Olav Audunssøn #1 Vows

by Sigrid Undset, Norway
translated by Tiina Nunnally.
As a child, Olav Audunssøn is given by his dying father to an old friend, Steinfinn Toressøn, who rashly promises to raise the boy and eventually marry him to his daughter, Ingunn. Against the backdrop of turbulent thirteenth-century Norway and the complicated relatuionship between Olav and Ingunn, a series of fateful decisions leads to murder, betrayal,exile, and disgrace. In Vows, the first book in the powerful Olav audunsson tetalogy, Sigrid Undset presents a richly imagined world split between pagan codes of retribution and the constraints of Christian piety - all of which threaten to destroy the lives of two young people torn between desires of the heart and the dictates of family and fortune.
Paperback, 358pp. 1925/2020