The Family

The Gervendel family was a rich family. The mother and the father had a clever son by the name of Aslak. The family had many tralls that helped at the farm or in the fields. Aslak’s mother Hjørdis wove clothes for the family. Aslak’s father Sigvald gave the tralls jobs in the morning and went around to see if the tralls did their jobs. And Aslak went around to se how the mother and the father ran the farm. The Gervendel family had bread and porridge for breakfast, for lunch they could have fruit and berries. They could also have dry bread. They put a piece of meat on it so that the juice from the meat softened the dry bread. For supper they had soup, porridge or gruel.

The Burislav family was poor and had no tralls. The father Bælric worked a lot in the field, the mother Borghild and her daughter Thorgunna did all the work around the house. The Burislav family had porridge for breakfast in which they put different pieces of fruit. For lunch they could have fruit and berries and they could also have dry bread or porridge. For dinner they often had porridge with fruit in it. Meat was a luxury so they didn’t have that so often.

The quarrel

The two families had had another quarrel about who should have the field. Bælric from the poor family would like them to agree on sharing the field. Sigvald from the rich family said that was out of the question. He thought that the one with the most money should have the largest field. Bælric didn’t think that was fair for the ones that didn’t have so much money needed more land because they didn’t always have enough food for the whole family.

Meeting at the field

The quarrel had been going on for many weeks now but Aslak and Thorgunna were still friends and they were tired of their families’ quarrels about the field. Everyday after their chores they met at the field and talked about the quarrel. One day they found out that they could just measure the field and divide it into two equal halves.

The next day they met at the field to measure it. They measured it with an alen (two feet). One alen was the wing span/reach of a man and they had cut a stick to the length of an alen. It took all afternoon. At last they had it done. It was 200 alen wide so they could have 100 alen each. The next day Aslak told his mother and father that he and Thorgunna wanted to get married. The parents at first didn’t like the idea, but they talked about it all night. They finally agreed to Thorgunna and Aslak getting married and they arranged to have a party in one month.

Good friends

The families had finally found the dividing line in the field and become goods friends again. Later the Gervendel family came and knocked at the door at the Burislav family and asked if they would like to come over to them for dinner. They would like that very much. They sat at the table and talked about never quarreling again.

The wedding

The next day they started getting things ready for the party. Aslak was brewing mead that consisted of honey, water and hop, it took about one month. The wine Aslak had made beforehand as he knew they didn’t have enough time to make it. Thorgunna gathered berries and fruits and baked bread together with the other women. The men had shot an ox and they were slaughtering it. On the weddingday the women brought wooden bowls, mugs, mead, wine, roast, bread, berries and fruits. When Thorgunna came to the table she had a beautiful wreath of blue flowers in her hair. Aslak was wearing his nice red cape and his new blue shirt. When they had eaten all the good food they celebrated for many days.

Jesper, Ann Katrine, Stine and Rikke

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