Simon Andresson is slightly injured in a bar fight, but his lack of attention to his injury leads to his death from blood poisoning. The estrangement of Kristin and Erland precipitates pivotal events of The Cross. Erland quits the household and heads to his remaining property, a farm north of Jorungaard.
Finally, after a particularly bitter argument, Kristin insults Erland by comparing him unfavorably with her father. Kristin and Erland, now nearly friendless, begin to quarrel, mostly about the future prospects for their numerous sons. A needless (though understandable) alienation between Kristin and her sister Ramborg (who is married to Simon Andresson) further stresses the household. The strain of a new child, the trouble and concern her sons cause her, and the cavalier attitude of Erland combine to bring Kristin to a breaking point. He spends his time hunting, riding his horses, and amusing himself while Kristin runs the estate and worries about the inheritances of their six sons: Nicklaus (called Naakkve) Björngulf Gaute twins Ivar and Skule and little Lavrans (named for Kristin’s late father).Įrland retains his charm and attraction for Kristin and they have a seventh son, Munan. Erland has no interest in the running of the estate and less than no interest in making himself amenable to the small farmers of the valley where Jorungaard lies. Kristin remains to the end, then, Kristin: vibrant, tormented, beautiful, troubled, striving, frustrated.Īfter the return to Jorungaard, Kristin’s ancestral home where she and husband Erland have been forced to move because he has lost his ancestral estates at Husaby as punishment for his part in a plot against the Norwegian throne (detailed in The Wife, Book II of the trilogy), the marriage begins to break down.
Kristin’s death comes as a result of her caring for the body of a plague victim after having saved the woman’s child from human sacrifice – an attempt by villagers near the convent where Kristin has become a nun to appease the evil spirit that they believe has brought the pestilence upon them.
The final volume of Sigrid Undset’s three part saga of medieval Norway, Kristin Lavransdatter, known by its individual title, The Cross, completes the story of its eponymous heroine and ends with her death during the bubonic plague pandemic of what Barbara Tuchman called “ the calamitous 14th century.” Having lost her husband, Erland, her friend, brother-in-law, and secret admirer Simon Andresson, and four of her eight beloved sons already, one would expect that she is worn out by life’s heartbreak and suffering. Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross (image courtesy Goodreads)
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