The Bridal Wreath quotes

“And that it could not either,” said Brother Edvin. “It was not bigger.

Dragons and all suchlike that serve the devil, seem great only so long as fear is in ourselves.

But if a man seek God fervently and with all his soul so that his longing wins into his strength, then does the devil’s power suffer at once such great downfall that his tools become small and powerless—dragons and evil spirits sink down and become …

But had they but known it, they could have taken all the hills and slung them forth into the sea like so many pebbles.

No one, nor anything, can harm us child, save what we fear or love.

”

She laughed quietly, and said: “I have had my happy time, Kristin, and I am not so foolish as to murmur, if now, since I have drunk up my wine and beer, I have to put up with skimmed milk and sour.

Good days may last long if one lives wisely and deals warily with what one has; all wise folk know that, and ’tis therefore, I trow, that wise folk must rest content with good days⁠—for the best days of all cost very dear.

In this world they call him a fool who wastes his heritage that he may make merry in the days of his youth. As to that each man may deem as he lists.

“I see how ’tis with you, my sweeting; you little know how sore I am at heart to lose you.

Kristin, you know we have grown up together like two apples on one branch; I loved you long before I began to understand that one day another would come and break you from me.

As sure as God suffered death for us all—I know not how I can ever be happy in this world after today—”

But this did not help for long; she lay by Ulvhild’s side of nights and wept bitter tears at the thought of all this that had been brought upon her by brute force.

Bentein had not failed altogether⁠—he had wrought scathe to the maidenhood of her spirit.

The first workday after Christmas all the women on Jörundgaard were busy in the kitchen-house; Ragnfrid and Kristin had been there, too, for most of the day.

he drew his sword, seized the German she was struggling with by the back of the neck, and threshed him with the flat of his blade. His men ran after the other, caught him and beat him to their hearts’ content.

Kristin leaned against the face of the rock; she was trembling now that all was over, but what she felt most was marvel that her prayer had brought such speedy help.

Then she caught sight of Ingebjörg, who had thrown back her hood, hung her cape loosely over her shoulders and was in the act of bringing her heavy, shining plaits of hair forward into sight upon her breast.

a stone wall divided them from the woods. Erlend helped her up. As she jumped down on the other side, he caught her and held her lifted in his arms a moment before he set her on the grass.

She stood with upturned face to take his kiss.

He held her head between his hands—it was so sweet to her to feel his fingers sink into her hair—she felt she must repay him, and so she clasped his head and sought to kiss him, as he had kissed her.

Slowly, wearily, and with crushing pain it came home to her—she knew not what she had hoped he might do—set her upon his horse, maybe, and carry her off with him so she might be spared from going back amongst other people.

It was as though her whole body ached with wonder⁠—that this ill thing was what was sung in all the songs.

And since Erlend had wrought her this, she felt herself grown so wholly his, she knew not how she should live away from him any more. She was to go from him now, but she could not understand that it should be so.

Erlend came to evensong in the convent church every evening for a week without Kristin getting a chance to change a word with him.

She felt as she thought a hawk must feel sitting chained to its perch with its hood over its eyes.

Every word that had passed between them at their last meeting made her unhappy too—it should never have been like that. It was of no use to say to herself: it had come upon them so suddenly, they had hardly known what they said.

“You ought not to blame me,” answered Kristin sadly.

“ ’Tis not you I blame,” said Erlend quickly, with a shamed look.

“I had not thought myself,” went on Kristin, “that ’twould come so easy to me to lie. But one can do what one must do.”

“Had you never met me,” said Erlend, “you might well have had good days with him, Kristin. Why laugh you?”

“Oh, I did but call to mind somewhat Lady Aashild said once,” answered Kristin. “I was but a child then⁠—but ’twas somewhat about good days falling to wise folk, but the best days of all to those who dare be unwise.”

“God bless my kinswoman, if she taught you that,” said Erlend and took her upon his knee. “ ’Tis strange, Kristin, never have I marked that you were afraid.”

An ill thing, too, the farmers deemed it that once again a child would be King in Norway. Old folks called to mind the time when King Magnus was dead and his sons were little children, and Sira Eirik said:

“Vae terrae, ubi puer rex est. Which in the Norse tongue is: No resting o’ nights for rats in the house where the cat’s a kitten.”

Ragnfrid Ivarsdatter managed all things on the manor while her husband was gone, and it was good both for Kristin and for her that they had their heads and hands full of household cares and work.

“What mean you by that?” asked the father, looking up sharply.

“Many a man greets his son-in-law and knows not of it,” said Ragnfrid.

The man seemed to stiffen where he sat; his face grew slowly white:

“It is so.” He laughed a little.

“You and I, Ragnfrid⁠—we have kept all the fasts, and striven to do God’s bidding in all things. And now almost I could think⁠—maybe we had been happier had we more to repent⁠—”

“Oh, speak not so—you,” she begged wildly, pressing her thin hands to his temples. “You know well I would not you should do aught but what you feel yourself is the right.”

He crushed her in his arms again, for the last time, and kissed her in the dark.

Then he made the sign of the cross over his wife’s face, and went up the stair.

Ragnfrid flung off her clothes and crept into bed. A while she lay and listened to her husband’s steps in the loft-room above; then she heard the bed creak, and all was still. Ragnfrid crossed her thin arms over her withered breasts:

“Aye, and thereby mark their mother as your concubine,” said Lady Aashild. “But ’tis past my understanding how that meek and holy man, Jon Helgesön, will dare to brave his Bishop by wedding you against the law.”

“I confessed⁠—all⁠—to him last summer,” said Erlend in a low voice.

“He promised then to wed us, if all other ways should fail.”

“Never would you have willed another should be a leper,” said Aashild vehemently.

“Mind you, Moster, you said to me once that ’tis well when we dare not do a thing we think not good and fair, but not so well when we think a thing not good and fair because we dare not do it?”

“You had not dared to do it, because ’twas sin,” said Lady Aashild.

“No, I believe not so,” said Kristin. “Much have I done already that I deemed once I dared not do because ’twas sin.

But I saw not till now what sin brings with it⁠—that we must tread others underfoot.

”

Ulvhild brightened a little when he showed it to her. But Ragnfrid said that was surely no time to rear up such a beast—what would he do with it at a time like this?

“I will rear it up and bind it before my daughters’ bower,” said Lavrans, laughing harshly.

But they could not get for the cub the rich milk it needed, and Lavrans had to kill it a few days after.

Spring came at a single bound.

Only a few days after the sudden thaw the whole parish lay dark brown under the flooding rain.

“Aye, a young child like you thinks, maybe, there are no other lures in the world than pleasure and riches and power. But I say to you, these are small things men find by the wayside; and I—

I have loved the ways themselves⁠—not the small things of the world did I love, but the whole world.

God gave me grace to love Lady Poverty and Lady Chastity from my youth up, and thus methought with these playfellows it was safe to wander, and so I have roved and wandered, and would have been fain to roam over all the ways of …

she spied some white threads in it. Aye, he must be near thirty-two years old—but he bore himself like a mischievous boy. She knew she would not be able to tell him of her trouble—time enough when he saw it for himself.

Laughing tenderness streamed through her heart, over the hard little spot of anger at its core, like a glittering river flowing over stones.

She loved him above all on earth—her soul was filled with her love, though all the time she saw and remembered all those other things.

All those who had known her where she had lived before—they seemed like visions of a dream, standing there, close-packed in the church in their unwonted garments. But

Sir Björn stood against a pillar, looking at those two with his dead eyes, and it seemed to her that that other who was dead must needs have come back with him, on his arm.

She tried to look up at Saint Olav’s picture—he stood there red and white and comely, leaning on his axe, treading his own sinful human nature underfoot—but her glance would ever go back to Sir Björn;