Kristin Lavransdatter

“No one and nothing can harm us, child, except what we fear and love.”

Lavrans’s advice to his daughter foreshadows the relationship with Erlend that will dominate so much of her life. Kristin’s marriage to Erlend is complicated, veering between fear and love and many emotions in between. Since she both fears and loves Erlend, however, he has a power to hurt her like no one else.

“She began looking for evidence that other people, like herself, were not without sin.”

Kristin’s shame and guilt imbue her with a fresh cynicism. Increasingly, she recognizes that she is not unique in the world. She is not the only sinner and most other people are hiding their guilt from the world. This recognition of the interior lives of others is an important moment in Kristin’s conception of her own sin, helping her to realize that she is not alone in failing to live up to God’s expectations.

“Simon was silent for a long time.”

Simon struggles with silence throughout his life. Though he is a very successful and well-liked man, his sense of duty prevents him from speaking up for what he wants, condemning him to a life in which his love for Kristin will fester inside him as a lingering regret. Simon’s silence denies him the opportunity to be truly happy.

“He has the makings of a chieftain, he was someone men would have followed, gladly; but these are not the times for such men.”

Simon does not hide his respect for the quiet, pious Lavrans. To Simon, Lavrans could have led armies to war, such was his soft charisma. Lavrans had the misfortune of being born during a time when all he needed to do was farm and devote his life to God, rather than lead vast armies across countries. To Simon, Lavrans is a natural warrior and someone he would follow into battle. The times in which they live, however, are not suited to such men, and Lavrans is cast as a man out of time.

“We are both to blame for this deed.”

Kristin is a young woman who has been forced to grow up fast. Not only does her love for Erlend make her entertain ideas of elopement, but the tragic circumstances of Eline’s death mean that she is forced to reckon with violence and guilt that would not have registered in her life had she remained betrothed to Simon. She recognizes her complicity in these deeds, accepting blame on herself for Eline’s death as well as the sinful nature of her relationship with Erlend.

“Up in Heidal people had apparently made an old woman sit outside on a buried stone and recite ancient incantations on three Thursday nights in a row.”

Norway is a Christian country, but tragedies and desperation have a tendency to drive the population away from the teachings of the church and toward more traditional beliefs. The pagan rituals and practices exist on the boundaries of society, rarely acknowledged but understood to have real power. From women sitting on rocks to dwarf maidens to healing practices, pagan beliefs are an unspoken reality in Medieval Norwegian society.

“When the sin is consummated it will give birth to death.”

Eline issues her warning to Kristin, speaking from experience. She was also seduced by Erlend, though under very different circumstances. Eline and Kristin are united in their perceived sin as well as their love for Erlend; they both bear his children, and, they attribute the tragedies in their lives to their having transgressed the moral boundaries of their Christian community. Eline predicts that the sinful way in which these relationships begin means that they are doomed to end in death.

“Behind the costly tapestries which covered the walls, the soot and the dirt had not been washed from the timbers.”

Erlend’s estate is symbolized by the tapestries that hang on the walls. The fortune and splendor of the house hide the sin and dirt that lurks beneath, just as Erlend’s family name and his heroic deeds obfuscate his sinful behavior. Erlend’s splendor does not stand up to close scrutiny.

“The first priest then opened a small cupboard in the wall and took out a balance scale and weighed the crown, while the other made a note of it in a ledger.”

For Kristin, the pilgrimage after the birth of Naakkve is one of the most difficult moments in her life. For the priests in the cathedral, her donation of the wedding crown is commonplace enough to be included in the cathedral accounts. There is a process for the accounting of sin, with atonement measured out like a commercial transaction. One of Kristin’s most challenging moments is, for the priests, just another order of business in a sinful world.

“‘All her youth is being stripped from her in this way.’ He rammed one fist against the other. ‘I don’t understand why our lord should think we need a new son every year.’”

Erlend looks at his young wife and sees the way in which childbirth has stripped Kristin of her vitality. Each child is a risk and a sacrifice in an era lacking in medical knowledge, with Kristin’s childbirth proving particularly taxing and taking from her some of the life and youth, which first attracted Erlend to her. Kristin gives up a part of herself—her youth and her health—for each of her children.

“He must be the kind of man who couldn’t tolerate anything truly good or pure to be near him.”

Erlend feels guilty for leading Kristin away from the moral values of her community. He feels his love for her as a heavy emotional burden, and as happy as he is with her, he already longs to be free of that weight. He wonders whether he is so fundamentally sinful that he must lead whoever he loves into sin as well.

“You know quite well that my father wouldn’t refuse you if you asked for my hand.”

Ramborg seduces Simon through a line of reasoning that he cannot escape. Though he loves Kristin, he allows Ramborg to convince him to marry her, accepting her love as a pale reflection of the love of the woman he truly admires. Ramborg’s reasoning is not based on romance or love, but logic and sensibility. Simon, who will never be able to love Ramborg as he loves Kristin, cannot find a reason to deny her.

“And it was revealed that his wife had indeed practiced sorcery.”

When someone is prosecuted for a crime or accused of a sin, their proximity to sorcery is suddenly remembered. In Medieval Norway, many people are tangentially related to magic or pagan beliefs in some fashion. Healing, superstitions, and folklore all contravene Christian teaching. These issues are used to conveniently bolster accusations.

“She was a witch—but so beautiful.”

Erlend throws the word witch around in a flippant manner. Ironically, he has been suspected of fraternizing with “heathen” people, but he is happy to refer to his own wife as a “witch” (612) as it lessens his responsibility for her sin. She seduced him with witchcraft, he muses, which justifies the way in which he corrupted her and led her into sin. Erlend uses the accusation of witchcraft to mask his own guilt for leading Kristin away from the righteous path.

“She realized that there was nothing for her to gain inside the walls of the convent.”

Kristin’s relationship with the convent shifts over the course of her life. She is first tempted to sin with Erlend while staying in one convent, and she enters into another convent near the end of her life, but during the middle passages of the novel, she is not yet ready to dedicate her life to God. She has nothing to gain inside the convent because she must first learn about herself and the world through experience. Kristin’s proximity to the convent is a way in which to chart the story of her life and her personal morality.

“He kept to himself and pretended not to notice that no one sought out his company.”

Erlend is cast into social exile, even if he escapes the punishment of actual exile. With so few people willing to talk to him, he is made to realize how much other people have taken advantage of his reckless attitude to drive the conspiracy forward. He alone is punished, becoming a useful scapegoat for the other conspirators. Erlend’s social isolation makes him feel even more foolish, so he says nothing so as not to draw attention to the way in which he has been manipulated.

“Shouldn’t she use every measure to save the boy’s life? Even if it was a sin?”

Kristin is desperate to save Simon’s son, particularly as she feels guilty for hurting Simon so badly in the past. In desperation, she turns to a pagan practice that she knows is sinful according to Church teaching. This is an important turning point for her, as she realizes that caring for others is more important than maintaining her own sense of moral purity.

“He had felt a terrible, painful shame deep in his heart—as if he had mistreated a child.”

Simon feels guilty for the way in which he treats his wife, chiefly because he can never love her as he feels that she deserves to be loved. The reason for this is partially that he will always see her as Kristin’s little sister; he will always see her as a child. He feels as though he has mistreated a child because he still thinks of Ramborg as a child, illustrating how he can never truly love her as an equal.

“She thought bitterly that she and her family were commoners now and the affairs of the realm no longer concerned them.”

Kristin has little interest in the affairs of the realm, particularly after Erlend’s downfall. To her, such political matters are not only distant and alien, but they also represent the vaunting ambition that brought about Erlend’s downfall. She and her family are not truly commoners, as they own land, but this exaggerated claim emphasizes the degree to which Erlend’s actions have harmed them.

“For me, no doubt, the game is over. But I see in my sons, Kristin, that they will attain the positions which are their birthright.”

Erlend senses the profound failure that his life has become and, for the first time, he has begun to plan for the future. While he may never achieve fame and glory, he can do so vicariously through his sons. Erlend’s desire to train his sons is a tacit admission of his failure. This failure has had such an impact on Erlend that he has begun to plan years in advance, rather than continuing the recklessness that has defined his character.

“That he would end up feeling as if nothing he had acquired afterward in life were an equal replacement for what he had lost back then.”

Simon is the most successful character in the novel in many respects. He earns the trust and admiration of his neighbors, he expands his family’s fortunes, and he acts in an honorable manner at all times. None of this, however, can make up for the absence of Kristin’s love. Even someone as successful and as beloved as Simon cannot be happy because he covets something that he can never have.

“Everyone expected the greatest benefits for the realm of Norway now that they would once again have a king who was reared and lived among them.”

The political turmoil and change in monarch has a tragic element for Erlend, representing the completion of the conspiracy that led to his downfall. Everything has come to pass as he planned, only several years too late. He does not live long enough to see the arrival of the world he tried to build.

“Homesickness urged her forward; homesickness drew her back toward the village and the manor.”

Kristin is homesick for a place to which she cannot return. She has lost loved ones who are now consigned to the past, and the love she feels for them pulls her back to Jørundgaard, even though she knows that the Jørundgaard of the present is not the Jørundgaard of the past. She longs for a time and a place, an emotional ideal that feels like home, but that no longer exists. This tension between the emotional longing and the physical reality is represented in Kristin’s conflicted homesickness.