The Quiet Weeks

About this book

Folklorists classify the customs of the northern coasts into the charming, the practical, and the unexplained. The hushing of Vesterlid has always been filed under unexplained: from the night of the first settling snow until the turning of the year, the village speaks only by daylight. After dark: silence. No song, no argument, no bedtime story above a whisper. The old people keep it absolutely. The young mostly moved away. The tourists find it quaint, when they notice at all. Dr Agnes Lie has come to record the custom before it dies, and to find out what it was ever for.