The Mercies
Way back in February (a mere two months that feels like two years ago thanks to covid-19), I read Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s novel, The Mercies (2020). Set predominately in the far northern town of Vardø, in Finnmark, Norway from 1617-1621, this is a novel punctuated by the harshness of both the natural world and human viciousness. The Mercies fictionalizes historical events. A devastating storm on Christmas Eve of 1617 killed nearly all of the town’s men; Hargrave begins her novel on that day. In the pages that follow she weaves two women’s stories together and The Mercies builds toward Vardø’s brutal witch trials of 1621.
The novel opens with Maren, a Finnmark native, on the day of the great storm. Following the loss of their men to the storm, the women of Vardø break with gender norms in order to survive following the death of nearly all their town’s men. Some women naturally arise as leaders while others mourn not only their men, but also their lost traditions that strictly separated the work of men and women. By breaking with these traditions, the town’s remaining citizens (almost entirely women and children) survive, but as the years pass the dangers of trespassing gender roles build, divide the town, and threaten to destroy lives.
Several years after the storm, Commissioner Absalom Cornet, an ambitious outsider, arrives in a divided Vardø determined to solidify the authority of the Church just. The commissioner brings his new bride, Ursa, with him. She too is an outsider having grown up in relative comfort in south-western Norway. In Vardø, young Ursa settles into a life starkly different from that of her youth and attempts to survive by reaching out to a local. Ursa’s character highlights the patriarchal norms that governed seventeenth-century Nordic life and the limited means of self-determination available to women, while Commissioner Cornet embodies the single-mindedness of authoritative patriarchy as it seeks to secure its authority and encourage homogeneity.
As the novel develops, Maren and Ursa find their lives increasingly interwoven. While their daily lives have been wildly different, both women have had little control over the course of their lives; the great storm destroyed all of Maren’s plans just as Ursa’s marriage upends her world. In one another, they find comfort, support, and love in the midst of frightening times as Ursa’s overzealous husband encourages the village women to turn against one another.
Throughout the novel, Hargrave explores the clash of three cultures: the Vardø villagers (like Maren), the outsiders brought in to govern and establish supremacy of the Christian Church (like Commissioner Cornet), and the Sámi, derogatively referred to as the Lapps. The Sámi firmly resisted the Christian religion and clung to their traditional beliefs and nomadic lifestyles. The Mercies opens with an excerpt from the Denmark-Norway Tolddom (Sorcery) Decree of 1617 by order of the king, enacted in Finnmark in 1620. Hargrave’s novel reflects how King Christian IV appointed English, German and Scottish men (many of whom had experience in their home countries in solidifying the position of the Church by means of witch trials and the like) to serve as Commissioners and Lensmann in order to enact his sorcery decree. With the enactment of the sorcery decree came a series of witch trials, which typically affected the Sámi people living in the area. Ursa’s husband, Commission Cornet, fueled by ambition, greed, righteousness and an already divided community, takes the witch trials of Vardø a step further and the town’s women must face the heart-breaking consequences of their infighting.
The novel culminates in the historically-inspired witch trial. While Hargrave certainly fictionalizes Vardø’s 1621 witch trials, her novel immortalizes this the largest of the Finnmark witch trials. Her reader contends with the fear and building anxiety faced, no doubt, by members of Vardø’s seventeenth-century community. Ultimately The Mercies explores not only the vicious means by which the Church and crown established their dominance, but also themes of female desire and self-determination at a time when breaking with heavily patriarchal social mores might lead to accusations of witchcraft, torture and death.
I really enjoyed the atmosphere of The Mercies and I think Hargrave succeeds in transporting her reader to Norway’s northern shores. Her characters come alive through dialog that nods to their Nordic world, and as Maren teaches Ursa to survive in Vardø, she shares seventeen-century Finnmark culture with the reader as well. It was the descriptions of Finnmark’s landscape and the details about daily life that I most enjoyed in The Mercies. The plot felt a bit predictable, as I knew it headed for the tragic witch trials which promised to destroy lives. I was somewhat disappointed with the novel’s conclusion. It concludes quickly and seems a bit too tidy for such a harsh time as the 1621 Vardø witch trials. And yet, The Mercies explores a fascinating time in northern Europe’s history as cultures clashed, people suffered, and the Church established its supremacy among the populations of the far north. In the end, The Mercies compels its reader to distrust any social outlook narrowly defined by strict roles and homogeneous thinking. In an age when nationalist zeal is on the rise, such lessons, even through the lens of historical fiction, are worthwhile and important.
