Ordering Chaos: The Mercies

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Picador

Pp. 336

With echoes of The Crucible, The Handmaid’s Tale and My Antonia, this is a fascinating tale of how the women in a remote society cope after a natural disaster wipes out most of the male population. The novel begins with the (real life) sudden storm on December 24, 1617 just off the coast of the island of Vardø, Norway’s north-easternmost point, which caused forty fishermen to drown in minutes. The women are left to mourn and bury their dead, and to try to work together to survive, until ‘a stranger comes to town’ and changes everything, resulting in accusations of witchcraft and a (again, real life) ‘trial’ held on 29 March 1620.

At the outset, there are stories of the women working together at domestic chores, after their men have been lost at sea; they undertake soothing rituals of the home (bread making and sewing), but they must also put to sea to fish, and butcher the meat – things the menfolk did but they are no longer here. The action of rowing becomes a metaphor for cooperation which, despite personal differences, is essential for survival. “They pull together as men rowing a boat. It is a closeness born of necessity: they need each other more than ever, especially as food begins to scarcen.” Maren observes that there is a rhythm and a natural order to their society, which we know will be overturned, because that is the chaos that makes drama.

Women are expected to fit a mould, and they cause discomfort to others when they break out of it. Men from the mainland come to bury the bodies when the earth has thawed enough to dig. They wish to wish to control women; they dislike seeing women doing manual labour such as fishing and butchering, and they disapprove of them wearing practical clothing (trousers) to do so.

Absalom Cornet is appointed by Lensmann Cunningham to visit the island, with his new wife, Ursa, and hunt out any instances of witchcraft. The sense of unease throughout the novel is palpable, and the reader may be horrified at the ending but not surprised. Hargrave is portentous in her foreshadowing from Maren’s dreams of dead whales to more explicit warnings that the arrival of men, and Absalom Cornet in particular, will have dire consequences. “They imagine he will be like their minister, have as little impact as snow falling into the sea. They imagine that their lives will go on, and that the worst is behind them. They imagine all sorts of silly, inconsequential things, and every bit of it is wrong.”

Some of the women have relied upon ritual to deal with grief and help them to feel safe; in some cases using runes and leaving food out for trolls. Maren is comforted by the Sámi ceremonies of Diina, her sister-in-law. “She had believed it, because in those months she was grasping for something, anything, to order the chaos that the storm had set among them.” Many of the women submit to soothing domestic routines, rather than praying in the church to a stern deity. Ursa has been brought up with housekeepers and no idea how to provide for herself; when Maren teaches her how to bake bread, the description is sacramental.

The men also need to find order in the chaos, so they choose to blame witchcraft. The clear rift between the meeting house and the kirke women is embodied between Kirsten and Toril. Kirsten is stronger, but Toril speaks the right words to the church men and there is nothing anyone can do against the charge of witchcraft. The things by which they accuse the women of witchcraft are very mundane. “It reads like a list of women’s gossip, from arguments over fish-drying racks to saying the Lord’s Prayer backwards.” The women collude with the practice and find that once accusations of witchcraft begin, they are as impossible to stop as the weather. “Oh, God have mercy on us. We have begun it, and cannot end it.”

The arrival of the witch finder destroys everything the women have built, but his wife also leads to conflict from the moment she alights from the boat in her vibrant yellow dress so dramatically different from the drab outfits of the island women. Ursa and Maren seek physical comfort in each other’s arms, but not until their emotions have threatened to overrun them and left them dumb. Kiran Millwood Hargrave has taken the bare facts of witchcraft trials in a Norwegian island, and woven them into a most intriguing tale full of contemporary themes. The lessons of how an isolated community is broken by those wanting power are ringing loud and clear. 

Steilneset Memorial in Vardo, Norway, commemorating the trial and execution in 1621 of 91 people (77 women and 14 men) for witchcraft