sorcery was not, by people in general, associated with the Devil. Many of the people accused in Finland were men, so called "wise men" hired to perform magic by people. The largest witch trials in Finland were the Kastelholm witch trials of Åland in the 1660s, and those in Österbotten in 1674–1678, when between 157 and 200 people were charged, of which at least 41 were executed. This witch hunt was heavily influenced by the witch hunt conducted in Sweden at the time and differed from ordinary Finnish witch trials as they involved the Pact with Satan, the Witches' Sabbath and the child witnesses who claimed to have been abducted by the witches, and the majority of executed was female, none of which was otherwise common in Finland. Discontinuation Similarly to Sweden, persecutions and death sentences for witchcraft next to died out after the big witch hunt of the 1670s. While the accusations and the witch trials as such were common in Finland also after this—22 people were in fact charged in 1693–1697—the legal courts were unwilling to issue a death sentence for sorcery after 1678 and a confession of sorcery was often interpreted as a sign of insanity. The last person executed for sorcery in Finland was probably a man, Erkki Antinpoika, in 1689. The last Finnish witch trial took place in Turku, when the merchant's daughter Beata Pintarintytär was accused of evil magic by twenty witnesses and sentenced to death after a body search that revealed a "bag" on her body that was considered proof; the execution was repealed to prison by the Court of Appeal of Turku, and she was released from prison in 1701. See also Witch trials in the early modern period References https://web.archive.org/web/20080623022649/http://www.chronicon.com/noita/kuolemantuomiot.html 1526 establishments in Finland 1689 disestablishments in Finland Early Modern law Early Modern politics Legal history of Finland Political history of Finland Social history of Finland Witch trials in Finland 16th century in Finland 17th century in Finland