ininance of women among the trial victims has been illuminated with reliable material. Swedish sources enable us to present at least some fundamental facts about the persecuted: their age, sex, marital status, kinship and socioeconomic status. The unique demographic statistical data, which can in .some cases be traced back to the 17th century, provides the comparative background to the results. Men comprise i all less than 15 %, with locally significant variations. .Almost half of them belong to the youngest age-group (15^—24). This may possibly have its explanation in the partly very graphic sexual features of the Blåkulla myth and the great surplus of women after the wars: the lack of male marriage partners was great, (tab. 1,2) In the total population the distribution of women in the age-groups 15—44 and 45 — was approximately 62/38 %. These proportions are virtually reversed among the accused, and the tendency is further enchanced by the treatment of the courts (tab. 4). There are also more widows (27 %) and fewer wives (39 %) than in the total population (15 and 50 %, respectively; tab. 6). Some families ran a greater risk of being accused than others. More than half of the interrogated or condemned witches belonged to families with two or more accused members. Family feuds may naturally have contributed to this, but they are not the whole explanation. In actual fact accusations within the family are just as common as between different groups. A survey of the economic situation of the accused in Mora, based on sowing and harvest from the tithe lists, seems to show that relatively more of them belonged to the middle and upper levels of the community. The limited material and the technical difficulties associated with a socio-economic grouping of this kind make it necessary to treat the conclusions with caution. It should be possible, however, to improve these methods and apply them to a much larger material. The transvected children who gave evidence against the accused played a decisive role in the establishment of proof. During the whole period several thousand must have appeared in court. In the beginning each child accused only one witch, but later on, above all in Norrland, they said they were transvected by two or more in turns. Moreover they saw others at the feast in Blåkulla. Thus the number of accusations varies while showing an upward trend. The children participation also varies. In Norrland 20 % provide more than half of all the evidence. These energetic children also display a marked conformity in their accusations which are often directed at local groups or family circles among the suspects. They themselves are often members of such groups. The boys are on average slightly more, older, and more active. The pressure brought to bear on the accused varies in different ways. The priests who collected the preliminary material and the court itself were able 337 22
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