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Escaped from the the witches’ dungeon 

When Køge, in the early 1600s, was gripped by fear of witchcraft, sixteen women were accused. Two of the accused committed suicide before facing the stake, and one managed to escape and survived. That woman was Voldborg Bødkers, an ordinary woman living in a troubled society. Rumours were enough to place her at the centre of a case where even doubt could cost a life.

Voldborg Bødkers is the woman against whom the most witness testimonies have been preserved. But she was also the only one of the women accused of witchcraft in 1612–13 who survived. She escaped from the Troldkællingehullet, the witches’ dungeon.

Experience the Witch Exhibition at Køge Museum

Brave and Strong

Voldborg was quite a character. Hot‑tempered and sharp, even threatening at times. She ran her own cooper’s workshop and was the most capable of the five women accused in the Bartskær case, yet the worst at keeping peace with her neighbours and avoiding envy.

Perhaps it was precisely her strong nature that made her brave and clever enough to flee. When the flames were lit for the other women, Voldborg was already gone — out of the town, out of favour, but alive. She disappeared from Køge and from history. No one knows where she ended up, only that she was the only one who survived.

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