The Wreath: Kristin Lavransdatter #1

“’Are you so happy then, Kristin, to be going so far away from me, and for such a long time?’ asked her mother. Kristin felt both sad and crestfallen, and she wished that her mother had not said such a thing.”

Throughout the novel, Kristin and her mother are often at odds. From the beginning, the reader is not aware of the source of the tension, and here Ragnfrid lets her emotions get the best of her in a passive-aggressive comment that would not normally be considered appropriate to make toward one’s school-age daughter.

“Kristin saw a sight so glorious that it almost took her breath away. Directly opposite her, on the south wall of the nave, stood a picture that glowed as if it had been made from nothing but glittering gemstones.”

Kristin’s first experience in a cathedral church is vastly different than being inside her small parish church in Jørundgaard, and it is the stained-glass windows that truly mark the difference in her mind. The image of the Virgin Mary and other saints look to Kristin as though she is peering through a window into heaven, and this moment marks a core memory for her as she struggles with her faith throughout the novel.

“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 […].”

Brother Edvin is speaking with Kristin about the possibility of her entering the convent as an avowed religious sister, but Kristin tells him that since she is the only child at home, she is expected to marry. Edvin voices his concern over the kinds of people who are often sent off to the convent, often by their families if they are undesirable in some way, and not sending those who are the best or most virtuous.

“Suddenly he straightened up, tore an axe out of the hands of one of the men, and strode over to where several servants were still holding on to the ox. He struck the beast between the horns with the blade of the axe so that the ox sank to its knees, but Lavrans kept on hammering away until blood and brains were spattered everywhere.”

Normally a very reserved man marked by self-control and dispassionate action, Lavrans is seized with rage at the circumstances that have only just now befallen his daughter Ulvhild at the hooves of the loose beast. Unable to control his anger, he slaughters the ox in cold blood, striking it until he is unable even to stand any longer due to his own blood loss. This is the first time that the reader sees Lavrans display any emotion beyond his normally stoic facade.

“But she did not want that kind of faith; she did not love God and His Mother and the saints in that way. She would never love them in that way. She loved the world and longed for the world.”

Contemplating the possibility of bargaining with God for a miracle, Kristin wonders if she dares to enter the convent and promise herself to a life of prayer and devotion if it will cure Ulvhild. In a moment of honest self-knowledge, however, Kristin realizes that she does not have the requisite faith, nor love, for an act such as that, admitting that her love of the world and the things of the world is too strong.

“She had heard about the desires and temptations of the flesh in church and in the Holy Scriptures, but it had meant nothing to her. Now it had become clear that she herself and everyone else had a sinful, fleshly body encompassing the soul, biting into it with harsh bands.”

After her escape from attempted sexual assault by Bentein, the priest’s illegitimate son, Kristin has had her virginal innocence damaged. Now, the warnings of the Church against sins of the flesh have come to life in an entirely new way; her struggle with passion, her own body, and her own desires will plague her the rest of the story as she ends up feeling repulsed by Simon and irresistibly drawn to Erlend.

“We think it wise of your father and your betrothed to send you here to the Virgin Mary’s house for a time, so that you can learn to obey and to serve before you are charged with giving orders and commands.”

Having requested to be sent away for a time to regain her composure and to shield herself from the judgmental eyes of the townsfolk, Kristin arrives at the convent and is spoken to by the abbess, Fru Groa; Kristin is advised to use her time at the convent wisely and to learn virtues that will be useful to her as a wife and the mistress of a house who will be expected to run the day-to-day workings of an estate.

“They went past the Minorites’ cloister, and Kristin’s heart shrank with shame, for she suddenly remembered that she had wanted to offer most of her silver for Arne’s soul.”

Kristin is parted from a good portion of her money in buying expensive shoes before she recalls that she had intended to use a great deal of the money her father had given her in order to request prayers to be said in memory of Arne, her childhood friend and first love whom Bentein has killed. It is an example of Kristin prioritizing short-term pleasure over long-term values.

“She felt her heart open up, brimming over with gratitude and promises and love for God and His gentle Mother—she felt them so near.”

Many of Kristin’s good intentions and pious thoughts are accompanied by thoughts of herself and her own fears or desires that sway her from righteous choices. However, praying in the convent chapel after the events of being rescued by Erlend, she experiences a rare moment of religious conviction and peace of heart, where her thoughts are directed solely towards God. It is ironic that Erlend is responsible for her religious epiphany because he will be the cause of her going against the Church’s values.

“We will stand by what we swore to each other last night, Erlend—if you feel as I do.”

Having only recently met, and having spent only a handful of hours together, Kristin and Erlend meet and swear their fealty to one another in a scene evoking Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Even after discovering the difficulties in the other’s circumstances—Kristin’s betrothal and Erlend’s prior excommunication and adulterous living situation—they press on, not worrying about the future.

“Kristin went back inside and crawled into bed again; then she let herself go and wept for the first time since she had become Erlend’s possession.”

Ever since falling in love with Erlend, Kristin has tried to manage the opposing emotions consequent to their relationship: the love and desire she feels for Erlend, and the shame and sorrow she feels at the harm she knows she is doing to the other people in her life that she loves and to whom she feels obligated.

“She began looking for evidence that other people, like herself, were not without sin. She paid more attention to gossip, and she took note of all the little things around her which indicated that not even the sisters in the convent were completely holy and unworldly.”

Here, Kristin gives evidence of a basic human reaction to one’s own sin: if she can find evidence that others are just as sinful as she, or perhaps even more so, then she can feel better about herself and justify her own actions by comparison. This attempt at justification is a coping mechanism that allows Kristin to avoid the possible regret that she feels.

“Brother Edvin had impressed on her the responsibility of answering for her own life, and for Erlend’s as well, and she was willing to bear this burden with grace and dignity.”

Up to this point, Kristin has been under some delusion about the nature of her actions and the consequences that will follow. After her conversation with Brother Edvin, however, she begins to see that she will have to take responsibility for the course of action she has chosen, as well as for the actions of Erlend.

“She whimpered silently in fear at the inconstancy of her own heart and at the transitory nature of all things.”

When Kristin is surprised by a visit from Simon, they discuss her coldness and distance from him. Simon supposes that she is still sorrowing after the death of Arne because she loved him. Ashamed, Kristin realizes that she has hardly given Arne any thought, and she begins to fear that she will similarly be forgotten by Erlend.

“‘I never thought,’ she went on, ‘that it would be so easy for me to lie. But what must be done can be done.’”

Once an innocent young girl, brought up virtuously and with a good heart, Kristin has discovered how to lie in order to get her way. She surprises herself at the ease with which she is capable of such things, and that she is not remorseful. Kristin’s awareness that she can discard the virtue of honesty opens the way for her to question other values she has held.

“‘Are you angry with me, Father?’ she asked softly. ‘Surely you must realize that I am,’ he replied, but he kept on caressing her cheek. ‘But you also know full well that you needn’t be afraid of me.’”

Lavrans’s character is revealed in this exchange with his daughter: Even though he is angry with the situation that has occurred and the broken engagement that he had given his word to uphold, he still is able to be kind and tender with his daughter, assuring her that even in his anger there is no reason for their relationship to be damaged, or for her to fear him.

“‘I’d be amazed,’ said Kristin, ‘If young people in love didn’t forget themselves once in a while, instead of always keeping in mind what their elders regard as proper.’”

Kristin has long tried to grapple with the varying emotions that she has felt for the men in her life—Arne, Simon, Erlend—and she answers Ulvhild here by remarking that she never found Simon someone with whom she could lose herself, and that she never received any passionate feelings from him. Her experience with Erlend reveals that the feelings between her and Simon could not have been love.

“If he were a good man, then he wouldn’t have approached such a young, immature child as you with words of love. He seems to have considered it trivial that you were promised to someone else.”

Lavrans is attempting to talk Kristin out of pursuing a relationship with Erlend; he may have been able to deal with the broken engagement to Simon Andresson, but he won’t accept this new relationship—new to Lavrans, that is—with a man who has been the subject of so much public scandal and who already has two children with another man’s wife. Lavrans is a good judge of character, understanding that the kind of man who would pursue a girl in Kristin’s situation cannot have her best interests at heart.

“‘It’s fasting time,’ she said quietly, her voice strangely hard. ‘So it is.’ Her husband chuckled. ‘You and I, Ragnfrid, we have observed all the fast days and have tried to live by God’s commandments in all things. And now it almost seems to me [...] that we might have been happier if we had had more to regret.’”

Reflecting on their daughter’s life and recent choices, Lavrans and Ragnfrid are forced to look back on their own lives together as husband and wife, and Lavrans admits that he has not often been an affectionate partner. Ragnfrid refuses his advances at this moment since it is a time of fasting—traditionally meant to include sexual abstinence as well—and Lavrans admits that perhaps they have been too strict with themselves over the years.

“Then Kristin stepped forward and grabbed the horn. ‘One of us must drink—you can’t keep both of us.’”

Realizing the true nature of the drink that Eline had brought for them to share—and which Eline has no intention of actually drinking—Kristin picks it up and declares that she will not tolerate a rival lover. Demanding that Erlend decide between them, Kristin threatens to take the poisoned drink herself if she is not to be his choice.

“Perhaps I’ll have the courage to ask the one who created me, such as I am, whether He will have mercy on me when the time comes. For I have never asked for His mercy when I went against His commandments. And I have never asked God or man to return one penning of the fines I’ve had to pay here in my earthly home.”

In speaking with Kristin about the gravity of their past sins and misfortunes, Fru Aashild tries to put her own experience into context, realizing that she has faced the consequences of her actions head-on her entire life and that she hopes to ask for mercy not for her sins—which she feels have caused her great suffering during her life—but for those things that happened outside of her control.

“Sir Munan burst out laughing and said, ‘My dear Lavrans, are you complaining that the maiden is not headstrong enough?’”

Lavrans and his guests hit on a curious dichotomy in Kristin’s personality when they both speak the truth about Kristin while saying things completely at odds with each other. On the one hand, Lavrans is correct: Kristin is compliant and docile in many things, and a husband who will have complementary strengths to make up for this deficiency would be of great help. On the other hand, Sir Munan is also correct in saying that Kristin’s will can be strong as iron in certain things, especially those about which she feels passionate.

“It seemed to her that he alone knew her whole life—he had known the foolish child that she had been under her father’s care, and he had known of her secret life with Erlend.”

The death of Brother Edvin hits Kristin hard not because they had been friends for a long time, but on account of the fact that her relationship with him had spanned her entire conscious life, from her time as a child seeing the stained glass in the cathedral for the first time all the way up to the present day, and that he had known all of her secrets. As the only one who had known the details of each phase of her life, his death feels like the death of the only one in the world who truly knew her soul.