Køge Huskors began as an account of frightening events in a merchant’s household and became part of a deadly witch hunt. The Danish case is usually dated 1608–1615. Anna Bartskjær described strange animals, disturbing noises, illness and children apparently overcome by an invisible adversary. Later proceedings accused women in the town of causing the household’s suffering. The surviving narrative is valuable evidence for what was reported and believed. Its accusations do not establish that the condemned women practised supernatural harm.
A household story preserved through several hands
The principal text used here is L. Pio’s 1870 edition of Johan Brunsmand’s Et forfærdeligt Hus-Kors, transcribed by Project Gutenberg. Its title page says that it follows the 1684 edition. Pio explains that he modernised spelling and omitted unrelated foreign possession stories. Readers are therefore encountering a nineteenth-century presentation of an earlier compilation, rather than Anna’s original manuscript or an untouched first edition.
Brunsmand first published the work in 1674, decades after the alleged disturbances. His introduction acknowledges that Anna wrote her recollection some years after the events. He preferred it to derivative versions, while presenting the household’s experiences as the work of Satan permitted by God. That religious explanation frames the entire account. It is the compiler’s interpretation of the material, not a finding produced by an independent examination of a haunting.
A civic attestation dated 14 January 1674 says that Hans and Anna had long been dead, that the signatories had heard of the events from their predecessors, and that relevant testimony appeared in the town’s court books. This matters because the document combines inherited knowledge with reference to written records. Its official standing does not turn its signatories into eyewitnesses to every incident narrated in Anna’s story.
The clucking in the bed and the strange visitor
Anna’s opening account describes a noise beneath the couple’s heads resembling a hen gathering its chicks. People suggested a snake; the household disturbed the bedding with long poles but found nothing. She then relates seeing a frightening toad-like creature walking on unusually high, thin legs. She called others to look, but says it disappeared when they arrived. The first episode therefore includes an attempted ordinary explanation, while the second rests on her reported sighting.
The narrative moves from alarming sounds and appearances to sickness. A servant became unwell after going to light a candle. A young daughter said that a large, richly dressed man frightened her, and her parents initially dismissed the complaint. Anna describes their distress when the child subsequently became ill. These are recollections of symptoms and family responses. A modern reader cannot diagnose the people involved from this literary account, or use their distress as proof of its supernatural explanation.
Jacob and the prayers
While Hans was away in Germany, a boy of about twelve called Jacob became a focus of the story. Anna reports shaking bedposts, tightly closed jaws and episodes in which he appeared unable to respond normally. She also alleges that he was lifted above the courtyard with his arms outstretched. In the account, the household’s prayers precede his return to the ground, and Jacob identifies the departing figure as Satan.
The distinction between reported movement and attributed cause is essential. Anna narrates what the household believed it saw, then gives the boy’s explanation of an invisible opponent. The source provides no controlled observation or independent physical measurement. It also preserves a dialogue in which Jacob rejects the suggestion that he willingly associated with the devil. The child appears within a fearful household’s religious understanding of affliction, rather than as a neutral witness being questioned by a later investigator.
After Hans returned, the story describes prayers requested in local churches and three Sundays of fasting at home. Different observers supposedly perceived the intruder in different forms, including birds, human figures and domestic animals. Jacob’s eventual improvement produced thanksgiving, but the text then transfers the affliction to Hans and later to another child. Repeated recovery and renewed trouble give the recollection its sequence; they do not isolate a single cause.
Anna’s husband and the younger child
Hans reportedly complained of an oppressive weight on his back, compared with a sack of grain. Anna tells of alarming experiences in bed and difficulties during journeys, while the younger boy’s suffering is described through cries, bodily rigidity and extraordinary movements. A practitioner summoned to examine him could offer no remedy; another woman interpreted his condition as possession and recommended prayer. This records the explanations available to the household, without establishing their accuracy.
The final chapter places the minister Niels Glostrup among those visiting and praying for the family. Anna’s closing statement says that the child spent periods in clerical households and later died during the plague of 1620. The narrative thus extends beyond a sequence of spectacular incidents into a retrospective account of bereavement, care and survival. Its claim that the household eventually became peaceful is part of that remembered conclusion.
From distress to accusation
Brunsmand adds a separate explanation assembled from town court books and information supplied by older inhabitants. He dates the beginning approximately to 1608 or 1609 and places Hans’s legal action in 1612. These are the compiler’s chronological deductions. The frequently used date range 1608–1615 should not imply that every episode in Anna’s recollection has a securely recorded day or year.
The supplement names Johanne Thomesis as a central accused woman. It connects suspicion with alleged resentment over dealings with Hans and a property purchase. It describes her confinement in 1612, testimony brought against her and a panel of sixteen men appointed to investigate. These details show how the case proceeded within local institutions. The compiler’s repeated description of accused women as witches must be read as the language of accusation, rather than adopted as a factual identity.
His extracts also preserve a revealing disagreement about food in prison. Johanne was said to refuse what she was offered. Her husband Jens Nielsen maintained that she would eat if he or their children could provide their own food. Brunsmand interpreted her refusal through the devil’s supposed deception. The same passage therefore contains an alternative practical account from her husband, even though the compiler subordinates it to his supernatural interpretation.
The supplement associates Johanne’s confession and condemnation with further accusations against other women, including Mette Banghors and Voldborg Bødkers. It also reproduces testimony about a child’s movements and words that supposedly identified those responsible. A reported name spoken during an episode is evidence that an accusation was made. It is not independent evidence that the named person caused the episode.
Deaths, memory and the limits of the record
The Køge municipal archive’s account of the later memorial plaque describes a chain of accusations following Johanne’s imprisonment and confession. It gives a broad total of fifteen to twenty women condemned and burned. A separate archive and Historieskolen Clio information sheet distinguishes an escape and two deaths before proceedings ended. These summaries require care when counting the accused, death sentences and executions; they should not be compressed into a falsely precise total.
Amalie Pallesen’s 2022 Roskilde University master’s thesis analyses Anna’s recollection alongside the court material reproduced in Brunsmand’s later work. It treats religious assumptions, fear and neighbourly suspicion as central questions. This is a modern historical reading, not a new clinical or paranormal investigation. Its source discussion also helps distinguish Brunsmand’s text from Anders Bæksted’s annotated 1953 edition, which the thesis used.
Even Brunsmand recognised differences between manuscript versions: after Anna’s account he printed a dream found in some copies, while questioning whether she had written it. That reservation is useful. A compiler strongly committed to the devil’s involvement could still identify an uncertain addition. The surviving book should be examined with the same attention to provenance throughout, including passages that its author accepted confidently.
Location and further reading
The modern town-hall photograph supplies context for Køge’s civic centre. It is not a photograph of the affected household or evidence of a haunting. This page identifies Køge broadly and supplies no private residential address or precise household pin. The archive records that a commemorative plaque was installed in 1911. For another case in which alleged affliction and prosecution became entangled, see Bargarran and Paisley, or explore the Historical Cases directory.
Map location. Approximate area: rounded town reference for Køge. The historical household and trial accounts are associated with the town; this is not a verified house, apparition position or private address. Coordinate source.