Gunnhild shouldn't have been surprised that her father would want to remarry. She just hadn't considered the ramifications. The new wife at Dalen would be, for the twenty-year-old and her siblings, a stepmother.

Not an evil, middle-aged, widowed-queen stepmother like in the tales, the young folk at Dalen were glad to discover, but a never-married maiden only nine years older than Gunnhild.

The new wife proved to have a kind heart. Merry Margit came from Råmunddalen, the last farm before the trail from Homme's Crest to Brunkeberg drops down into Morgedal.

"Could you teach me this technique?" Merry Margit asked Gunnhild as she examined a white linen tablecloth. "I know how to do the satin stitch border squares, but not this open lacework inside."

"It takes a lightweight thread." Gunnhild threaded a needle, and the two bent their heads over the unfinished area.

.

Såmund Sawyer of Dalen was not the only grandson of Egeleiv to marry that year. His cousin Tall Såmund Aslaksson of Åe wedded for the first time. The bride, Aslaug Siskin, was born at Åkre, the farm of Tall Såmund's own birth. Her father had bought Åkre from Aslak not long after Tall Såmund's family moved to Åe.

Both wedding feasts took place at Åkre, not in the barn but in the huge new loft built just two years before.

While the grownups and teenagers danced in the spacious loft to the music of fiddle and drum, Jon Homme and Mundi Dalen, both age ten, bossed younger boys in war games around the twilit farmyard down below.

"You get to be Napoleon, in charge of the French army," Jon told his seven-year-old brother, waving at the five- and six-year-olds. "You lead them up the hill, and we Russians will meet you in battle. Ready?"

"Wait a minute," the reluctant Napoleon argued. "Didn't the French lose that one?"

"Ja, but they lost it grandly! And besides, you get to be the emperor!"

"Come on," Mundi Dalen said. "It'll be 'un massacre.' "

"What's a 'massacre'?"

"Lots of fun. You'll see!"

Jon and Mundi and their army of older boys stampeded down the hill and demolished Napoleon's troops, with far fewer casualties than the real Russians suffered two years earlier.

Next in Jon's plans came a reenactment of last year's attack by Swedish crown prince Karl Johan, prevailing against the French in German territories. But Napoleon mutinied against his marching orders, and the rest of the French army ran off to see a litter of puppies.

Jon and Mundi plopped down on the stairs up to the loft. "Those spoilsports," Jon said in disgust. "I was gonna be a great Karl Johan and crush the whole French empire."

"Nei, I was gonna be Karl Johan," Mundi said.

"It was my idea. That meant I got first choice."

"Well, if you got to be the one attacking Napoleon in Germany," Mundi declared, "then I should get a turn and be Karl Johan attacking Frederik in Copenhagen."

"Next time, maybe. Hey, look at that!" Jon pointed at two figures taking the path down to the creek. "My sister and your brother! Let's go spy on them!"

"This way!" Mundi pointed into the woods overlooking the path. "We'll circle around and creep up on them like wild Indians!"

The two set off through the brisk night breezes of early spring, stalking the unsuspecting fifteen-year-olds, plotting mischief.

.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Whether or not due to mischief by little brothers (product of author's imagination), the fifteen-year-old siblings did not pursue a romance. Mundi's brother married someone else, and apparently Jon's sister never married at all.

Åkre farm had a spacious loft built in 1812 that was used for community dances.