Mor Sæther


Mor Sæther, was a Norwegian "klok kone", that is, a herbalist. She is one of the best known within her profession in Norway.

Biography

Mor Sæther was born in Grue, Hedmark. Her parents were the farmer Johan Eriksen Viker and Bastine Guttormsdatter ; they had 7 children. She married twice: first to a Mr. Sæther who appears to have worked as a handyman at the Anatomy School at Royal Frederick University, and then in 1825 to a farmer, Lars Bastian Nielsen. At the anatomy school she was given lessons in anatomy by Dr. Jens Essendrop Knoph; he lent her books in return for menial work. Her second husband owned a farm in Pipervika with 20 cows. There is a story that Mor Sæther took butter to the King, Carl Johan, when was in Oslo.
Mor Sæther was active in Christiania in about 1820–1851. She was several times tried for quackery under the kvakksalverloven, and was sentenced to a diet of bread and water in prison in 1836, 1841 and 1844. On the last occasion, there was a popular outcry, supported by the nobleman Severin Løvenskiold, and she appealed to the Høyesterett, which freed her. She was given official permission to practice medicine and was thereby made an officially licensed "cunning woman".
Mor Sæther was praised by Henrik Ibsen. He had been a tenant in her house for a short time in 1850.
Mor Sæther was the object of a poem, Mulig Forvexling , by Henrik Wergeland, whom she famously nursed at his death bed. The poem contains the couplet