Brita Pipare

Who is Brita Pipare?

Brita, "the wife of Jöran Pipare" was an alleged Swedish witch, one of the first in Sweden to be accused and tried for witchcraft.

In September 1593, two women were accused of witchcraft in the city of Stockholm in Sweden; the first one was a woman known as "Margareta from Norrsunda", and the second was Brita.

This was one of the first witch trials held in Sweden, and it is clear that the judges were unsure how to handle the matter, as there had been few similar cases in the country before this and there were no rules about how to conduct such a trial.

Margareta from Norrsunda was known as a "wise woman", who supported herself by practicing medicine; she claimed she could cure sickness, expose thieves, prevent witches from stealing milk from cattle and give rest to the ghosts of deceased by magical words, but denied she had used her powers to hurt people. The court could not take her seriously, and as there was as yet no tradition of torturing accused witches in Sweden, she was acquitted from the charges and let free with the warning to never again use this "superstition".

Brita, however, in the protocol only identified simply as "Brita, wife of Jöran Pipare", was put to trial, accused of having magically caused sickness and damage to a couple of merchants in the city, and although she denied being a witch, she admitted having used "Signeri" and "Lövjeri". These were simply old superstitious habits from folklore that were widely practised and were not normally considered serious, but in this case, it put the judges in a dilemma.