The cunning woman
Sidsel made her living as a klog kone, a cunning woman. She would arrive at a farm, find out what troubled the family, and explain that sickness or bad luck had a hidden cause that only she could remove, for a price. Three of her cases are known in detail.
The accounts below come from the verdict that the Landsoverret in Viborg gave against her in December 1837, as retold by the local archive at Galten. They are the farmers' stories, told to the court. Sidsel told hers differently.
Karlby, from about 1815
The first case began around 1815 with the mother of Peder Pedersen Overgaard, a retired farmer at Karlby. There was illness in the family and among the animals, and Sidsel persuaded the old woman that something had been buried on the farm to harm them.
The danger never quite went away. Sidsel came back again and again over several years, and each visit cost more. By the end the family reckoned she had taken about 900 rigsbankdaler, besides bedding, clothes and food.
The red cat at Rosmus, 1821
Late in November 1821 two women came to a farm at Rosmus, on Djursland, and introduced themselves as kloge folk, cunning folk. A red cat had been seen, they said, and a red cat meant that disaster was coming. To turn it away, the farmer had to hand over 300 rigsbankdaler, along with clothes, linen and a tin dish.
On 1 December the farmer drove the two women towards Randers himself. At Hørning they sent him home, promising that his money and goods would be returned to him nine days later at a baker's in Randers. Nobody came. He searched for them as far as Kolding before he gave up and went to the authorities.
That winter the police identified the two women as Sidsel Rolandsdatter and her daughter Anne Marie.
Which Anne Marie?
Sidsel had two daughters called Anne Marie. The elder, Anne Marie Rolandsdatter, born in 1804, had grown up with a foster family in Sæby and was confirmed at Øster Hassing in 1820, far to the north, where she went into service. The younger, Ane Marie Pedersdatter, born in 1809, was twelve in 1821 and living with her mother. The account does not say which of them it was.
The mole skin at Mørke, 1836
On 1 May 1836 Sidsel and Laus asked for a night's lodging with Jens Olesen, a smallholder at Mørke mark. Sidsel soon found the trouble in the house. A hare had drugged the horse, she said, and a ghost lay buried under the family's bed.
Jens Olesen dug where she told him and found a mole skin stuffed with sand and stones. Sidsel said it was worth 60 rigsbankdaler to be rid of it, and had it burned.
That was only the beginning. Over the next three months she came back with new demands, now warning of the Devil himself. She wanted 25 rigsbankdaler and household goods. The family borrowed money and pawned their horse for 30 rigsbankdaler, and at last promised her 31 rigsbankdaler more at Martinmas, with grain, potatoes, livestock, food and kitchen things.
Jens Olesen worked out that in three months she had had about 135 rigsbankdaler from him, 66 alen of linen, bedding, shirts and food. Then he went to a prosecutor in Randers.
The verdict, 1837
udøvet mystiske kunster, bedragerier og kvaksalveri etc.
practised mysterious arts, fraud and quackery, etc.
Sidsel was arrested and denied it. She admitted some of what the farmers said, but not their reading of it: she had only tried to keep harm away from them. On 12 December 1837 the Landsoverret in Viborg sentenced her to two years in the tugthus. Laus is not named in the sentence.
The talk of the county
Those who wrote about her later describe a talkative, quick-witted woman who could cry whenever it served her, and who had, as one of them put it dryly, a helpful nature when it came to keeping danger away, for a fee. Her husband Laus, known as Tambour or Døve Laus, deaf Laus, seemed to lose his hearing whenever the police wanted to question him.
Anders Svalgaard, writing about the night-soil people of Thy, calls her probably one of the most dangerous witches known in Vendsyssel. In several older books she is simply the greatest witch in Jutland.