Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath

by Sigrid Undset Book 1 in the Kristin Lavransdatter series.

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Kristin grows up at Jørundgaard in Gudbrandsdalen, deeply attached to her honourable father Lavrans and conscious that she is expected to marry the dependable Simon Darre. Encounters with violence, sexual danger and death disturb the security of her childhood, and a period at Nonneseter convent in Oslo brings her into contact with a wider and less protected world. There she meets Erlend Nikulausson, an older nobleman whose former relationship with Eline Ormsdatter has already left him with two children and a damaged reputation.

Kristin and Erlend begin a secret relationship that breaks her betrothal, divides her family and leaves her pregnant before their wedding. The novel follows the moral and practical consequences of their passion through confession, pilgrimage, church law, marriage negotiations and a final confrontation with Eline. Its account of farms, convents, roads, feast days and kinship obligations establishes the social and religious world that will govern Kristin for the rest of the trilogy.