Domen is a
mountain on the
Varanger Peninsula in eastern
Troms og Finnmark county,
Norway. The tall mountain is located near the coast between the small
fishing village Kiberg and the island of
Vardøya
Vardøya is an island in Vardø Municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The island is the location of the town of Vardø. The island sits about east of the mainland Varanger Peninsula. The island is connected to the mainland by the V ...
. Domen is bare and flat-topped, with a steep slope towards the
Barents Sea below. The
European route E75 highway runs along the western side of the mountain from
Svartnes to
Kiberg. The road is often closed in the winter due to bad weather.
Name
The
Old Norse name of the
Arctic Sea
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
was ''Dumbshaf'' . This sea (''haf'') was named after the mountain ''Dumbr'' (an old form of ''Domen''). The name is probably related to the English word ''dumb'', but in what meaning is unclear.
History and folklore
Domen is often associated with the
witch trials in Finnmark during the 17th century. Vardø was the site of approximately 70 witch trials between 1601 and 1663. This was a large number, since there were only a couple of hundred inhabitants in the area at that time.
According to folklore, Vardø and Domen became infamous as ''the end of the world'',
Ultima Thule and the entrance to
Hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...
was said to be somewhere around Domen or Vardø, and so witches flew to Domen to meet the devil for
sabbath
In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest, as G ...
.
See also
*
Blockula
*
Vardø witch trials
*
Vardø witch trials (1621)
( fi, Vuoreija, fkv, Vuorea, se, Várggát) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county in the extreme northeastern part of Norway. Vardø is the easternmost town in Norway, more to the east than Saint Petersburg or Istanbul. The administra ...
References
External links
Witchcraft in 17th-century Finnmark
Mountains of_Troms og Finnmark
Vardø
Witchcraft in folklore and mythology
Witchcraft in Norway
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