Word: offing
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Dates: during 1960-1960
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Soon the fair sister meets three hungry goatherds. When she offers to share her bread with them, the toad jumps out. "The herdsmen three," the ballad continues, "took her to wife/ And then from her they took her life./ Her body in the mire they lay/ And with her garments...
"God!" the father cries aloud, wrenching his face to heaven, "you saw it! The death of the innocent child and my revenge. You allowed it! I don't understand you." In despair and atonement he vows to build a church of stone with his own hands on the spot...
This holy and horrible Gothic tale cannot of course be understood as a story of real men and women in real situations.
Like the ballad that inspired it. The Virgin Spring is a myth, and as a myth it is treated in this film. Bergman's style, usually subtle and allusive, is startlingly simple. The script, written under Bergman's supervision by Novelist Ulla Isaksson, who also did the screenplay...
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