![]() ![]() For a time the community works as one but it does not last long, as change arrives once more on the shores of Vardø. ![]() Soon their food stores run low and the women are forced to take the boats to the sea and cast out their nets. Vardø is a silent place now, those who are left struggle to find their way, a new life they know they must live. Now, she lives with her mamma and her brother’s widow and unborn child, in the space between grief and disbelief. ![]() Maren Magnusdatter lost her beloved papa and brother in the storm, their bodies washing up days later like pale lumps of driftwood. And they must fend for themselves, dare to go beyond the scopes of tradition and acceptability, if they want to survive the winter. And yet the reality of it lies in the absence of so many loved ones, the grief clutching every heart left behind. The storm’s speed and ferocity was almost akin to witchcraft, conjured and called to claim the men. ![]() Their sodden bodies wash up on the rocks, and the wives and mothers and sisters and daughters of the lost men, arrive to take them away, take them to a safe place until the ground is soft enough to bury them. A storms drives in from the distance, ravaging the boats and killing forty men swiftly as fish caught in a net. The year is 1617 and on the shores of Vardø, disaster strikes. ![]()
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