The Mandrake
The Mandrake
The Legend of The Ice People 16 - The Mandrake
© Margit Sandemo 1983
© eBook in English: Jentas A/S, 2017
Series: The Legend of The Ice People
Title: The Mandrake
Title number: 16
Original title: Galgdockan
Translator: Nina Sokol
© Translation: Jentas A/S
ISBN: 978-87-7107-534-2
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
She sat at the very top of the small rectangular tower on the roof of Graastensholm, her glowing gaze fixed on the thunderclouds. Each time a lightning flash tore through the sky her face would light up euphorically, practically in ecstasy, and her eyes would flash with a burning sulphur-yellow colour in response.
She heard her parents shouting: “Ingrid! Ingrid, where are you?”
She didn’t feel like answering. They were insignificant now. This was her moment. Her world.
Latent energies were awakening within her. I am one of them, she thought proudly to herself, because those of the Ice People who were touched by the curse always had a characteristically strong sense of self-awareness. I have always known that, but until now it has never meant that much to me. I have had so many other things to think about.
Alv Lind of the Ice People, son of Niklas and Irmelin, had married a girl from the village. Her name was Berit and she was, as most girls are, hardworking and robust, romantic and terribly proud of the fact that the big landowner at Graastensholm and Linden Avenue had wanted her as his wife. For Alv was a big landowner now, though he was still young. Actually, he was also supposed to have had Elistrand, but a completely unexpected heir had turned up and taken it over. Alv was actually relieved by this. It would have been a little too much having to run three farms.
Before he married Berit he needed to have a serious discussion with her. Of course, everyone in the village knew about the curse on the Ice People and that at least one born in each generation was afflicted by it, and that might cost the mother her life during childbirth. And Alv’s case was particularly serious, because he was the last in his generation to marry. Christiana had given birth to a son whom she named Vendel, and there was nothing wrong with him. Ulvhedin and Elisa had a boy, Jon, a real little treasure, and a letter from Sweden had arrived with the news that Tengel the Young now had a fine son by the name of Dan. They were not going to have more children.
So that left only Alv and his future offspring.
Did Berit dare take the chance? There was a great risk that they might have a child who was cursed, in which case she herself risked dying in childbirth.
But Berit loved the young, fawn-like Alv. She faced the danger wholeheartedly.
Everything went well. Berit gave birth to a little daughter, Ingrid, who had flaming copper-red hair, sparkling yellow eyes and a delightful face. What was more, Ingrid did not have the deformed shoulders that might otherwise have cost the life of her mother. Little Ingrid was a magnificent child, except for the fact that she was, to a great degree, cursed. The only thing that gave it away in her outward appearance was the colour of her eyes. They were the most sulphurous yellow anyone had ever seen. And then there was her temper! Now that was really something! She was a troll, a daredevil, who was practically impossible to bring up. If Tengel and Silje had had problems with Sol, it was nothing compared with the problems Ingrid’s parents faced. Added to this was the fact that Ingrid’s intelligence was so great that even the most learned men would be on their guard before starting a conversation with the gifted child. And she respected no one, not even the priest. Him perhaps least of all. Ingrid shunned the church like the plague, which made Alv and Berit tremendously uneasy. They knew that those who were most afflicted by the curse had a particularly difficult time persuading themselves to cross the threshold of a church.
It became apparent that her distant cousin, Jon Paladin of the Ice People at Elistrand, also had a bright mind, so he was allowed to study seriously with the priest. Ingrid was far more intelligent than Jon, and Alv sought permission for her to be tutored with him. But that was never going to happen! Both the priest and Ingrid put a stop to the idea. The priest refused because he could not imagine having a girl as a student – it was completely unheard of! Perhaps a little bird had also told him about Ingrid’s sharp mind and he did not want to risk being humiliated by an impudent little wench ... Furthermore, he had a hard time accepting her aversion to the church, and he had many times wondered how to knock some discipline into her: by public whipping, perhaps. The only problem was that she was of noble descent. One never laid a hand on members of the Ice People, that much at least the priest knew.
For her part, Ingrid resisted studying with the priest because she did not want to have anything to do with him and ten wild horses would not have dragged her to do so. Instead it was decided that Jon was to visit after each day’s lessons and pass on whatever he had learned to Ingrid. It had been a good arrangement – for a couple of years. Then there was suddenly nothing more that the priest could teach Ingrid. It ended with her staring gloomily and angrily down at the textbooks and, with a single movement of her hand, swee
ping them all onto the floor.
“What a load of rubbish!” she hissed. “He can take them back and use them to wipe himself in the privy!”
“Ingrid!” Alv said sharply. But he couldn’t punish her. No one ever raised a hand to Ingrid, just as they had never raised a hand to Sol when she was alive. If they tried, Ingrid would take revenge when they least expected it. Berit had tried it once and the next day had found one of her delicate pieces of weaving torn down the middle. Ingrid was punished again. She responded by standing in a corner during dinner muttering some strange words under her breath – and suddenly it was as though Berit’s porridge was filled with disgusting maggots right before her frightened eyes. After that day she never again laid a hand on her daughter.
Alv sighed. “We gave her as ordinary a Norwegian name as we could in the hope that it would have an effect on her character. Alas!”
A letter came from Sweden telling them that young Dan Lind of the Ice People was so intelligent that he had been granted permission to study under the Swedish Professor Olof Rudbeck the Younger, who was a linguist and botanist; Dan had also come into contact with other great Swedish scientists like Urban Hjärne and Emanuel Swedenborg.
Meanwhile, Ingrid’s childhood became a time of concern and bewilderment for her parents, because they loved her so boundlessly and wanted only the best for her. And she most certainly returned their love – in sudden, intense embraces or by creeping into their bed at night in order to avoid all the vile creatures in her room. Not that she was afraid of them, she would tell Alv and Berit, but they made such a noise and racket that she was unable to sleep. It was always quiet and peaceful in her parents’ bed. Many times Alv had gone with Ingrid back to her room in order to chase out the ghosts. But, of course, there were never any to be found. There would only be the moonlight, casting a silvery blue rectangle on the floor.
Ulvhedin was a great consolation to all of them during those years. He knew what it meant to grow up with the devil inside one and he was able to support and advise the little girl. Ulvhedin and Ingrid became great friends, and Ingrid many a time trudged down to Elistrand to ask Ulvhedin, who was twenty-four years her senior, for advice. It was not that she wanted to be nasty or bad, she would explain, it was just that every now and then all the evil in the world would roam around inside her. And whenever that happened it was good to get some reassurance from Ulvhedin that it was possible to fight off the evil with time.
Many of the elders talked a great deal about Sol – and Alv had to go down to Linden Avenue and make comparisons with the portraits there. There was no trace of Sol’s little cat-shaped face in Ingrid’s. Ingrid had enormous, amber-coloured eyes and dark brown eyelashes, a small nose and a wide mouth with exceptionally nice teeth. The little fawn-like feature that made the corners of her mouth turn upward was something she had inherited from her father, Alv. There was a streak of recklessness in her wild eyes and about her lips, but on the whole, her face was more classic than Sol’s. They were both very beautiful to look at.
It was the inner similarity between the two that Alv feared the most. It was alarmingly close.
Behind Sol’s cheerful madness, she had been deeply unhappy. Oh, how Alv wished with all his heart that his only child, Ingrid, would not suffer the same fate as Sol.
But the danger was there.
What frightened them most were all the stories of how Sol would so unscrupulously take the lives of anyone who stood in the way of the Ice People. Alv and Berit put all their energy into bringing up their little girl. They tried to teach Ingrid the difference between right and wrong, yours and mine; they tried to make her understand that other people had feelings just as she did. If she treated someone unfairly, that person would get just as upset about it as she would if it had been done to her. Both parents based their upbringing of Ingrid on the biblical command, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!” and they hoped that she would gain the ability to identify with the feelings of others.
Whether or not they had succeeded was, in the beginning, difficult to determine. Ingrid would do the most awful things. Like letting all the horses loose on the oat fields to give them a better life, or announcing to one of the area’s most distinguished ladies when she called that her mother, Berit, was not at home, because Ingrid knew her mother could not bear the lady in question. It was a little embarrassing, then, when Berit suddenly appeared in the hallway.
But with time it dawned on Ingrid’s parents that their daughter’s mad behaviour derived purely from love. She glowed with love for all the animals and humans she cared about. What they called naughtiness was an expression of sorrow and disappointment, a kind of defence. If she was slapped in the face for doing something she wanted revenge because she couldn’t fathom how those she cared for so ardently could actually strike or punish her.
Exactly why she conjured up those detestable things in her mother’s porridge, she did not quite understand herself. Maybe she was just giving her mother a taste of her own medicine? Or else she was so deeply hurt that she wanted to draw attention to herself, but it had come out in an awkward way. That she had torn her mother’s fabric to shreds was an expression of her childish impudence but also a fierce jealousy towards the weaving that took up so much of her mother’s time. That and many similar actions showed that she really didn’t understand what her parents meant about there always being a human context and human feelings connected to material things. She had simply been gripped by a wild urge to destroy her rival, which was the weaving. The extreme consequences of her actions, her mother’s sorrow and bitterness over the fact that a meticulously handmade piece of material had been ruined, was not something Ingrid had taken into consideration.
Whenever her troll-like mood got too wild, she would usually take one of the horses from the barn and ride around the fields as if under a thundercloud. Then people would say, “It looks as if the young lady from Graastensholm is riding out the storm again.”
At other times, Ingrid could be infinitely sweet, which would make her parents really proud of her: they would tell one another that now she had surely got over her need to use witchcraft.
Until the next incident.
She was the spitting image of Sol, but they didn’t realize it because they had never met Sol.
Villemo, who closely resembled both Sol and Ingrid, had been more fortunate. She was not cursed, but she had been chosen. She had been granted the gift of logical thought. Sol’s and Ingrid’s way of thinking was often very irrational.
The servants at Graastensholm quickly learned to stay friendly with Ingrid. And she responded to their friendliness through gentle and sweet devotion, so her upbringing ended up being more or less harmonious. (Of course, there were a few minor incidents hardly worth mentioning, like the time the new farmhand ventured to pat the pretty young girl on her behind. The next moment he found himself in the pigsty covered with mud. How he had landed there he never quite understood, even though he wondered about it for the rest of his life. He was, by the way, kicked out of Graastensholm two days later.)
But then there was the issue of Ingrid’s great intelligence going to waste. Jon at Elistrand was happy to study with her, but he was unable to keep up with the speed of her progress. She would read and pore over all the books and maps at Graastensholm through and through. The same thing happened at Elistrand. The only learned person in the village, the priest, now gave Ingrid a wide berth because he told himself she asked so many stupid things. That is to say, the priest was not always sure how to answer her, which was not something he cared to admit!
By the time Ingrid turned seventeen she was impatient and dissatisfied with her education. Were all other people equally stupid? Was there really no one who could answer all her questions? Her dissatisfaction made her irritable and temperamental, and her development was going in the wrong direction. She started experimenting with witchcraft on her own as an outlet for her great mental capacity.
And then Alv took the dra
stic step of mentioning the old treasure of the Ice People. However, he did it with great trepidation because he knew of the fire that could be ignited in the heart of those who were cursed once they heard about it.
“Ever since my father, Niklas, died, the treasure has been buried and hidden,” he told Ingrid, in a very serious tone. “It was actually Ulvhedin who was supposed to have held it after Niklas, but Ulvhedin was strong enough to say no. He knew of the enormous temptation that these magical resources present to those who are cursed, and he wanted to continue his quiet, peaceful life with Elisa and his family.”
Alv looked on with horror as he saw his daughter’s eyes start to shine like small greedy flames. “Where is the treasure now?”
“I am not going to tell you. But according to the laws of lineage, you are the one who is to inherit it. Up until now, if it has been determined that an individual who is cursed is not worthy of having the treasure in his or her possession, he or she has been stripped of their right to own it.”
“But, I want it, I want it!” Ingrid shouted, terrified. “I promise I will be good. I will show you that I am worthy of having the treasure.”
And so that is how it went. For a full, long year, Ingrid was a little angel whom everyone fervently loved. She never even mentioned her desire for more lessons. She was exemplary.
In the meantime, Dan Lind of the Ice People was having a much better time in Sweden. He too was gifted with an exceptional brain, but he was allowed to use it. He was eighteen years old and could hold his own easily with Sweden’s greatest scientists. He was down-to-earth and logical, sharp and clear, though without much understanding of the emotional world. His parents had selected a girl for him and he had accepted that. He would take anyone, as long as she was sweet and proper and domestic, and not too loud in her manner.