“But weren’t they inside the caves?” asked Kristin. “Saint Sunniva and the Selje men?5 Isn’t that true?” The monk squinted at her and smiled again. “It’s both true and not true. It seemed to be true for the people who found the holy bodies. And it seemed true to Sunniva and the Selje men, because they were humble and believed that the world is stronger than all sinful people. They did not imagine that they might be stronger than the world because they did not love it. But if they had only known, they could have taken all the mountains and flung them out into the sea like tiny pebbles. No one
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