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This thesis explores sentences during the Swedish witch trials between the years of 1668 and 1676, and how these varied in different areas as well as whether they were affected by the sex and age of the person accused of witchcraft. The source material is law books and court documents from the time, from the county of Dalarna, the village of Sveg, and the part of northern Sweden which is named as the traditional homeland of the Sami. Through quantitative analysis which some qualitative elements, it has confirmed earlier research’s claims that most of the accused were women (75% in Dalarna and 74% in Sveg), apart from the small amount of data available from the northern counties (where 3 out of 4 were men). Sentences did vary depending on the sex of the accused, with men being more likely to walk free, and children and teens being more likely to suffer corporal punishment rather than execution. Women often were given the death penalty, which was the lawful punishment for ”proven” harmful witchery, though the manner of execution differed from the burning the law books determined for women, and breaking on the wheel determined for men, as this had been declared inhumane by this time. The manner of execution – beheading and then burning of the corpse – was the same for both men and women.

Thus, this essay concludes that women were more likely to be accused of witchcraft, as well as more likely to be sentenced, but men and women were punished in the same way. The younger one was, however, or if one had been sentenced for non-harmful witchery, the likelier one was to receive non-fatal punishments such as whippings.