This witch test always works: heavy stone on your leg and plump in

A bad harvest, an unexpected death or just hate someone. All reasons to accuse a woman of witchcraft. It is estimated that between 1472 and 1674, roughly 250 witches crackling in the Netherlands came to an end. Often the alleged devil worshipers were poor, single women or girls, also not unusual that they had a mental disability. In short, vulnerable and easy targets that you could designate as a scapegoat for the calamity that had been poured out over you.

The first witch ended at the stake in 1472. Aleyd, the housekeeper of the pastor in Almen, Gelderland, was accused of witchcraft. Although she refused to admit, she was convicted and burned alive. The last victim was Entgen Luyten from Limbricht in 1674. She would have made another girl sick and lame, killed a castelein and she was blamed for the death of what cows and horses. After a months of trial, she was found death in her cell, hanging on a sling of blue linen. Her body was buried under a gallows.

Mass
A mass slaughter under witches happened in Roermond. In 1613 and 1614, preferably eighty witches were found guilty and burned within a few months.

When seeing if someone was a witch, they didn’t go overnight. The women and girls were often exhaustively tortured to enforce a confession. And yes, if you work someone long enough with all kinds of torture tool, you will confess everything. It is not uncommon for others to be rid of the hellish pains.

There were also real witch tests. The simplest was the water test. The demonic monster was tied around her waist or legs and was caught in a river. If she kept on floating or if she managed to free herself, she was a witch. Sink meant that you were innocent, but that cost you your life. Another way was the witch wage. Witches could fly on a broomstick, so were very light. But with these scales it was tampered, so that it was soon established that someone was not heavy enough to be able to continue for ‘normal’.

1595 is the highlight in the witch persecution in Peelland. No fewer than 25 women die. 23 of them die on a burning pile of wood. The executions are in Castle Cranendonk, Leende, Heeze, Geldrop, Mierlo, Lierop and Mierlo-Hout. As a reminder of this dark page from the Brabant history, a witch monument was unveiled on 30 April at the castle where the murders started.

The unveiling of the witch monument at Cranendonck Castle in Soerendonk.

The idea for a memorial comes from the tube of cultural historian Gerard Rooijakkers, after reading the book Duivelskwartier by Johan Otten about the witch persecution in the Peel. “If we as a society can execute those people four hundred years ago, then we can also mark and remember those places with a monument four hundred years later,” he said about it five years ago.

The artwork was made by Carolein Smit. “From the book the most mother Margriet Brycken and her 12-year-old daughter Heylken remained,” she says. “In particular, the girl who told so proudly to whom it just wanted to hear what she and her mother had done. Danced with the ‘Boel’, the devil and flown and what no longer, to let them know how special they were. It eventually cost them life.”

After this monument there will still be monuments in Geldrop-Mierlo, Heeze-Leende, Helmond-Lierop, Someren and Asten so that a route is created that permanently reminds us of the suffering.