Hi and thanks!

It's hard to know for sure what King Christian thought about witches personally, but being surely more educated than commoners at the time he already had more knowledge about the witchcraft laws. The goal was nevertheless to get "approved" Norwegians to settle in Finnmark and protect it from Russia. I have read about Governors of different Northern-Norwegian regions who didn't believed in this stuff at all and fought to free those women who were accused and jailed. While others such as the bailiff in Stavanger clearly used it as a political tool to get respect and power.