Kirsten strides about wearing trousers, clearing paths in the snow, restacking and lighting fires, caring for and slaughtering the village’s herd of reindeer, and talking to and trading with the sailors who come to the harbour. They are led by Kirsten Sørensdatter, someone who the rest of the village sees ‘as a woman apart’. Left to fend for themselves or die, the women slowly begin to take on the roles previously filled by their husbands, sons and brothers.
The novel begins on Christmas Eve, 1617, when a freak storm at sea kills the men of Vardø. In The Mercies, Kiran Millwood Hargrave takes the true story of the island of Vardø and allows us to experience it through the eyes of Maren, one of Vardø’s women, and Ursa, the wife of the Commander who is sent to police the village. Kirsten Sørensdatter in Kiran Millwood Hargrave's, The Mercies Here, Naomi Frisby explores how fear of women’s increasing knowledge and self-reliance led to a campaign of persecution in 1620s Vardø, and draws parallels with the treatment of women who dare to exert their autonomy today.
The Mercies tells the story of the women of Vardø through the voices of Maren, a young woman who has lost her father, brother and fiance in the storm and is now living an unexpectedly independent life, and Ursa, the young and inexperienced bride of the religious warden sent to bring 'order' back to Vardo. Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s stunning debut adult novel The Mercies was inspired by the true events of the Vardø storm and the subsequent witch trials of 1621. What followed was one of the biggest witch trials in Scandinavia. As suspicions grew, the local authorities came to believe that witches were responsible for the great storm. The church was already suspicious of Finnmark, a harsh, inhospitable and remote area where the indigenous Sami people lived amongst the Christian population. On Christmas Eve 1617 a terrible storm hit eastern Finnmark in northern Norway, and a large majority of the male population of Vardø died at sea. It was designed by artist Louise Bourgeois and architect Peter Zumthor. Pictured: The Steilneset Memorial in Vardø, Norway, commemorates the 91 people who were executed for witchcraft in 1621.
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