As promised, I will now write the story of the Dutch witch Marigje Arriens. When I was writing about the logical fallacies, one fallacy was about the interpretation of Bathory´s song “Born for Burning”, which the author misinterpreted in the book that I criticized. When you read the lyrics of the song, you can clearly see it is about a witch who defies Christianity and that is why she is “born for burning”. When I looked up at the lyrics, in the end, it was written that the song is “dedicated to the witch Marigje Arriens, born 1521., burned 1591., in Schoonhoven, Holland”. Sources I used are from the Dutch websites (NOTA BENE! Be careful with the information found on the internet because they might not correspond with the truth. Same goes with other sources.) and “Malleus Maleficarum”, the standard handbook on witchcraft written by Catholic clergymen to see if there is any connection between the two.

  The story of Marigje Arriens

She was born in 1521., in Poederoijen. She was a herbalist and one of the last people to be burned at the stake because of alleged witchcraft. There is no information about her childhood, but she was often consulted for her knowledge of medicinal herbs. The reason why she was accused of witchcraft is not entirely clear. According to one version, she was indicted by a dissatisfied patient. The second version says that she was accused of witchcraft because she wanted to charm or seduce a young, little boy. After being arrested, she admitted that the devil had visited her twice and encouraged her into witchcraft. Allegedly, she made this confession even though she was not tortured. Marigje was sentenced to burn at the stake and was graciously strangled in front of the town hall of Schoonhoven and then burned to ash.
Apparently she was very poor and has never been married in her life, although she lived in Nieuwpoort for 6 months with a man called Michiel de Cuyper.
She had to wait two and a half months for her sentence. She was taken prisoner on October 4th 1591. and the sentence was enforced on the 18th of December. She was not the last witch to be burned, but she is the best known. A year before her death, she lived in Utrecht, and before that, in Vianen and Nieuwpoort. It is believed that she traveled a lot.

  Malleus Maleficarum and the connection with the case of Marrigje Ariens
The only connection I found between the two is if we are going to take the second version of her story literally, in which she seduced the young boy and because of that, she was accused of witchcraft. Malleus Maleficarum can only help us with this case if we use it as a literal and truthful source of information. I found no help from it since it is a guide and a fairy-tale crossover. It is a guide which helps you find witches, succubuses, incubuses, people who are possessed with demons and so on. It is especially superstitious and illogical when it comes to the subject of why women tend to do witchcraft more than men.

  To sum up

Unfortunately, I could not find more information on Marigje than this, and Malleus Maleficarum was not helpful with the case (unless, of course, we take it all literally and trustworthy). In this text, I presented the story of the infamous witch, but when I get my hands on more trustworthy information, I shall make an addition to this one.
I will end this text as a start to a future, additional one. Why were women REALLY targeted and why were they accused of “WITCHCRAFT”?
My take on this is several possibilities:
1.) Their expertise in medicine, herbalism and so forth (just like Marigje was an expert in herbalism)

2.) Women are those who pass on the tradition (stories, language, knowledge…) which the Church wanted to eliminate

3.) Deep hatred for Christianity

                                                                                                         The Mage