Five-minute digest
The Bridal Wreath (Kristin Lavransdatter I)
Summary
The Bridal Wreath, published in Norwegian in 1920 as Kransen, is the first volume of Sigrid Undset's trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter, set in fourteenth-century Norway. This text is the 1923 English translation by Charles Archer and J. S. Scott. The later volumes, The Mistress of Husaby and The Cross, are not included. Kristin is the daughter of Lavrans Björgulfsön, a just, devout and generous landowner, and his melancholy wife Ragnfrid, who have lost three sons in infancy. The family lives at Jörundgaard in the valley of Gudbrandsdal. As a child Kristin is devoted to her father and is befriended by Brother Edwin, a gentle, wandering monk who teaches her about God's mercy. Her younger sister Ulvhild is crippled in an accident. Kristin is betrothed by her parents to Simon Darre, a good-natured young man of a respectable family. Her childhood friend Arne, who loves her, is killed in a quarrel over her, and a man named Bentein attempts to assault her, leaving her name touched by gossip. To let things settle, she is sent to the convent of Nonneseter in Oslo for a year. There she meets Erlend Nikulaussön, a handsome, reckless knight of high birth, who rescues her from danger in the town. They fall passionately in love, and Kristin, against her conscience, becomes his lover. She learns that Erlend has a past: he lived for years with a married woman, Eline Ormsdatter, and has children by her, and he has been excommunicated for it. Kristin breaks her betrothal to Simon, who discovers the truth but, generously, keeps her secret from her father. Eline confronts the lovers and dies by her own hand, and Kristin and Erlend conceal what happened. After long resistance, Lavrans gives his consent to the marriage, though he distrusts Erlend. Kristin goes to her wedding already pregnant and burdened by guilt, wearing the golden bridal wreath of a maiden. The volume ends with the great wedding feast at Jörundgaard, where Lavrans watches his daughter with mixed love and unease. Undset portrays medieval faith, family loyalty and passion with great depth.
Top Lessons
Freedom and obligation
Kristin chooses passion over her family's plans and her own conscience.
Fathers and daughters
Lavrans's love for Kristin is a moral center of the book.
Sin and grace
Brother Edwin's teaching frames Kristin's sense of guilt and hope.
Verified Quotes
“Think you not,” said Brother Edwin again, “that in God’s eyes we are all children he has cause to grieve for, crippled as we are with sin?”
“Simon is too good to gnaw the bare branch from which another man has broken the blossom.”