Häxberget

Häxberget – also known as Bålberget (“the Pyre Mountain”) – lies near Torsåker in Ångermanland, northern Sweden. In 1675, this remote hill became the site of one of the darkest events in Scandinavian history: the execution of seventy-one people accused of witchcraft during the Torsåker Witch Trials. It was the largest single witch trial in Sweden and part of the nationwide hysteria known as Det stora oväsendet (“The Great Noise”).

On this spot, men, women, and children – accused of flying to Blåkulla to worship the devil – were beheaded and their bodies burned. The trials were driven by religious paranoia, superstition, and fear of the unknown, encouraged by church authorities and self-proclaimed witnesses. Today, Häxberget stands as a quiet and haunting place, its peaceful landscape belying the atrocities once committed there.

A memorial stone now marks the site, inscribed in memory of those who were executed. Visitors often describe a heavy silence at the hill, surrounded by forest and the scent of pine, where the wind seems to carry whispers from the past. Nearby, the Witch Museum in Prästmon tells the broader story of the trials and preserves the names of the victims. Together, they form one of Sweden’s most powerful and somber dark-heritage sites.