After a guilty verdict, the condemned was forced to expose accomplices and commonly deaths occurred due to torture or prison.
[1] In 1584, King Frederick II of Denmark and Norway, on the recommendation of the Bishop of Stavanger Jørgen Eriksen, who was concerned about the frequent habit of the population's trust in the services of cunning men and cunning women, introduced the death penalty on the practicing of all sorcery in the Stavanger Bishopric; in 1593, this law was expanded to apply in all of Norway.
An investigation could be instigated by the bailiff with reference to public safety after rumours of witchcraft had been heard from at least three different households.
[1] The authorities and the clergy managed the witch trials, using instructions from international demonology handbooks.
[1] When witch trials were conducted in accordance with the law after the 1670s, they became smaller and fewer, and the method of execution was also to be decapitation rather than burning.
Witch trials did occur in Norway during the 18th-century, but the authorities no longer issued the death penalty in such cases.
Because of the lack in documentation, some of the witch trials in the 18th-century may theoretically have resulted in death sentences, such as the one against Brita Alvern in 1729.