In the 17th century, butter production is important. Every household churns the cream from its own few cows. It’s a difficult process, which is why good butter becomes a point of pride for housewives. When the butter churning goes wrong, people try to find a reason for this failure – could it be due to witchcraft or sorcery? To ward off the Devil, people recite magic charms, invoke the Holy Virgin Mary or even put a fossilised sea urchin in the churn.
Ample and successful buttermaking can lead to envy and suspicion – are there dark forces abroad? Is the clever housewife a witch?
In one instance from Western Jutland, in 1619, Johanne Hvidsdatter was accused of witchcraft. During the interrogation, she confessed that she and other witches had danced a ritual dance around the Church of Oddum and renounced their Christian faith. After this deed, she had stolen milk from a neighbouring farm with the aid of a familiar and churned unnaturally large amounts of butter.