Culture Watch
Page Three, October 2010
Ingunn’s father, Steinfinn, was killed as the result of a long-simmering feud involving his wife’s ex-fiancé. As teenagers, Steinfinn and his wife, Ingebørg, had run off in an elopement without, as the saying goes, benefit of clergy, thus defying her parents and refusing their hand-picked suitor, a man named Mattias. Ultimately, the couple was reconciled with their families, and they were formally married after their daughter, Ingunn, was three years old.
Many years later, Mattias, who had been out of the country, returned, and, still simmering from the loss of Ingebørg, visited a humiliating revenge on Steinfinn – which in turn brought about a retaliatory raid on Mattias’s manor, during which Steinfinn received a mortal wound.
With his death, Steinfinn’s brother, Kolbein, became head of the family, and was thus able to designate whom Steinfinn’s daughters could marry. He did not favor Olav. In a series of events so dire that the bishop was called in to make peace, Ingunn, who had repaired to a convent until the matter was settled, refused to marry Kolbein’s choice for her. She was sent in disgrace, neither bride nor maid, to live with her aunt and grandmother. Olav was forced to flee. He spent many years serving in various armies and households. Eventually, he was able to claim his inheritance as the Master of the Manor of Hestviken. He visited Ingunn, and promised that as soon as he had put things in order at his Manor, he would be back for her.
In that interim, a traveling man from Denmark visited the house of Ingunn’s aunt, and engaged Ingunn in a flirtation despite the fact that he was considerably below her social status. An unwise evening of dancing and drinking led to an actual rape, which Ingunn kept hidden. Ultimately, a resultant pregnancy became evident, ruining her reputation beyond all repair.
She bore a son, whom she named Eirik. Olav’s reaction to this, when he returned and expected to claim her as his bride, was what one might expect – except that, after an initial rage and parting, he recalled all that Ingunn had meant to him, and he returned to claim her, leaving the child, Eirik, to be cared for by a foster mother. Olav then took Ingunn to Hestviken, where for a short time they were happy. Before long, however, he realized that Ingunn was pining for her son. Olav then brought the child home, and pronounced Eirik as his own son.
Olav, a silent and thoughtful man, did not find Eirik easy to love. The child was given to telling tall tales, and to impulsive actions that led him from one scrape to another. Eventually, as he grew older, a kind of truce evolved between father and son. The father/son relationship was, for this reader, the most rewarding part of what was an altogether fascinating read.
There is not room in this review to give fair coverage of the plot/plots in this book. Suffice it to say that we follow Olav and Ingunn and Eirik and his sister, Cecelia, through many life-changes and struggles. It is, I believe, impossible not to wind up loving them all. Undset’s nearly magical ability to pull us into their heads and hearts is in itself a thing of wonder. Their growth and hard-won understandings mirror in some measure our own, modern lives, even though their circumstances are hardly parallel to our own.
— JS
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©2010 Julia Sneden for SeniorWomen.com
