This novel is based on the 1617 storm off the coast of Vardo, Norway, where forty men drowned. Hargrave’s historical fiction depicts strong and beautiful relationships that develop among surviving women. She also demonstrates the ability of women to support each other during trying times. Not surprisingly, she also highlights some women’s cattiness and the “mean girls” mentality among some community members. The dynamics of female relationships within and across families are captured with sensitivity and empathy, including a strained mother/daughter situation and a heartwrenching relationship between a mother and daughter-in-law. The female characters are dealing with losing the men they love—husbands, sons, and betrothed. They are also figuring out how to survive without their male counterparts’ fishing and hunting roles.
The word “mercies” appears eleven times in this novel, a few more if you include other word forms. The dictionary says that mercy is compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone to whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm. Maren, the protagonist, shows mercy to Ursa, the naive city girl whose marriage to the sinister religious commissioner Absalom Cornet has been arranged. Maren shows mercy to the birds whose eggs she snatches. Kirsten and Maren show mercy to Pastor Kurtsson, the local man of the cloth. However, when Kurstsson implores God’s mercies upon the survivors of the 1617 Christmas Eve hurricane, it is challenging to convince independent-thinking women that there is any value to believing in this modern God about whom Kurtsson and Cornet preach. The title’s significance seems ironic and laughable since the men who preach about God’s mercies show little if any mercy to the women they are trying to convert. There is little attempt to understand the women; their purpose is to control, conquer, and eradicate them.
The message from Commissioner Absalom Cornet is that women who act upon their survivor instincts, do “man’s work,” or don’t yield to the power of men, will be accused of witchcraft. Absalom’s subjugation and abuse of his wife is a parallel story to his proud killing of many women who have been accused of sorcery. The males in power control the accused’s trials, and of course, the plot reveals who has power in the mostly female society—men. The accusations and desires to rid the area of witches are based on Scotland’s King James VI, who was determined to spread Lutheranism and drive out indigenous belief systems. It is a powerful story with themes that ring true for modern times.
