What do you think the legend of Halfrid and Gunhild, and their mother who died in childbirth, meant to the townspeople?

What do you think the legend of Halfrid and Gunhild Hekne and their mother who died in childbirth meant to the townspeople of Butangen?

I think the legend gave meaning to the hardships these people faced, women especially, along with a comforting sense of being upheld and protected by their ancestors (through the sounds of the bells). The legend associated the sisters with beautiful handcrafts,an inspiration and reminder that people living difficult lives could still be creative and find joy in that. So in a way, the legend and the bells embodied and sustained the values of the community.

I am wondering how much of the legend the villagers still remembered. They retained the memory of the name "sister bells" and they seemed to be aware of the times the bells would ring and the legend about the bells ringing to warn of a flood, but the legend was so old that it seems it would be seldom more than a rumor. The villagers knew the bells were important somehow, but the stave church was built in 1170 and had many pagan symbols. The story says the story of the sisters was not known beyond the village. While Astrid knew that her ancestor Eirik gave the bells to the church, even she did not know the mother was named Astrid. When she climbed to the bell tower and removed the coverings it was apparent that no one had been in the tower for years.

The legend of the bells links the villagers to the history of the village, the conjoined sisters, tragedy , but the beauty of remembrance. The sister bells have an aura of other world religion imbued in the, as a protection against natural disasters and the outside world.

Legends and traditions are very important to the villages at that time and today. The bells reminded the village every time they sounded of the past reminding the villagers of where they came from and of family & friends who have past who help influence them of who they were today.

Very few written recordings were kept in ancient times due to lack of education and resources to document happenings short of a family bible either at the local church or within a family, thus the spoken word carried generational stories through the years. The story of Halfrid and Gunhild Hekne's unique birth and there mother's death would have only been remembered as tragic and perhaps as a curse within the family. The bells were given as an incredibly generous gift from a place of grief to honor these 3 lives and soon the "legend" was born. The gift was elaborate for the village, so naturally the emotional benefits would also follow in remembrance; to make the loss of life worth the trauma to think of the bell tolls as protection for those left behind.

The legend clearly meant the most to Astrid and she saw it as her responsibility to save the bells. But the villagers didn't talk about the legend in the book and it seems that only Gerhard and the Reverend were aware of the importance of and connection to the bells to Astrid. I think the villagers felt that the bells were special and important, and would have missed having them there and hearing them ring, but I didn't get from the story that they all remembered or knew about the legend.

I think the townspeople honored the legend as part of their history & clung to it for identity. They only knew it from a "story told over time" point of view - mystical & romantic. Something that gave them roots to a way of life they treasured although it was harsh & difficult.

The legend of Halfrid and Gunhilde added much interest to this novel. It made it possible to understand why the Sister Bells were so important to the Butangen villagers. The legend was most important to the Hekne family, of course, since it was their ancestors that experienced the tragedy. However, the entire village was gifted the Sister Bells via the village church so the legend was part of everyone's collective memory. They all felt a deep awe and love for those bells and for the bells' role in warning the villagers of danger.