Summary

Ursa and Cornet get dressed for dinner and head back down. Ursa notices a foul smell, which Christin explains as burning blubber oil in the lamps. At dinner, they discuss the storm, and Cunningham states that it was not natural, but brought on by witchcraft. In chapter 28, as the men talk through dinner, Christin converses with Ursa. Cunningham overhears the talk of the Sámi and the table conversation turns to them and their supposed witchcraft. Cunningham tells Ursa of Cornet’s ‘achievements’ in a prior witch trial in Scotland, involving a twelve-year-old girl named Elspeth who supposedly carried and birthed two children for the devil. To get her to confess, Cornet himself branded her with crosses, strangled her, and then burned her. Ursa is horrified at the story, and her husband’s apparent pride in it. Following dinner and...