By Sigrid Undset | Translated by Arthur G. Chater

The Master of Hestviken tetralogy, set in thirteenth-century Norway, is the story of Olav Audunsson, a man whose life is a chronicle of conflict: between the brutal facts of the fading pagan order and the ascendant light of Christianity, between violence and peace, fidelity and betrayal, transgression and redemption.

The Wilderness follows Olav as he voyages from Hestviken to England, hoping for a respite from the regrets and ruins of life—his wife dead, his son estranged, and his own soul still stricken with a secret darkness. In London, Olav meets occasions for further sin but also for acceptance of the bonds of love—love for Ingunn, for home, for God. When his path eventually leads back to Norway, Olav answers the call to arms and goes to war. Battling for his homeland, he must reckon with suffering as a healing power, a force which can lift a man up and befit him with a deep, fierce joy.

His life had now become like a journey in a trackless wilderness; he saw neither path nor trail, and he had to find his way alone.

Considered by Undset to be her best work―surpassing even Kristin Lavransdatter, inspiration for her Nobel Prize in Literature―The Master of Hestviken captures the manners, morals, and spirit of its age, firmly grasping the basic realities of human character and history and creating a protagonist and a world of intense reality. Hailed as a triumph of fiction, The Master of Hestviken typifies Undset’s talent for seeing far into past and future alike and rendering “both the darkness which lies before them and the way through to the light beyond.”

Sigrid Undset (1882–1949) was a Norwegian novelist and essayist and a convert to the Catholic faith. In 1928, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. A number of Undset’s books are available from Cluny, including Kristin Lavransdatter, The Wild Orchid and The Burning Bush, and Saga of Saints.

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Paperback: 230pp.

ISBN: 978-1685954741