Harald Stormoen

Sweeping lyricism infuses the whole of "Glomdalsbruden", which Dreyer made in Norway. Tore, son of a poor farmer, loves Berit, daughter of a rich one, but she is promised to another man whom she does not love and whom she refuses to marry. (www.nfi.no)

This the story of a wizard elk - Rauten, as people called him. He was a human being in animal guise. The story begins in Ré Valley, which lies like a yawning gap between mountains, long and flat with borders of forests so dark that they look as though part of the blackness of night lingered in them. A river moves sluggishly along the bottom of the valley, making its way slowly and carefully between stretches of light-red sand. It runs northwards, a rare thing in Norway.

Øjvind, a smallholder's boy, is a close friend with Marit, a farmer's girl, throughout their entire childhood. As an adolescent he one day recognizes that she has become a maiden, and that he has fallen in love with her. When he sees Marit dancing with Jon Halten, a farmer's son, he gets sad, and notices that when you start loving someone, you are not cheerful any more. He senses the social distance between himself and Marit and tries to compensate this by becoming the best pupil in the village