During Advent, Bjartur discovers one of his ewes dead in the ewe-house, impossibly jammed between the rungs of the ladder to the hay-barn. He calls his children to witness it. Ásta Sollilja shivers, and Bjartur scolds her for not being tough like her mother. For two days he is hostile to visitors who come asking about the incident. On the third morning, he finds one of his finest lambs hanged by an unfamiliar cord in the lamb-house. To hide his fear, he tells the family the lamb had eaten wool, and he had to kill it.

Unable to settle his mind, Bjartur visits the homesteads. His neighbors Olafur of Yztadale and Einar of Undirhlith discuss remedies for mice. Einar offers memorial verses for Bjartur’s late wives, which Bjartur rejects, saying the Jomsvikings fell with good fame without hymns. Bjartur asks to buy a tomcat. He returns home with a gray-striped tom in a sack, to the children’s delight. The cat and the family’s dog are immediately antagonistic. The cat takes a liking to Hallbera, who, despite calling it “scum,” never harms it.

One evening during Advent, Bjartur places the cat in the ewe-house but stays up late, still uneasy. Ásta Sollilja also stays up, washing herself and combing her hair by candlelight. She is acutely aware of Bjartur watching her, which makes her self-conscious. A confusing guilt surfaces in her memory: As a child, she once nestled up to Bjartur for comfort, but he pushed her aside and left. She connects this incident to a vague, unspoken fear that she was somehow to blame for her stepmother’s death. Bjartur goes out to check the stalls one last time. His lingering anxiety prompts him to rise two or three times every night to inspect the sheep.

After mid-Advent, heavy snow falls for days, followed by a hard frost. Bjartur’s anxiety subsides and he stops his nightly vigils. Then he enters the ewe-house to find 10 of his sheep brutally slaughtered. In a rage, he goes outside and challenges the spirits of Kolumkilli and Guthvor to fight him in the open. He considers seeking religious aid but rejects the idea.

Nonni tells Bjartur that Helgi often sees a strange figure. Bjartur forces Helgi to confess he has seen someone running from the ewe-house. Helgi’s description becomes increasingly bizarre, ending with the figure wearing a red skirt and a clergyman’s ruff. Enraged, Bjartur slaps Helgi. That evening, Bjartur walks onto the heath and finds himself at the burial cairn of Kolumkilli and Guthvor. He verbally confronts the buried spirits, accusing them of murdering his wives and laying waste to his livelihood, including the sheep. He picks up a stone, defiantly stating he will never offer it to them for protection. He throws the stone into the ravine below and walks home, resolved to fight the curse alone.

News of the slaughtered sheep spreads, and the ghost story captures the district’s imagination. Visitors flock to Summerhouses. Bjartur dismisses the tale, blaming the cat for frightening the sheep. The children, especially Helgi and Nonni, become the center of attention, claiming to communicate with the ghost. The Mistress of Myri sends Ásta Sollilja coffee, sugar, and a book behind Bjartur’s back.

Rumors that the ghost intends to destroy the croft at Christmas prompt someone to summon the minister. One evening, a large crowd gathers at Summerhouses, including the minister and local farmers. Hrollaugur of Keldur, a practical local farmer, organizes a prayer walk around the farm buildings. Helgi and Nonni enter the ewe-house to ask which way to walk and burst back out reporting that the ghost demands nine circuits and nine stanzas sung from hymnbooks. A procession begins. Two men who enter the ewe-house are terrified by flaming eyes and a screeching noise. The minister declares it the sight and sound of a soul condemned to damnation. The moon disappears behind clouds, and the frightened crowd huddles together in darkness and cold, wanting coffee.

The crowd moves into the loft hoping for coffee. The conversation turns to husbandry before Einar of Undirhlith redirects it to spiritual questions, asking why some souls cannot find peace. Various theories are proposed. As the debate intensifies, Bjartur appears at the hatchway. He announces that he and his family are going to bed and that he has sent for the authorities to find the guilty person. He denies his guests coffee and drives everyone from his home, saying he hopes they will consider the visit as if it never happened. The visitors creep away shamefaced. The event becomes a source of collective shame for the parish and is rarely spoken of afterward.

All spectral activity on the moors ceases following Bjartur’s actions. A rumor circulates that he hanged the cat. On the shortest day of the year, the family waits for a judicial inquiry that Bjartur has demanded. Heavy snow begins falling. The bailiff arrives from up-country to meet the sheriff and conduct the inquiry, sullen and doubting the sheriff will come in such weather. He and Bjartur argue. Bjartur demands the justice he is entitled to as a taxpayer. The bailiff suggests Bjartur sell the croft and offers to take in Ásta Sollilja, saying she looks like the Rauthsmyri family. The bailiff lies down to sleep.

As the snowstorm intensifies, the eldest son, Helgi, goes outside and disappears. When the bailiff wakes, he speaks with Ásta, telling her she is welcome at Rauthsmyri. He talks with Hallbera, who suggests the folk remedy of sprinkling spirits with stale urine. The bailiff offers to arrange a place for Hallbera on another farm if Summerhouses is sold. She says she would prefer to stay with Nonni and that Urtharsel—her former home-croft with her late husband—is her first choice of home.

Helgi is lost in the winter snows. The family has an abundance of mutton from the slaughtered sheep. On Christmas evening, Hallbera performs rituals and Bjartur boils a whole ewe’s leg for the feast. The remaining children are withdrawn and sad, thinking of Helgi. Ásta Sollilja stays up late again, washing and combing her hair while Bjartur watches from his bed. She is consumed by guilt related to her stepmother’s death and her confusing relationship with Bjartur.

Bjartur calls her over and tells her he is leaving after Christmas to work for money and will not return until Easter. He reaffirms his promise to build her a house, saying that when a man has a flower in his life, he builds a house. He tells her she will be in charge of everything and that he will explain the sheep’s feeding to her and Gvendur. Ásta breaks down, weeping in despair and nestling against him, begging him not to leave. Bjartur comforts her, explaining he must earn money for more sheep.

After Bjartur’s departure, the children feel rudderless without their father’s direction. Nonni suggests they need tobacco to cope with uncertainty, an idea Gvendur initially scorns. The next day, however, Gvendur seeks out the moldy tobacco twist left over from the lambs, and the two brothers share it. Both boys become violently ill with stomach pains, dizziness, and vomiting. Ásta Sollilja must undress them and put them to bed.

Ásta tries to mentally map out the winter by its festivals to make the time until Easter seem shorter. She questions Hallbera about the calendar but becomes disheartened by the long stretches of time between holidays—Thorri, Goa, the nine weeks of Lent, and numerous other festivals she must endure before Easter. Hallbera offers little comfort, recalling harsh weather during past summer festivals and noting that fortune is not made by big festivals alone.

During a stormy winter night, the children hear a horse outside. A visitor arrives, a townsman ill-equipped for travel and suffering from the cold. He introduces himself as a teacher who has been sent to stay with them until spring on Bjartur’s behalf. The children help him inside. Ásta notices he keeps one boot on and that it seems “inanimate.”

The teacher informs them that Bruni, Bjartur’s merchant in Fjord, has gone bankrupt and left the country with the last ship before Christmas. He explains that Ingolfur Arnarson Jonsson, head of the local co-operative society, has triumphed and that Bjartur is working for them, moving furniture into the Tower House, the former merchant’s large house in Fjord. The teacher repeatedly assures them that a better time is coming for everyone. He unpacks a collection of new, colorful books covering geography, zoology, history, mathematics, and religion. The children are thrilled by this treasure of knowledge. As the teacher undresses for bed, they see that his right foot is a wooden prosthetic. That night, Ásta has a terrifying nightmare in which she climbs dark stairs in fear of her father, only to be met at the top by a menacing bookseller-figure in a brown shirt.

The children’s education begins, opening their minds to the wider world through books about animals, countries, and mathematics. The teacher reads modern world poetry with a captivating, whispering eloquence that animates even inanimate objects. Ásta finds this new poetry, full of melancholy and flowers, deeply resonant, contrasting with the harsh ballads her father recites. She is most moved by poems of unfulfilled dreams and beautiful sorrow, particularly Colma’s song on the heath and the tale of the hunter by the Mississippi. These poems stir a feeling a romantic melancholy in Ásta and she begins to see the teacher through the romantic lens of these poems, conflating him with their heroes.

The children begin their study of religion with the Bible stories and Catechism. The teacher is dismissive and evasive when they question the logic of biblical events. Ásta questions the teacher about prayer. He reveals he once prayed to keep his foot when he lay in an infirmary, but it was amputated anyway. Her theological questions increasingly frustrate him. When she asks why God allowed sin to enter the world, he bursts into a long coughing fit, then tells her that sin is God’s most precious gift. The teacher’s health and spirits decline. He grows despondent, spending his days staring at the roof and muttering despairingly. He writes a letter to Dr. Finsen, the doctor in Fjord, about his cough and becomes anxious waiting for a reply. He tells Ásta he will have to leave if he does not hear from the doctor soon. Then he touches her intimately—his hand passing over her shoulders, back, and finally resting briefly on her buttocks. She looks up at him, timid and helpless, then hurriedly rises and leaves.

Nonni arrives jubilantly with a bottle of medicine from Dr. Finsen. The teacher snatches it with savage greed and springs out of bed with sudden energy. He hides the bottle under his pillow and declares they will go to bed early so the medicine can work. That night, Ásta wakes to hear the teacher whispering an erotic poem to her in the darkness. Frightened, she lights a lamp. She sees him sitting on his bed, his face flushed and youthful, transformed from the sick man he was, the medicine bottle on his knees.

In a state of euphoria, he declares that all suffering is abolished and proclaims it wishing-time. The boys wake, and he invites them to choose their heart’s desires. Gvendur wishes for the family’s prosperity—more sheep, money, and a fine house. The teacher grandly grants it. Nonni wishes for a country with woods like the one by the Mississippi in the poem. The teacher writes a letter of hope addressed to a foreign woman and tells Nonni to send it to Fjord. He sends the boys back to bed, blows out the lamp, and “takes” Ásta Sollilja.

One morning in March, Ásta wakes feeling physically and emotionally shattered. Hallbera recites a hymn about sin and damnation from her bed. Ásta feels completely isolated and overwhelmed by guilt and fear, particularly of her father’s return. She cannot look at her grandmother and avoids her brothers. She tries to go to the teacher for comfort, but he groans and turns away in his sleep. She sees he is naked, and her slip lies crumpled beside him. She snatches the slip away and covers him.

Later, she tends to him with coffee. He is gray-faced and sick, whispering that he is as good as dead and that he does not deserve her care. He begins praying for God’s forgiveness, tormented by guilt and crying out in anguish. Ásta comforts him, telling him he did nothing wrong, that she did not mind, and that if it was wrong, the blame is hers alone. She says he can do it again whenever he likes and that she will never tell her father. Holding him, she tells him God is not nearly as bad as he thinks. He holds her hand as he grows calmer, gazing at her face.

On a frosty morning in Holy Week, Bjartur returns after walking all night carrying provisions from town and with money in the co-operative society. In flashback, we learn that when he arrived in Fjord after Christmas, he discovered his merchant Bruni had gone bankrupt, taking Bjartur’s savings. He angrily confronted the sheriff, demanding his money back, but the sheriff offered no help and blamed Bjartur for not joining the co-operative sooner.

Bjartur then confronted Dr. Finsen, the member of Parliament he had always voted for. The doctor defended Bruni and offered brandy, which Bjartur refused. Bjartur accused the doctor of killing his wives with medicine and declared himself against the government. Defeated, Bjartur was forced to seek work from his old adversary, Ingolfur Arnarson Jonsson, at the co-operative society. Ingolfur spoke of promoting farmers’ welfare and gave Bjartur a job. When Bjartur explained his motivation, he began to say that when a man has a flower in his life but did not finish the sentence.

Spring arrives. Ásta has become withdrawn and silent since Bjartur’s return and the teacher’s departure at Easter. She hangs her head, avoids eye contact, and is rarely seen in the loft when others are present. Nonni wanders the moors alone, filled with a lyrical sadness and singing part-songs he has never heard. The brothers work in the enclosure spreading manure, but they do not understand each other; Gvendur is focused on practical reality, Nonni on distant dreams.

While searching the moorland for sheep, Bjartur’s dog discovers a human corpse. Bjartur finds a boy’s body washed up on the gravel in the gully, tumbled over rocks during the winter and floated off by the flood. The corpse is gruesome and partially eaten by beasts. Bjartur touches it with his stick and mutters that each person bears his destination in his own heart. As a sign of respect, he throws his right glove to the corpse before leaving to round up his fleeing ewes. That evening, he gives the remaining left glove to Hallbera and asks her to knit a match for it. She understands without being told.

On a Sunday in spring, Nonni finds Ásta lying in a green hollow, weeping with her face buried in the grass. He approaches and asks what she is crying for. She says she has lost something but does not know what. He asks if her sorrow is because of the way she is made, and after reflection, she agrees. He promises not to tell anyone and offers to build her a house in another country when he grows up.

She asks if he knows her secret, and he assures her he knows nothing and has never looked. He asks what she wished for during the teacher’s wishing-time. After hesitation, she confesses she wished for love, and her weeping intensifies as she repeats the word over and over. She throws herself on the ground, wailing that she wishes she could die. Nonni sits in silence beside his suffering sister, unable to help but feeling deep sympathy.

On the day before Ascension Day, a man visits and hands Bjartur a letter, then leaves. Bjartur reads it multiple times without revealing its contents. That evening, he takes Nonni out to the marshes to find a ewe due to lamb. They find the sheep and mark the newborn lamb. As they sit by the river in the mild evening, Bjartur tells Nonni that a woman living in America is willing to take him there, as his mother’s brother has sent money for him to learn a trade. His mother had always wanted to make something of him. He asks if Nonni wants to go. The boy says yes and begins to cry.

That night, Nonni lies awake, unable to sleep, thinking about the life and dead mother he is leaving behind. In the morning, Hallbera gives him her two most precious possessions as parting gifts: her centuries-old silk kerchief and silver ear-pick. She gives him two pieces of advice: Never be insolent to those who hold a lowly position in the world, and never ill-treat any animal. Ásta tells Nonni to thank his grandmother, noting that Hallbera has given him the only things she has.

On the Saturday before Whitsun, the bailiff’s wife arrives at Summerhouses on a fine horse, bringing a weeping Ásta Sollilja home from her confirmation classes. Bjartur greets them warmly, but Ásta enters the house heartbroken. Madam of Myri leads Bjartur away from the croft to speak privately by the brook. She tells him that Ásta has been deeply depressed and that the Rauthsmyri housekeeper, Gudny, discovered she was sick in the mornings. She reveals that Ásta is four months pregnant.

Bjartur reacts with angry disbelief. Madam of Myri condemns him for leaving his children with an infamous wretch—a notorious drunkard, jailbird, and parish pauper rotten with consumption. Bjartur explodes with rage, reminding her that Ásta is the “illegitimate” child of the Rauthsmyri family, abandoned by them and forced upon him at his wedding. He declares that Ásta and her pregnancy are the responsibility of her “true” relations, the Rauthsmyri family, not his. He rejects Madam of Myri’s offer to give Ásta shelter and tells her to take her “bastards” and leave him and his own children alone. Bjartur walks away to tend his sheep, leaving Madam of Myri sitting confounded.

Late in the evening, Bjartur returns after a difficult time herding two ewes and lambs. He finds Ásta waiting for him in the entry, huddled on a box in her old dress. He strikes her across the face and tells her to rear her “bastard” with her own relatives. She gasps that she is going. Bjartur climbs into the loft and closes the trapdoor.

The blow frees Ásta from her fear and uncertainty, confirming what her lack of blood-ties means for her now: she is being cast out and must go. She sets off across the heath, fantasizing about arriving at her beloved teacher’s bright house by the sea, where she will knock and he will ask who is there, and she will answer, “It is I” (367). Her journey becomes a grueling ordeal as night falls—her shoes fail, her feet grow sore, she is caught in an ice-cold sleet shower, and exhaustion and terror set in. She remembers Helgi’s disappearance and fears she too will perish, but clings to the fantasy of her lover’s welcome.

Bjartur stays up through the night tending to his ewes. On Whit Sunday morning, the old ewe Kapa gives birth to triplets. Because the elderly ewe has little milk, Bjartur sits on the paving stones and feeds the tiny lambs through a quill. The mother ewe, initially suspicious, approaches him and affectionately sniffs his bearded face with her warm breath, as if in gratitude. Man and animal understand each other.