Aaah! How annoying! I got to the end of the book before I found out that this is book three of a trilogy and it's a Lars Mytting!!
I hate reading a series of books out of sequence, and now I'm not even sure if I will want to read the other two books as now I know how it all ends up. Fortunately, the book works very well as a stand alone and I enjoyed it a lot, but why can't publishers state in big writing on the front 'Book One of trilogy' etc so readers don't get caught out.
Oh well, too late now. Lars Mytting is worth reading, even out of sequence, and this a translation from Norwegian, although that never detracts from the pace of the text, in fact the translation by Deborah Dawkin is brilliantly done. The book begins in 1613 when a farmer comes across a dying ewe in the deep snow of the mountains, and she has used the last of her strength to protect her young lamb form the biting cold and snow piled up all around them. Eirik Hekne carries both animals back down to his farm where his twin daughters will happily care for the lamb and keep it alive after its mother dies.
This part of the story marks the beginning of a local legend that passes on through the ages, because the lamb is no ordinary creature and it's fleece glistens like silver thread. The twin girls are also remarkable as they are co-joined at the hip but when the religious leaders of the country become obsessed with hunting down witches and unnatural creatures, the Henke family becomes a target on both counts.
The girls became weavers at very young age and the locals started to believe that the pieces they produced may have special powers. The priest talked this down but there was one huge piece that too them the whole of their lives to create, and that tapestry became known as the Henke Weave and many people believed it could predict the future. When the girls died (thankfully of natural causes) their father had two silver church bells cast in their memory and inscribed with their names, Halfrid and Gunhilde. The bells were hung in the local stave church, but over time one had been lost and historians had spent much time looking for the lost bell and the weave.
When Germany invaded Norway in World War Two, the Nazis were intent on finding and taking possession of both objects because the bells were linked with Dresden after one of them was once taken to hang in another stave church in the city. A local priest, Kai Schwigaard, became determined to keep the bell and weave out of Nazi hands so he and Astrid Henke (a direct descendent of the twins) do their best to prevent their history being plundered, but their efforts come at a great cost.
I first came across this author when I was given a copy of his book 'The Sixteen Trees of the Somme' as a birthday present, and that turned out to be one of the best books I have ever read. This one is also a great piece of work and Lars Mytting is certainly an author worth getting to know.
My review of The Sixteen Trees of the Somme is HERE
Comments
Post a Comment