Märet was the first to be accused, and her trial unleashed a series of witch hunts that led to the deaths of around 280 people.
In the autumn of 1667, a little shepherd boy in Älvdalen in Dalarna, Mats Nilsson, claimed to have seen a girl lead goats over Eastern Dalälven by walking on the water at Hemmansäng by Åsen.
Gertrud Svendsdotter was then interrogated by the priest, Lars Elvius, who encouraged her to say that she had indeed walked on water, and that she had done so by magic, which had been given to her by the Devil.
After long talks with the vicar, Gertrud said that while she lived with her parents in Lillhärdal in Härjedalen, a neighbour's maid had taken her to the Devil.
They had dined, and the following night, Märet had come to Gertrud and smeared her body and one of her father's cows with a red oil, after which they had flown away through the chimney and all the way to Satan.
The reason she had admitted this was that she had met an angel in Blockula, a man in white, who had told her to confess, or else a hunger epidemic would sweep over the kingdom.
Märet had been a maid at his farm and acted as a mother for Gertrud after the death of his wife, and he had the intention to marry her, but he had been discouraged when, during a trip with her to Dalarna, he had been attacked and beaten up by another of her suitors; his rival was the son of an ensign.
Small Märet said that her older sister had taken her to Blockula riding backwards on a cow where her name had been written in the book of the Devil with the blood of her left little finger.
At the testimony of her little siblings, Märet Jonsdotter told them that they had forsaken God and were heading for a dark road, and crossed herself.
Her little sister and brothers cried and embraced her and pleaded with her to confess to save her soul, as did her mother, the only one in the family who was blameless.
They continued to point out Karin Biörsdotter, Oluf Biörsson, Brita Jonsdotter, Per Nils Anna and Märet Persdotter.
In Blåkulla, people partied as if at a wedding; they drank, ate, danced and had sex by the light of candles that were placed in vaginas while Satan sat under the table and laughed so that the whole room shook and the fire of hell poured up from a hole in the floor, where you could see the tormented souls in hell.
When you woke up afterwards, your body ached, the food you had eaten had vanished and made you hungry and the gifts you had received had turned to woodchip.An interesting phenomenon was that the children, except from Satan and his demons, also claimed to have seen angels in Blåkulla.
Next door to Satan's dining room was the angels' chamber, decorated with benches as if in a church, and completely white from floor to ceiling, from where God himself, dressed in a grey cloak and with a grey beard ("Just a Mr Olof in Mo", as the children said) cried to them: "Come here, you are my children".
The angels had the claws of birds instead of hands and feet, and they were dressed in surplices of white linen and tight pants, and they pulled the Devil's food away from the children's hands, cried tears as big as peas, and asked them to confess so the witches could be exterminated and send the message that one should not have to work on Thursdays, nor use shirts with frilled sleeves, and not have to sell tobacco above its fairest price.
The two women were not aware of the law, and the court therefore decided upon a plan to solve the legal predicament and get them to confess and thereby make it possible to execute them.
The stories spread across the parishes, and increased when the priests made the verdicts public by announcing them in church as a warning.
In 1670, the so-called "witch-prayer" was read in the churches, and in 1671, fifty-six people stood accused of abduction of children to Satan and witchcraft in Lillhärdal.
Throughout this time, Märet Jonsdotter remained in prison, exposed to continued religious persuasion from the priests to confess her sin.
On 16 April 1672, despite her constant denial, Svea Hovrätt declared Märet guilty of sorcery due to all the incriminating testimonies, and the devil's mark on her finger, and sentenced her to be decapitated and burned.
The court declared that: "Her mere denial can not help her nor free her from the life sentence"; the same year, the court had noticed that several people accused had become aware that they would escape a death sentence if they maintained their innocence, and therefore, one of the eight people executed for witchcraft in Ovanåker in 1672 had been executed without a confession.