A Harrowing Journey into 17th Century Witchcraft
Danish author Olga Ravn returns with her fourth novel, The Wax Child, transporting readers to the brutal witch trials of 17th century Denmark. The story opens with a chilling historical reality: between 1617 and 1625, Denmark witnessed a witch burning every five days. Ravn vividly depicts one such execution where a condemned woman is tied to a ladder and pushed into a bonfire, her daughter witnessing the horrific spectacle as her mother's eye explodes from the intense heat.
The Mysterious Wax Child Narrator
This traumatic scene is observed by an unusual witness - a wax doll that sees everything across time and space. This mystical narrator inhabits multiple perspectives, from the worms burrowing through soil to the king's own body. The wax child serves as both narrative device and philosophical complication, challenging modern assumptions about witchcraft accusations.
Ravn bases her story on real historical figure Christenze Krukow, a Danish noblewoman accused of witchcraft three times during her lifetime. The novel authentically incorporates spells from actual 17th century "black books" and grimoires, revealing that much of this magic wasn't about causing harm but rather protection - attempts to neutralise anger, predict illness outcomes, or encourage kindness in others.
Everyday Magic and Female Solidarity
Beyond the formal spells, Ravn explores the more threatening magic of female community. Women working together gutting fish, carding wool, and protecting each other from domestic violence represent a powerful form of everyday sorcery. The novel celebrates the magic of friendship, laughter, dancing, love and shared wine.
As one character implores: "Will you come with us to the Lucia fest, Elisabeth? Magic is possible. Laughter is possible. There is a way out, Elisabeth, there is a way out..." Yet this feminine power exists in stark contrast to the male-dominated legal system that condemned them, citing demonology texts that declared: "The woman is more easily tempted by Satan, for she is weaker than the man in body and soul... When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil."
Ravn's poetic background shines through in her evocative prose. The wax child describes knowledge as "like a gash in me to know it" and experiences a shifting synaesthesia where "I see the king with the smell of the eye" and "Listening, I hear time as a clearing among trees."
Connecting Ravn's Literary Universe
While The Wax Child appears quite different from Ravn's previous English-translated works - the International Booker-shortlisted The Employees set on a 22nd-century spaceship and the contemporary autofiction My Work about motherhood - all three share common ground as novels of ideas. They connect everyday experiences like breastfeeding and fish gutting to vast existential questions.
The Wax Child explores how a witch is created alongside a wax baby substitute, examining how acts of witness become acts of creation. The novel is filled with powerful objects - wax, thread, scissors, coins, nails, hair - whose potency spells sought to harness.
At its best, The Wax Child is richly evocative, beautiful, creepy and visceral, with stunning poetic descriptions like "It is the darkest of times, December. From the curvature of the earth, minutes run like droplets from the day." Some readers might find the novel occasionally elliptical or baffling, missing the clarity of The Employees, but perhaps this reflects the nature of spell-weaving and poetry itself.
The Wax Child by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken, is published by Viking (£14.99).
