Margit Sandemo: The Ice People 32 - Hunger

Hunger

The Legend of the Ice People 32 - Hunger

© Margit Sandemo 1986

© eBook in English: Jentas A/S, 2018

Series: The Legend of The Ice People

Title: Hunger

Title number: 32

Original title: Hunger

Translator: Nina Sokol

© Translation: Jentas A/S

ISBN: 978-87-7107-654-7

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchase.

All contracts and agreements regarding the work, translation, editing, and layout are owned by Jentas A/S.

Acknowledgement

The legend of the Ice People is dedicated with love and gratitude to the memory of my dear late husband Asbjorn Sandemo, who made my life a fairy tale.

Margit Sandemo

The Ice People - Reviews

‘Margit Sandemo is, simply, quite wonderful.’

- The Guardian

‘Full of convincing characters, well estabished in time and place, and enlightening ... will get your eyes popping, and quite possibly groins twitching ... these are graphic novels without pictures ... I want to know what happens next.’

- The Times

‘A mixure of myth and legend interwoven with historical events, this is imaginative creation that involves the reader from the first page to the last.’

- Historical Novels Review

‘Loved by the masses, the prolific Margit Sandemo has written over 172 novels to date and is Scandinavia s most widely read author...’

- Scanorama magazine

The Legend of the Ice People

The legend of the Ice People begins many centuries ago with Tengel the Evil. He was ruthless and greedy, and there was only one way to get everything that he wanted: he had to make a pact with the devil. He travelled far into the wilderness and summoned the devil with a magic potion that he had brewed in a pot. Tengel the Evil gained unlimited wealth and power but in exchange, he cursed his own family. One of his descendants in every generation would serve the Devil with evil deeds. When it was done, Tengel buried the pot. If anyone found it, the curse would be broken.

So the curse was passed down through Tengel’s descendants, the Ice People. One person in every generation was born with yellow cat’s eyes, a sign of the curse, and magical powers which they used to serve the Devil. One day the most powerful of all the cursed Ice People would be born.

This is what the legend says. Nobody knows whether it is true, but in the 16th century, a cursed child of the Ice People was born. He tried to turn evil into good, which is why they called him Tengel the Good. This legend is about his family. Actually, it is mostly about the women in his family – the women who held the fate of the Ice People in their hands.

Chapter 1

Did those who migrated to America in the nineteenth century actually realize how their move impacted on those they left behind? Did they ever learn of the tragedies that arose after they left?

Many migrated out of necessity, because their circumstances forced them to. Because there were too many offspring in the family and only one could inherit the miserly soil of the smallholding. The others would have to go into service. Only very few could afford to build their own house.

So emigration was their only option.

But there were just as many who made the journey out of a sense of adventure. The possibility of finding happiness lured them, the possibility of becoming wealthy – something that the son of a smallholder could only dream of ever becoming. And no one can blame them for embarking on such a journey. But they often gave very little thought to the suffering they inflicted on those whom they left behind.

Marit of Svelten was one person who was forced to suffer because of the thoughtlessness of such emigrants.

She was the latecomer of a big flock of siblings. A few of her brothers had emigrated. They would write home, describing the country in the west with grand words. The other siblings followed them. All of them, even the heir. For how could the stony, uneven soil in remote Svelten ever be attractive compared with the lure of all the gold that was to be found out there?

Their mother had died and their father was old and disgruntled. He objected to their leaving, and threatened to take his own life, but his son, the heir, stood his ground. He already had a big family that would feel cramped in that miserable cottage and he would soon have difficulty supporting it in the old country.

“You still have Marit, Father,” he said. “She can take care of you in your old age. That way you can go on living here.”

Marit was ten years old then. She was a skinny, timid little girl whose opinion no one was interested in hearing. And she was mortally afraid of her father, as she had good reason to be. Don’t leave me, don’t leave me! Don’t abandon me here with him, she would quietly pray. But no one had time to notice the look of despair in her eyes. All they knew was that they could leave with a clear conscience, because their old father wouldn’t be left to his own fate. Marit would be there.

Perhaps she would have liked to join them on their journey to the great unknown country? But no one bothered to ask what she wanted.

Was she to be left alone with their father? She who loathed every moment she had to be in the same room with him! Of course, she didn’t know the word “psychopath”, nor did she know that many people have the same reaction as she did and can’t bear to be near a psychopath without fully understanding why ... Her father had always been a complete egoist, and took every advantage of all those who were close to him. He complained and whined and always blamed others when things didn’t go his way, and was unbearably boastful, arrogant and condescending when they did. He was sly and cunning, and would slander others, would creep and crawl before the powerful and wouldn’t give the poor the time of day.

Little Marit felt almost nauseous whenever she was in his presence. And now the others were going to abandon her in Svelten with this rapidly ageing tyrant.

Her eyes filling with tears, she watched as her oldest brother and his large family disappeared down the valley.

Marit became one of the victims of emigration. Furthermore, she became one of the many who were left by society to sacrifice their lives to their old parents. For who ever took the time to consider that these caretakers also had a life? That they might in time have wished to start a family of their own, but instead were forced to abandon all those plans for the sake of a “commendable deed”, as outsiders called it? That these were independent individuals with lives of their own, and not just convenient to have around when you needed to place responsibility for the elderly on someone else so that you could leave?

In the light spring evenings, Marit would stand looking at the view behind the barn and listening to the echo of children’s voices. Those children were her nephews and nieces who had played in the yard and the surrounding woods.

They were gone now. To a land so distant she couldn’t even imagine it. The yard, the path, the entire area was quiet. It had merely been memory that had triggered the echoes of the voices that were no longer there.

She stood there with a longing that was like a physical hunger, and looked across the landscape of endless forest below Svelten. She could discern four streams but no houses. The forest path from Svelten wound invisibly among the spruces down into the valley, which was concealed by some small jutting hills. Down there was the village. Far, far away. There lay the main farm to which the smallholding of Svelten belonged, and where her brothers had had to go to daily to work – virtual slave labour – in order for the family to be able to survive in Svelten. The big farm was also where most of the crops from their smallholding went, constituting their rent.