Burial Rites: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

Chapter Six begins with a clerical record of Agnes and Sigga’s possessions at the time of their imprisonment. The list includes clothing, books, knitting tools, odds and ends, and a sheep.

The narrative then returns to Agnes’s first-person perspective as she begins to tell Tóti about Inga’s death. It was winter. Agnes had been living at Kornsá for several years with Inga, Björn, and their son Kjartan. Inga, who Agnes called “Mamma,” had taught Agnes to read in secret, because Björn did not approve of women learning. One night, Björn summoned Kjartan and Agnes outside to look at the northern lights. Inga, who was pregnant, stayed inside embroidering. Björn told them that the northern lights forewarned of bad weather.

The next day it began to snow, and Inga, not feeling well, stayed in the badstofa. Björn went to check on her while Agnes made porridge. Agnes peeped outside and saw a storm fast approaching. The blizzard struck, and continued for three days. On the second day of the storm, Inga went into early labor. Björn sent a farmhand to ask the women from the nearby farms to come help, but the blizzard was so strong that he did not even make it far past the door. Björn tended to Inga in the loft and told Agnes to take young Kjartan to the badstofa. The two children sat and waited together for a long time, until Björn came down, handed Agnes a bundled infant, and then returned upstairs.

Agnes, little Kjartan, and the infant huddled together as the room grew colder and colder. Agnes tried her best to keep the baby warm. Meanwhile, Inga’s moans continued in the loft. The children fell asleep, and when they woke Björn was standing over them. He informed them that Inga was dead. Agnes offered him the baby, but Björn told her the baby was dead too. Agnes realized she had been holding a lifeless infant.

Agnes threw a fit, screaming that she wanted to die. Björn, meanwhile, sat with his head in his hands. Agnes then went up to see Inga’s body, which was lying on the blood-covered bed. Agnes pulled Inga’s dress down to cover the lower half of her body and then kissed her. Agnes pushed her face into Inga’s hair until the farmhand carried her down to bed.

Agnes, back in the present, wants to ask Tóti if she is now going to be executed as punishment for saying she wanted to die. She also wants to ask him if she killed the baby. But she doesn’t, since she thinks the other women are listening now. Agnes thinks that it’s a good thing she has no one left to love, since everyone she’s loved has died.

The narrative switches to the third person as Tóti asks what happened next. Agnes tells him that after Inga died and the storm ended, the farmhand was sent to fetch Björn’s relatives. Björn told Agnes to put the baby’s body in the storeroom, which she did. Then Björn’s brother Ragnar and the farmhand carried Inga’s body downstairs, where Aunt Rósa cleaned Inga’s body. Rósa’s servant, Gudbjörg, cleaned the loft. Agnes talked to Gudbjörg about her trauma from the deaths, and Gudbjörg comforted her.

After everything was clean, the family stood together around Inga’s body and Björn’s brother passed around a flask. The farmhand fetched a priest, and Aunt Rósa told Agnes a story while the men talked with him. The men carried Inga’s body to the storeroom, where they laid it next to the baby’s body because the ground was too frozen for a burial until the spring. Agnes remembers seeing the bodies every time she had to fetch lamp oil.

One day in the early spring, Agnes was in a bad mood and she went outside, picked up a shovel, and tried to dig Inga a grave. Uncle Ragnar asked what she was doing. Agnes explained, referring to Inga as “Mamma,” and Ragnar told her not to call Inga that. The two exchanged tense words. Later, Ragnar told Agnes that Björn was moving away and could not afford to keep her. Her foster brother Kjartan went to live with Ragnar and Aunt Rósa, and Agnes was given to the parish to be taken care of.

The narrative switches back to Agnes’s first person in the present as she wakes the next day. She thinks someone whispered her name in her ear, and believes she sees Natan’s face in front of her. It seems to have been a dream, however, as no one else is awake. She whispers Tóti’s name, since he is sleeping in the badstofa with her. Agnes then begins to tell him about the dream, but Tóti falls back asleep. Agnes thinks of Inga’s death again. Agnes, perhaps dreaming again, imagines her foster mother trapped in the storehouse and calling to her. Agnes enters the storehouse and finds that Inga is really dead, and then sits on the floor while the wind howls outside.