In the quiet Nordnes neighborhood of Bergen, there is a small stone memorial known as Heksestein, or the Witch Stone. It remembers where 350 people condemned for witchcraft were burned at the stake during the country’s bloody witch trials in the 16th and 17th centuries. Located on a peninsula between Vågen and Puddefjorden, west of the city center, Nordnes is a neighborhood defined by religion, merchants, and the Norwegian royal court. Originally home to a monastery, Nordnes became a neighborhood for rival merchants of the Hanseatic League after the Protestant Reformation. Peppered…
