Torjus of Homme played the fiddle for a wedding procession from Morgedal to Brunkeberg church and back, and then for the dance held later that evening in the barn at Brekke farm. Birgit's big sister Ingebjørg had found a way to escape their father's tyranny: marriage to a decent man from a farm another dale away.

Three kjøgemesters worked the festivities – two to handle surly Hard Knut and his oldest son Ornery Olav, and one for the rest of the crowd.

Gunnhild of Dalen tried to avoid the crude menfolk of Brekke, but her dance partner fell out to banter with those very fellows. She wished she hadn't promised him the next dance.

"We ought to do like Sweden and replace our king," one man said.

"Not a wise move of King Frederik to join forces with Napoleon," someone else agreed. "Look at all the trouble it's caused."

"Trouble?" Olav growled. "What other choice did he have? You want our kin the Danes to grovel at the feet of those snooty Brits?"

"Looks to me," came a light-hearted reply, "like it was a choice of bowing either before Britain or Napoleon, one or the other. Which foot smells worse?" The kjøgemester removed a shoe, and his comrade gagged and fell over, to the amusement of all.

Gunnhild eased closer to the cluster of men.

"What were the Swedes thinking, though," someone said, "to put a childless, elderly relative on the throne?"

"He's just a puppet, a placeholder."

"A token of good old Swedish flavor and respectability," the conversation swirled on, "as they ease into the new French regime."

"French what?"

"Haven't you heard? The new king's heir apparent is a general from Napoleon's army!"

"Not Swedish?"

"No northern blood at all."

"Not a commoner, is he?"

"Jo, he's of royal blood."

"Royal French blood."

"Uff da, you're not saying the French liberated themselves, only to shift their old aristocracy onto Sweden? What's his name? Louis the Twentieth or some such?"

"Jean something, by birth, but now he has taken the name Karl Johan."

"A toast to good prince Karl Johan," the kjøgemester said. "May all Frenchmen adopt honest Scandinavian names!"

"Good?" Ornery Olav spat on the floor in disgust. "I hear he inherited a greedy heart. He has his eye set on Norway. But let him try, just let him try. We'll throw him off, just like we did the king before him."

The music started up again, and Gunnhild's beau showed no sign of abandoning the grousing bunch. The seventeen-year-old sighed and wandered off, looking for a cup of ale to quench her thirst. She came across Birgit tending her two-year-old brother, the youngest of five boys.

"Now that Ingebjørg is married and moving away," Gunnhild said with a wry smile, "how will you fare in a household of men?"

"I'm not the only woman," seven-year-old Birgit replied. "There's my mor, too."

"Ja, but she can't always keep you safe, not when she can hardly leave her sickbed." Gunnhild brushed at a bruise on the girl's arm.

"Far is going to take in an orphan to cook for us, so then there'll be three women. She'll work for her food and a place to sleep. Mor wanted to hire her friend Fru Hansdotter to make our flatbread, but Far says he won't pay a cent." Birgit glanced around, then pointed at another young girl. "Sometimes when Far is drunk, Mor sends me to stay overnight at Øvrebø farm with my friend Hæge. Hæge and Jon Homme and I are all the same age. She lives up the north slope of Morgedal. It's close to home, but not too close. And Jon's cousin Sweet Siri at Byggland is even closer. She's two years older than us three."

"Good." Gunnhild sighed with relief. She'd love to do more to shelter her young friend, but the ridge and a long walk lay between their farms.

"Would you tell my brother the story of Kari Woodencloak?" Birgit asked. "I like the way you make the bull sound so big and gruff, but kind as a bestefar!"

So Gunnhild sat with the two and told of poor Kari and the dun bull that saved the princess from her evil stepmother.

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BEHIND THE SCENES

Photo from 2006 at the open air museum near Kviteseid: a typical barn

A kjøgemester is emcee and peace-keeper at sometimes-rowdy community festivities.