Kristin Lavransdatter

by Sigrid Undset

  It was a great miracle that Ulvhild had not been crushed; the log had fallen in such a way that it had come to rest with one end lying on top of a rock in the grass. When Lavrans straightened up, blood ran from his mouth, and his clothes had been ripped to shreds across his chest from the ox’s horns.

  Tordis came running with a sheet made from hides; carefully she and Ragnfrid lifted the child onto it, but she sounded as if she was suffering intolerable pain at even the slightest touch. Ragnfrid and Tordis carried her into the winter house.

  Kristin stood pale and rigid on the pile of timbers; the little boys clung to her, crying. All the servants of the farm had now gathered in the courtyard, the women weeping and wailing. Lavrans ordered them to saddle Guldsvein and one more horse. But when Arne brought the horses, Lavrans fell to the ground when he tried to mount. Then he ordered Arne to ride over to the priest while Halvdan would travel south to bring back a wise woman who lived near the place where the rivers converged.

  Kristin saw that her father’s face was grayish white; he had bled so much that his light-blue clothing was completely covered with reddish-brown spots. Suddenly he straightened up, tore an axe out of the hands of one of the men, and strode over to where several servants were still holding on to the ox. He struck the beast between the horns with the blade of the axe so that the ox sank to its knees, but Lavrans kept on hammering away until blood and brains were spattered everywhere. Then he was seized by a coughing fit and fell backward onto the ground. Trond and one of the men had to carry him inside.

  Kristin thought her father was dead; she screamed loudly and ran after him as she called to him with all her heart.

  Inside the winter house Ulvhild had been placed on her parents’ bed. All of the pillows had been thrown to the floor so that the child could lie flat. It looked as if she had already been laid out on the straw of her deathbed. But she was moaning loudly and incessantly, and her mother was leaning over her, stroking and patting her, wild with grief because there was nothing she could do.

  Lavrans was lying on the other bed. He got up and staggered across the floor to console his wife.

  Then she sprang up and screamed, “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! Jesus, Jesus, I am so worthless that you should strike me dead—will there never be an end to the misfortune I bring upon you?”

  “You haven’t . . . my dear wife, this is not something you have brought upon us,” said Lavrans, placing a hand on her shoulder. She shuddered at his touch and her pale gray eyes glistened in her gaunt, sallow face.

  “No doubt she means that I am the one who caused this,” said Trond Ivarsøn harshly.

  His sister shot him a look of hatred and replied, “Trond knows what I mean.”

  Kristin ran to her parents but they both pushed her aside. And Tordis, who came over with a kettle of hot water, took her gently by the shoulders and said, “Go over to our house, Kristin. You’re in the way here.”

  Tordis wanted to attend to Lavrans, who was sitting on the step of the bed, but he told her that he was not gravely wounded.

  “But can’t you ease Ulvhild’s pain a little? God help us, her moans could arouse pity from the stone inside the mountain.”

  “We don’t dare touch her until the priest arrives, or Ingegjerd, the wise woman,” said Tordis.

  Arne came in just then and reported that Sira Eirik was not at home.

  Ragnfrid stood there for a moment, wringing her hands. Then she said, “Send word to Fru Aashild at Haugen. Nothing else matters, if only Ulvhild can be saved.”

  No one paid any attention to Kristin. She crept up onto the bench behind the headboard of the bed, tucked up her legs, and rested her head on her knees.

  Now she felt as if her heart were being crushed between hard fists. Fru Aashild was going to be summoned! Her mother had never wanted them to send for Fru Aashild, not even when she herself was near death when she gave birth to Ulvhild, nor when Kristin was so ill with fever. People said she was a witch; the bishop of Oslo and the canons of the cathedral had sat in judgment on her. She would have been executed or burned at the stake if she hadn’t been of such high birth that she was like a sister to Queen Ingebjørg. But people said that she had poisoned her first husband, and that she had won her present husband, Herr Bjørn, through witchcraft. He was young enough to be her son. She did have children, but they never came to visit their mother. So those two high-born people, Bjørn and Aashild, sat on their small farm in Dovre, having lost all their riches. None of the gentry in the valley would have anything to do with them, but secretly people sought out Fru Aashild’s advice. Poor folk even went to her openly with their troubles and ills; they said she was kind, but they were also afraid of her.

  Kristin thought that her mother, who was otherwise constantly praying, should have called on God and the Virgin Mary instead. She tried to pray herself—especially to Saint Olav,1 for she knew that he was kind and he had helped so many who suffered from illness and wounds and broken bones. But she couldn’t collect her thoughts.

  Her parents were now alone in the room. Lavrans was lying on the bed again and Ragnfrid sat leaning over the injured child, occasionally wiping Ulvhild’s forehead and hands with a damp cloth and moistening her lips with wine.

  A long time passed. Tordis looked in on them now and then; she wanted so desperately to help, but each time Ragnfrid sent her away. Kristin wept soundlessly and prayed in silence, but every once in a while she would think about the witch, and she waited tensely to see her enter the room.

  Suddenly Ragnfrid broke the silence. “Are you asleep, Lavrans?”

  “No,” replied her husband. “I’m listening to Ulvhild. God will help His innocent lamb, my wife—we mustn’t doubt that. But it’s hard to lie here and wait.”

  “God hates me for my sins,” said Ragnfrid in despair. “My children are in peace where they are—I don’t dare doubt that. And now Ulvhild’s time has come too. But He has cast me out, for my heart is a viper’s nest of sin and sorrow.”

  Just then the door opened. Sira Eirik stepped inside, straightening up his enormous body as he stood in the doorway, and pronounced in his deep, clear voice, “God help those in this house!”

  The priest placed the box containing his medical things2 on the step of the bed, went over to the hearth, and poured warm water over his hands. Then he pulled out his cross, raised it to all four corners of the room, and murmured something in Latin. After that he opened the smoke vent so that light could stream into the room. Then he went over and looked at Ulvhild.

  Kristin was afraid that he would discover her and chase her away—usually very little escaped Sira Eirik’s eye. But he didn’t look around. The priest took a vial out of his box, poured something onto a tuft of finely carded wool, and placed it over Ulvhild’s nose and mouth.

  “Soon her suffering will lessen,” said the priest. He went over to Lavrans and attended to him as he asked them to tell him how the accident had occurred. Lavrans had two broken ribs and he had received a wound to his lungs, but the priest didn’t think he was in danger.

  “What about Ulvhild?” asked her father sorrowfully.

  “I’ll tell you after I have examined her,” replied the priest. “But you must go up to the loft and rest; we need quiet here and more room for those who will take care of her.” He put Lavrans’s arm around his shoulder, lifted up the man, and helped him out. Kristin would have preferred to go with her father, but she didn’t dare show herself.

  When Sira Eirik returned, he didn’t speak to Ragnfrid but cut the clothes off Ulvhild, who was now whimpering less and seemed to be half asleep. Cautiously he ran his hands over the child’s body and limbs.

  “Are things so bad for my child, Eirik, that you don’t know what to do? Is that why you have nothing to say?” asked Ragnfrid in a subdued voice.

  The priest replied softly, “It looks as if her back is badly injured, Ragnfrid. I don’t know anything else to do except to let God and Saint Olav prevail. There’s not much I can do
here.”

  The mother said vehemently, “Then we must pray. You know that Lavrans and I will give everything you ask for, sparing nothing, if you can convince God to allow Ulvhild to live.”

  “I think it would be a miracle,” said the priest, “if she were to live and regain her health.”

  “But aren’t you always talking about miracles both day and night? Don’t you think a miracle could happen for my child?” she said in the same tone of voice.

  “It’s true that miracles do occur,” said the priest, “but God does not grant everyone’s prayers—we do not know His mysterious ways. And don’t you think it would be worse for this pretty little maiden to grow up crippled and lame?”

  Ragnfrid shook her head and cried softly, “I have lost so many, priest, I cannot lose her too.”

  “I’ll do everything I can,” replied the priest, “and pray with all my might. But you must try, Ragnfrid, to bear whatever fate God visits upon you.”

  The mother murmured softly, “Never have I loved any of my children as I have loved this one. If she too is taken from me, I think my heart will break.”

  “God help you, Ragnfrid Ivarsdatter,” said Sira Eirik, shaking his head. “You want nothing more from all your prayers and fasting than to force your will on God. Does it surprise you, then, that it has accomplished so little good?”

  Ragnfrid gave the priest a stubborn look and said, “I have sent for Fru Aashild.”

  “Well, you may know her, but I do not,” said the priest.

  “I will not live without Ulvhild,” said Ragnfrid in the same voice as before. “If God won’t help her, then I will seek the aid of Fru Aashild, or offer myself up to the Devil if he will help!”

  The priest looked as if he wanted to make a sharp retort, but he restrained himself. He leaned down and touched the injured girl’s limbs again.

  “Her hands and feet are cold,” he said. “We must put some kegs of hot water next to her—and then you must not touch her again until Fru Aashild arrives.”

  Kristin soundlessly slipped down onto the bench and pretended to sleep. Her heart was pounding with fear. She had not understood much of the conversation between Sira Eirik and her mother, but it had frightened her greatly, and she knew it wasn’t meant for her ears.

  Her mother stood up to get the kegs; then she broke down, sobbing. “Pray for us, nevertheless, Sira Eirik!”

  A little while later her mother came back with Tordis. The priest and the women bustled around Ulvhild, and then Kristin was discovered and sent away.

  The light dazzled Kristin as she stood in the courtyard. She thought that most of the day had passed while she sat in the dark winter house, but the buildings were light gray and the grass was shimmering, as glossy as silk in the white midday sun. Beyond the golden lattice of the alder thicket, with its tiny new leaves, the river glinted. It filled the air with its cheerful, monotonous roar, for it flowed strongly down a flat, rocky riverbed near Jørundgaard. The mountainsides rose up in a clear blue haze, and the streams leaped down the slopes through melting snow. The sweet, strong spring outside made Kristin weep with sorrow at the helplessness she felt all around her.

  No one was in the courtyard, but she heard people talking in the servants’ room. Fresh earth had been spread over the spot where her father had killed the ox. She didn’t know what to do with herself; then she crept behind the wall of the new building, which had been raised to a height of a couple of logs. Inside were Ulvhild’s and her playthings; she gathered them up and put them into a hole between the lowest log and the foundation. Lately Ulvhild had wanted all of Kristin’s toys, and that had made her unhappy at times. She thought now that if her sister got well, she would give her everything she owned. And that thought comforted her a little.

  Kristin thought about the monk at Hamar—he at least was convinced that miracles could happen for everyone. But Sira Eirik was not as sure of it, nor were her parents, and they were the ones she was most accustomed to listening to. It fell like a terrible burden upon her when she realized for the first time that people could have such different opinions about so many things. And not just evil, godless people disagreeing with good people, but also good people such as Brother Edvin and Sira Eirik—or her mother and father. She suddenly realized that they too thought differently about many things.

  Tordis found Kristin asleep there in the corner late in the day, and she took her indoors. The child hadn’t eaten a thing since morning. Tordis kept vigil with Ragnfrid over Ulvhild that night, and Kristin lay in her bed with Jon, Tordis’s husband, and Eivind and Orm, her little boys. The smell of their bodies, the man’s snoring, and the even breathing of the two children made Kristin quietly weep. Only the night before she had lain in bed, as she had every night of her life, with her own father and mother and little Ulvhild. It was like thinking about a nest that had been torn apart and scattered, and she herself had been flung from the shelter and wings that had always warmed her. At last she cried herself to sleep, alone and miserable among all those strangers.

  On the following morning when Kristin got up, she learned that her uncle and his entire entourage had left Jørundgaard—in anger. Trond had called his sister a crazy, demented woman and her husband a spineless fool who had never learned to rein in his wife. Kristin grew flushed with rage, but she was also ashamed. She realized that a grave impropriety had taken place when her mother had driven her closest kinsmen from the manor. And for the first time it occurred to Kristin that there was something about her mother that was not as it should be—that she was different from other women.

  As she stood and pondered this, a maidservant came up to her and asked her to go up to the loft to her father.

  But when she stepped into the loft room Kristin forgot all about tending to him, for across from the open doorway, with the light shining directly in her face, sat a small woman, whom she realized must be the witch—although Kristin had not expected her to look like that.

  She seemed as small as a child, and delicate, for she was sitting in the big high-backed chair that had been brought up to the room. A table had also been placed in front of her, covered with Ragnfrid’s finest embroidered linen cloth. Pork and fowl were set forth on silver platters, there was wine in a bowl of curly birchwood, and she had Lavrans’s own silver goblet to drink from. She had finished eating and was wiping her small, slender hands on one of Ragnfrid’s best towels. Ragnfrid herself stood in front of her, holding a brass basin of water.

  Fru Aashild let the towel drop into her lap, smiled at the child, and said in a lovely, clear voice, “Come over here to me!” And to Kristin’s mother she said, “You have beautiful children, Ragnfrid.”

  Her face was full of wrinkles but pure white and pink like a child’s, and her skin looked as if it were just as soft and fine to the touch. Her lips were as red and fresh as a young woman’s, and her big hazel eyes gleamed. An elegant white linen wimple framed her face and was fastened tightly under her chin with a gold brooch; over it she wore a veil of soft, dark-blue wool, which fell loosely over her shoulders and onto her dark, well-fitting clothes. She sat as erect as a candle, and Kristin sensed rather than thought that she had never seen such a beautiful or noble woman as this old witch whom the gentry of the village refused to have anything to do with.

  Fru Aashild held Kristin’s hand in her own soft old hands; she spoke to her kindly and with humor, but Kristin could not find a word to reply.

  Fru Aashild said to Ragnfrid with a little laugh, “Do you think she’s afraid of me?”

  “No, no,” Kristin almost shouted.

  Fru Aashild laughed even more and said, “She has wise eyes, this daughter of yours, and good strong hands. And she’s not accustomed to slothfulness either, I can see. You’re going to need someone who can help you care for Ulvhild when I’m not here. So you can let Kristin assist me while I’m at the manor. She’s old enough for that, isn’t she? Eleven years old?”

  Then Fru Aashild left, and Kristin was about to follow
her. But Lavrans called to her from his bed. He was lying flat on his back with pillows stuffed under his knees; Fru Aashild had ordered him to lie in this manner so that the injury to his chest would heal faster.

  “You’re going to get well soon, aren’t you, Father?” asked Kristin, using the formal means of address. Lavrans looked up at her. Never before had she addressed him in that manner.

  Then he said somberly, “I’m not in danger, but it’s much more serious for your sister.”

  “I know,” said Kristin with a sigh.

  Then she stood next to his bed for a while. Her father did not speak again, and Kristin could find nothing more to say. And when Lavrans told her some time later to go downstairs to her mother and Fru Aashild, Kristin hurried out and rushed across the courtyard to the winter house.

  CHAPTER 4

  FRU AASHILD stayed at Jørundgaard for most of the summer, which meant that people came there to seek her advice. Kristin heard Sira Eirik speak jeeringly of this, and it dawned on her that her parents did not much care for it either. But she pushed aside all thoughts of these things, nor did she pay any heed to what her own opinion of Fru Aashild might be; she was her constant companion and never tired of listening to and watching the woman.

  Ulvhild still lay stretched out flat on her back in the big bed. Her small face was white to the very edge of her lips, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Her lovely blond hair smelled sharply of sweat because it hadn’t been washed in such a long time; it had turned dark and had lost its sheen and curl so that it looked like old, windblown hay. She looked tired and tormented and patient, and she would smile, feeble and wan, whenever Kristin sat by her on the bed to talk and to show her all the lovely presents she had received from her parents and their friends and kinsmen far and wide. There were dolls, toy birds and cattle, a little board game, jewelry, velvet caps, and colorful ribbons. Kristin had put it all in a box for her. Ulvhild would look at everything with her somber eyes, sigh, and then let the treasures fall from her weary hands.