Kristin Lavransdatter

by Sigrid Undset

Dragons and all other creatures that serve the Devil only seem big as long as we harbor fear within ourselves. But if a person seeks God with such earnestness and desire that he enters into His power, then the power of the Devil at once suffers such a great defeat that his instruments become small and impotent.

“That’s the way folk dispatch their children these days. To God they give the daughters that are lame and blind and ugly and infirm; or if they think He has given them too many children, they let Him take some of them back. And yet they wonder why the men and maidens who live in the cloisters are not all holy people.

Her heart was bleeding with sorrow and shame, but she knew that she could not believe in miracles because she was unwilling to give up her inheritance of health and beauty and love.

“Ah, young child, you probably think there’s nothing else that entices in the world save sensual pleasure and wealth and power. I must tell you that these are small things that are found along the side of the road—but I, I have loved the roads themselves. It was not the small things of the world that I loved but the entire world.

“Don’t you see? I drove another human being to take her own life!” “Kristin,” the priest said sternly. “Are you so arrogant that you think yourself capable of sinning so badly that God’s mercy is not great enough?

It seems as if you think that your affection is worth paying dearly for, Erlend.” “Jesus!” Erlend hid his face in his hands.

His Word cannot be defiled by the mouth of an impure priest; it can only burn and consume our own lips—although perhaps you can’t understand this. But you know as well as I, along with every filthy thrall of the Devil that He has bought with His own blood—God’s law cannot be shaken nor His honor diminished. Just as His sun is equally mighty, whether it shines above the barren sea and desolate gray moors or above these fair lands.”

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Now she understood those words. A reflection of the splendor of God’s kingdom bore witness through the stones that His will was all that was beautiful. Kristin trembled. Yes, God must surely turn away with

when Lavrans Bjørgulfsøn decides to speak about a matter, he receives everyone’s full support, for he never speaks without understanding the issue so well that his opinion would be difficult to refute.

The last time she knelt here in this church she had fully realized that when she said such things in her heart she had been trying to deceive God with tricks and lies.

“Help me, Gunnulf,” begged Kristin. She was white to the very edge of her lips. “I don’t know my own will.” “Then say: Thy will be done,” replied the priest softly. “You know you must open your heart to His love. Then you must love Him once more with all the power of your soul.”

the torment of God’s love will never end as long as men and maidens are born on this earth, and that He must be afraid of losing their souls—as long as He daily and hourly surrenders his body and his blood on thousands of altars and there are those who reject the sacrifice.

You who have given birth to two children—have you never thought about the fact that every child who is born is baptized in blood, and the first thing a person breathes on this earth is the smell of blood? Don’t you think that as their mother you should put all your effort into one thing? To ensure that your sons do not fall back on that first baptismal pact with the world but instead hold on to the other pact, which they affirmed with God at the baptismal font.”

He realized full well that this would not last. No man could live on earth in this manner for long. And he had received each hour of that bright springtime like a pledge—a merciful promise that would strengthen his endurance when the skies darkened over him and the road led down into a dark ravine, through roaring rivers and cold snowdrifts.

And now here he lay with his sick little son in his arms and dreamed of such things. He was so shocked at himself that he didn’t dare try to sleep anymore. And he couldn’t bear to lie awake in bed. He must truly be fated to unhappiness. Rigid with anguish he lay motionless and felt the clench of his heart in his breast, while he longed for the redemption of dawn.

He loved the holy mass and prayers spoken in Latin, and he regarded the church as the place where he felt the most joy.

There is no worthier work for the person who has been graced with the ability to see even a small part of God’s mercy than to serve Him and to keep vigil and to pray for those people whose sight is still clouded by the shadow of worldly matters.

So a man must learn to accept, when he produces offspring from his own body, that his heart will burn if he loses them or if the world goes against them. God, who gave them souls, is the one who owns them—not I.”

He would always beg her forgiveness after taking time to reflect, and she would say that she forgave him. But afterwards he could see that it was simply stored away, not forgotten.

Sorrowfully, the daughter thought that she still didn’t understand her mother. But now she was beginning to realize how much she didn’t understand.

Erlend would find out soon enough what kind of joy a man had from his daughters.

He thought it shameful and unmanly if he could not be content with such a life as he had.

“Pray for his soul, Kristin—although I’m convinced that Lavrans and your mother have long ago found solace with those from whom they sought comfort for all the sorrows they endured here on earth. And certainly Lavrans still holds you firmly in his love there too, but your prayers and the masses said for his soul will bind you and all the rest of us to him. How this occurs is one of the secret things that are difficult to fathom, but I have no doubt that this is a better way than if he should be disturbed in his peace to come here and appear before you.”

What you scream in your heart does not become a prayer until you have said your Pater noster without deceit.

she had learned over and over again, from her yearning every time a child grew out of her arms, and from her joy every time a new one lay at her breast, that her happiness was inexpressibly greater than her struggles or pain.

When a mother’s children have grown away from her, then she becomes an old woman.

the choral voices surged beneath the vaults, the organ swelled, and the flutes, drums, and stringed instruments resounded, Kristin understood why the church might be called a ship. In the mighty stone building all these people seemed to be on board a vessel, and the song was the roar of the sea on which it sailed. Now and then calm would settle over the ship, as if the waves had subsided, and the voice of a solitary man would carry the lessons out over the masses.

Now she seemed to be looking back at her soul during those years: It had lived the way people live on farms during the busy summer half of the year, when everyone moves out of the main house and into the lofts over the storerooms. But they walk and run past the winter house all day long, never thinking of going inside, even though all it would take was a lift of the latch and a push on the door. Then one day, when someone finally has a reason to go inside, the house has turned strange and almost solemn because it has acquired the smell of solitude and silence.

She opened her eyes and looked at the ring lying in the dark palm of the smith. And her tears burst forth in torrents, for she felt as if she had never before fully understood what it signified. The life to which this ring had married her, over which she had complained and grumbled, raged and rebelled. And yet she had loved it so, rejoicing over it, with both the bad and the good, so that there was not a single day she would have given back to God without lament or a single sorrow she would have relinquished without regret.

It seemed to her a mystery that she could not comprehend, but she was certain that God had held her firmly in a pact which had been made for her, without her knowing it, from a love that had been poured over her—and in spite of her willfulness, in spite of her melancholy, earthbound heart, some of that love had stayed inside her, had worked on her like sun on the earth, had driven forth a crop that neither the fiercest fire of passion nor its stormiest anger could completely destroy. She had been a servant of God—a stubborn, defiant maid, most often an eye-servant in her prayers and unfaithful in her heart, indolent and neglectful, impatient toward admonishments, inconstant in her deeds. And yet He had held her firmly in His service, and under the glittering gold ring a mark had been secretly impressed upon her, showing that she was His servant, owned by the Lord and King who would now come, borne on the consecrated hands of the priest, to give her release and salvation.

“I mean that it’s only a man’s sins that it does any good for him to regret.” “Why is that?” “Because no one is good without God. And we can do nothing good without Him. So it’s futile to regret a good deed, Ulf, for the good you have done cannot be taken back; even if all the mountains should fall, it would still stand.” “Well, well. That’s not how I see things, my Sira. I’m tired . . .” “Yes . . . and you must be hungry too. Come with me over to the cookhouse, Ulf,” said the priest. “Thank you, but I have no wish to eat anything,” said Ulf Hal dorssøn. “All the same, you must come with me and have some food,” said Sira Eiliv, placing his hand on Ulf’s sleeve and pulling him along. They headed across the courtyard and over toward the cookhouse. Without thinking, they both walked as lightly and carefully as they could in the new snow.