. Ideas about this were also continental, but they acquired a special unique form in Sweden. Taciturnitas usually meant a witch’s ability to withstand torture without confessing. The Devil helped his adherents at their own request. Denial in the Swedish trials on the other hand is compulsive: the Devil silences the vdetim by gripping her throat or blocking her mouth. She is irretrievably in his power. This is the reason why towards the end the old condition of confession before being put to death is reversed: she who confesses there is still hope for. She can be spared. She who denies is blocked and should be removed. 335
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