The Mercies
Inspired by the Vardø storm of 1617, Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s bestselling novel The Mercies tells the story of how widows became the victims of a witch-hunt on a Norwegian island.
Now, a powerful new stage adaptation is being developed on the very island where many of the 77 women came from, were interrogated, tortured and burnt alive for witchcraft.
Created by the books author (Kiran Millwood Hargrave), playwright Matthew Gavan, and director Oliver Dawe, the play received a 2 week development workshop at The Field Station in April 2022, with an international cast of 5 actors, from both Norway and the UK.
The Mercies development workshop also marked the first pilot residency at The Field Station
Research & Development Workshop - April 2022
Cast:
Scarlett Brookes
Lorna Nickson Brown
Peter Clements
Matt Gavan
Benedikte Sandberg
Creative:
Writers | Matthew Gavan & Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Director | Oliver Dawe
Sound Design & Composer | Josh Spear
The Mercies
On 24 December 1617, just off the coast of the island of Vardø, Norway’s north-easternmost point, a storm lifted so suddenly eyewitnesses said it was as if it were conjured. In a matter of minutes, forty men were drowned. In this already remote and underpopulated place, it was a catastrophic event.
This was a time of great change in the country, then Denmark-Norway. King Christian IV, almost halfway through his fifty-nine-year reign, was growing increasingly desperate to make his mark on the world. A strict Lutheran, he wanted to establish his Church more fully, and finally drive out the Sámi influence in his country’s far northern reaches, especially Finnmark, a vast, wild, largely ungoverned area.
This indigeneous population, for whom wind-weaving and spirit-talking were commonly used practices, mostly refused to obey his religious reforms, and King Christian brought in a number of increasingly harsh laws that ultimately amounted to state-sanctioned persecution and massacre. He was aiming at a singular, unified society that conformed to his view of the world, as embodied in his Church. He turned, particularly, to Scotland. King James VI had recently published his treatise on witchcraft, Daemonologie, detailing how to ‘spot, prove, and kill a witch’, sparking a wave of witch trials throughout the mainland and islands. Hysteria, together with church attendance, was at an all-time high.
King Christian had a close personal friendship with a high-ranking Scotsman, John Cunningham. When the King decided that Finnmark must be brought to heel, it was Captain Cunningham who he installed at Vardøhus.
What followed was a reign of unprecedented length and brutality. Though it was not his only duty, Lensmann Cunningham oversaw no fewer than fifty-two witch trials, leading to the deaths of ninety-one people: fourteen men and seventy-seven women. The first major trial, in 1621, had amongst its accused eight women charged with bringing about the 1617 storm, which had by then taken on a mythic status even in the minds of those who had not seen it.
Read more about The Mercies HERE
The Steilneset Memorial (Norwegian: Steilneset Minnersted) is a memorial in Vardø, northern Norway, which commemorates the 91 people who were burnt at the stake in 1621 for alleged acts of witchcraft. Design by architect Peter Zumthor and artist Louise Bourgeois.