#Antti Matinpoika

[soffiisims]

1315

I do not know how to even begin to tell you, what I must tell. We have now lost both of our parents, Matti and I. They are gone.

Last night my brother Matti came running to tell me that our mother was unwell. She has not got up all day, he told me. We both knew, that she had been giving her meals to the children. Matti told me about it, but also told, that he has not said anything to stop her. They are his children in the end, and naturally Matti wanted them to have all the food we are able to give them. They need it the most. But it turned out, that mother has not been eating anything in days, or that is what my brother suspected.

So I left the children with Mats and followed my brother immediately to my childhood home. We came too late. Our mother was no longer. She was laying down on straws in the sauna, where Matti had carried her, so she could be in peace and not be bothered by the children. She was laying still and silent and pale. The whole house was in disorder. Valpuri was crying, the children were up and my father was so upset, he did not even notice our arrival at first. Oh, it was horrible!

Our father refused to leave mother alone. We tried to persuade him to come with us to the house and have some rest, but he absolutely refused. He was furious, that Matti went for me and not for our uncle, who could have given mother her extreme unction and a candle to burn. And now it was too late.

We left father alone with his sorrow and went to the house. We left the sauna door open, so mother's soul could get out. We decided it would be wise for me to stay the night and help washing mother next morning and prepare her for the deathwatch and the burial. We should remember to burn the straws, that mother was now laying on, so she would not stay and hunt the house.

We went to sleep in a great agony. I still could not quite understand, what had happened. It was over before I got to see her. I could hear my father crying out loud in the sauna. I thought I could feel my heart crush. I drifted to sleep without knowing, that our misery and grief was only beginning.

I woke up, when Matti was shaking my shoulder in the early hours of the morning.

"What is it?" I asked, when I saw my brother's eyes wide open. He looked terrified.

"He lighted up the sauna", he said.

"What? Who?" I said.

"The sauna is burning down. Father is in there", he answered. I jumped up and ran outside. Matti was right and I could see, that saving father from the flames was way too late. The whole building was covered with light and rumble. But I still I heard myself screaming:

"He is burning alive! We have to get him out of there!"

People were gathering from the nearby houses, men carrying water buckets with them. Everyone moved so slow. I dashed towards the fire, but then someone wrapped their arms around me and stopped me on my tracks.

"Let me go!" I screamed, "LET ME GO!"

The sauna burned many hours. For me it was all a blur after that. All that was left from the sauna my father had build was a pile of ashes and bones. My mother and my father side by side.

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Resources (about death in medieval Finland): Aalto, Ilari. Vuosi keskiajan Suomessa. p. 167–168.

[soffiisims]

Matti and Valpuri's son Antti Matinpoika as an infant!

Valpuri gave birth in 1313 already, but better now than never, here is the little one!

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[soffiisims]

1316

The next year came with more heartbreak. My brother Matti lost her little daughter Ingeborg. She was too fragile to handle this famine, that is now our curse. Rain comes pouring and rots our crops before they even get to grow above the ground. The food just not have enough nutrients to keep our children alive.

Ingeborg is now with her mother she never got the chance to meet. They are together now.

Ingeborg Matintytär

1310–1316

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