In 1693, Anne Palles, 74, is the last person in Denmark to be condemned for witchcraft and burned.
A woman is accused of poisoning a man with scrapings off a human bone, and this woman informs against Anne Palles, claiming that she is a witch. Anne herself confesses to having bewitched a young woman as well as a small boy and entered into a pact with Satan in the guise of a black cat – and to having pissed misfortune into a courtyard.
But the trial process against her develops in a highly unusual way: When her case reaches the high court, Anne, rather surprisingly, withdraws her confession. She claims she was beaten and threatened during the interrogation and that she felt forced to confess to the accusations of witchcraft. This new development splits the court. Six judges wish to let her off with a whipping and then banish her from the country. They think she has been coerced to confess.
The majority favours the death penalty however. They feel that the court must stand firm to ensure that the unusual course of the trial won’t make other criminals withdraw their confessions too. Anne Palles’ sentence is mitigated a little: She is condemned to beheading before burning, so she won’t get burned alive.
The end to Danish witch-hunting follows a general trend across Europe. Less than a hundred years later, Anna Göldi from Switzerland becomes the last victim of the European witch trials.