In the Wilderness (31 page)
Authors: Sigrid Undset
But Mærta Birgersdatter was just as calm as was her wont, and Olav was just as calm as she, and they sat and talked together in the evening. But Olav said very little, for he spoke rather thickly, from the wound in his mouth, and it shamed him to talk. He was glad that the children
had
been fetched—Torhild Björnsdatter was the only one he was loath should see him, now that he was thus marred.
3
This river (now called the Akers-elv) runs through some of the eastern quarters of the modern town of Oslo (Christiania). Its course lay some little distance to the north-west of ancient Oslo, cutting off the town, by land, from the fortress of Akershus, to the north of which was a marsh (where the city of Christiania was afterwards built). By water (or ice) the distance between mediæval Oslo and Akershus was comparatively short, across the Björvik (Bjaarvik), a small inlet at the head of the fiord. Akershus was newly built at the time of this story; the old royal castle of Oslo, which had been handed over to the Governor of the town and the clergy of St. Mary’s, stood on the opposite shore of the Björvik, at the mouth of the little river Alna, which runs at the foot of the hill of Eikaberg.
4
Men of Lier (near Drammen).
5
These lines are from the Eddic poem called “The Guest’s Wisdom.” The speaker is Odin.
Sigrid Undset is a major figure in early twentieth-century literature. A Norwegian born in Denmark in 1881, she worked with the Norwegian underground during the Second World War, fled to Sweden in 1940, and later came to the United States. She is the author of many works of fiction as well as several books for young readers and a number of nonfiction titles. Her novels encompass a variety of settings and time periods, ranging from medieval romances such as the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy—generally considered to be her masterwork—and The Master of Hestviken tetralogy to modern novels such as
The Winding Road
,
Ida Elisabeth
, and
The Faithful Wife
. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928. Sigrid Undset died in 1949.
The Master of Hestviken Series
The Axe
The Snake Pit
In the Wilderness
The Son Avenger
Kristin Lavransdatter Trilogy
Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath
Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife
Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross
S
IGRID
U
NDSET
The Kristin Lavransdatter Series
The acknowledged masterpiece of the Nobel Prize–winning Norwegian novelist Sigrid Undset,
Kristin Lavransdatter
has never been out of print in this country since its first publication in 1927. Its story of a woman’s life in fourteenth-century Norway has kept its hold on generations of readers, and the heroine, Kristin—beautiful, strong-willed, and passionate—stands with the world’s great literary figures.
THE BRIDAL WREATH
Volume I
Volume I,
The Bridal Wreath
, describes young Kristin’s stormy romance with the dashing Erlend Nikulaussön, a young man perhaps overly fond of women, of whom her father strongly disapproves.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-394-475299-0
THE MISTRESS OF HUSABY
Volume II
Volume II,
The Mistress of Husaby
, tells of Kristin’s troubled and eventful married life on the great estate of Husaby, to which her husband has taken her.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-394-75293-8
THE CROSS
Volume III
Volume III,
The Cross
, shows Kristin still indomitable, reconstructing her world after the devastation of the Black Death and the loss of almost everything that she has loved.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-394-75291-4
The Master of Hestviken Series
THE AXE
Volume I
Set in thirteenth-century Norway, a land racked by political turmoil and bloody family vendettas,
The Axe
is the first volume in Sigrid Undset’s epic tetralogy,
The Master of Hestviken
. In it we meet Olav Audunsson and Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter, who were betrothed as children and raised as brother and sister. Now, in the heedlessness of youth, they become lovers, unaware that their ardor will forge the first link in a chain of murder, exile, and disgrace.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-75273-8
THE SNAKE PIT
Volume II
Olav Audunsson and Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter became lovers when they were barely beyond childhood and endured a long and bitter separation before they could wed. Now they are beginning what each hopes will be a new life—but in Ingunn’s past lies the shame of an illegitimate child and in Olav’s past lies murder. And the guilt they carry may prove more destructive of their happiness than all the years they spent as outcasts. In conveying both the emotional immediacy of Olav and Ingunn’s love and the epic sweep of their story,
The Snake Pit
is a masterly recreation of a vanished world tainted by bloodshed and haunted by sin and retribution.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-75554-8
IN THE WILDERNESS
Volume III
In the third volume of her medieval epic, Sigrid Undset plunges readers into a world that is at once profoundly alien yet inhabited by men and women as recognizable as our own kin. Heartbroken by the death of his wife and estranged from a son who may not be his, Olav leaves Hestviken on a journey of adventure, temptation, and remorse that leads him to a bloody reckoning at the gates of Oslo. Vividly, poignantly, and with the fierce grandeur of a Norse folktale,
In the Wilderness
portrays the terrible conflicts of a man who is both sinner and penitent in an age that lies on the cusp of savagery and faith.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-75553-1
THE SON AVENGER
Volume IV
As a young man Olav Audunsson committed two murders for love. Now he has outlived his enemies and the woman he killed for. But in the last years of his life, Olav must watch his grown children—and particularly his rebellious son Erik—reenact the sins of his youth, with even more fearful consequences. Powerfully written and filled with magnificent vignettes of the daily life of a medieval estate,
The Son Avenger
suggests a Greek tragedy whose vision of fate coexists with a Christian sense of suffering and forgiveness.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-75552-4
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