The truth is, Erland, that few are born to rule, but all are born to serve; true nobility is to be your servants’ servant.

Sigrid Undset (1882-1949)
Author of Kristin Lavransdatter

“It had been years ago that Naakkve began comparing his father to other men – his father was the most handsome of men, with the bearing most like a chieftain. His mother was the mother who had more and more children; they grew up and left the hands of women to join the life and companionship and fighting and friendship of the group of brothers. His mother had open hands through which everything they needed flowed; his mother had a remedy for almost every ill; his mother’s presence at the manor was like the fire on the hearth. She created life at home the way the fields around Husaby created the year’s crops; life and warmth issued from her as they did from the beasts in the cowshed and the horses in the stable. The boy had never thought to compare her to other women… Tonight he suddenly saw it: She was a proud and beautiful woman. With her broad, pale forehead beneath the linen wimple, the even gaze of her steel-gray eyes under the calm arch of her brows, with her heavy bosom and her long, slender limbs. She held her tall figure as erect as a sword. But he could not speak of this; blushing and silent, he walked beside her, with her hand on the nape of his neck.”

Sigrid Undset (1882-1949)
Author of Kristin Lavransdatter