Inside the Icelandic Witch Trials
Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
History Hit
4.8 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Picture a witch. Chances are, you're thinking of a woman.
But in 17th century Iceland, over 90% of the people killed for being a witch, were men.
Why were more men being accused than women for being a witch? And what happened inside their trials?
Today we're revisiting an episode from 2024 to take you back inside the Icelandic Witch Trials. Kate is joined by Dr. Ólína Kjerulf Þorvarðardóttir, Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Bifröst.
You can also watch Kate explore Icelandic witch trials further, in a brand new documentary for History Hit. Watch Witchmen: Witch Trials in the Land of Fire and Ice on HistoryHit.com, now.
This episode was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.
Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.
You can take part in our listener survey here.
All music from Epidemic Sounds.
Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm your host, Kate Lister. If you would like betwixt the sheets, add free and get early access, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every single week. |
| 0:19.8 | Sign up now by visiting history hit.com forward slash subscribe. |
| 0:24.5 | Hello, my lovely bird twixters. |
| 0:26.4 | It's me, Kate Lister, and you are listening to Bertwicks. |
| 0:29.6 | The sheets, welcome back. |
| 0:30.9 | Welcome back, everyone. |
| 0:31.9 | Let's make some space in the back for any newbies coming in. |
| 0:35.3 | And for any newbies, well, we have to tell you. |
| 0:38.8 | This is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults, |
| 0:41.3 | about adulty things and an adulty way covering a range of adults and you should be an adult too. |
| 0:44.7 | We call that the fair do's warning because after we've said that to you, |
| 0:48.6 | you can't get offended, or at least if you do get offended, |
| 0:51.3 | you can't be mad at us because fair do's, we did tell you, in society with me, Kate Lister. |
| 1:20.6 | Whilst we're all familiar with plastic pumpkins and the fake cauldrons of Halloween and frankly the less said about the costumes the better. |
| 1:29.3 | It does offer us a chance to explore the darker and more interesting themes at this time a year, |
| 1:35.1 | doesn't it? I like it when things get a bit spooky. And of course, I always want to talk to you |
| 1:40.7 | about witches. To coincide with a brand new documentary that I have made with history hit, |
| 1:46.4 | we are returning to an episode from last year about the 17th century Icelandic witch trials. |
| 1:53.6 | A wild and remote place, if there ever was one where, against the stereotype that a lot of us are familiar with, |
| 2:04.3 | 93% of those killed as witches were men. And if that peaks your interest, do check out the film I've made about exactly that. |
| 2:12.0 | You get to see me in full technicaler in the extraordinary Icelandic landscape where we are taking a deep dive into this troubling |
| 2:19.9 | tale. The film is called Witchmen, Witch Trials in the Land of Fire and Ice, and it's out on |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.