MATS. Can you tell what made our families hate each other so fiercely?
KERSTI. It had to do with land—with bought favours, and ill-gotten gains, and corrupt judges, and—everything that's bad, bad, bad!
MATS. And then the hatred turned into liking, love, lust....
KERSTI. All of it poisoned....
MATS. How dark it turns when the hatred breaks through!
KERSTI. [Throwing her wreath into the tarn] Well may you say so! The devil take the wreath, as I can't have a crown....
MATS. Don't say that!
KERSTI. We hold wedding like beggars, and rascals, and roving folk.... What is it you cannot eat or drink, but that tastes good for all that? It's tobacco—and that's all you get for a wedding-feast! The fire under the kettle is going out, Mats. Go and fetch some wood. It's all the dancing there will be.
MATS. If tokens tell the truth, you were born to be a queen!
KERSTI. Maybe! Surely not to milk the cows!