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