How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"This is a story from the island itself," Laura said. "It's hundreds of years old, no one knows exactly. But everything I tell you is just as it happened."
It is an old story, one of love—forbidden love! And tragedy. (5.2.1-2)
The past meets the present. "Laura" tells a story from way in the past, but she knows the details because she lived it—these are actually her memories. The past won't stay there. It just keeps coming up.
Quote #8
I am old now.
I am old now, and the things that happened under the weak light of the snow moon when I was a little girl have drifted far downstream. And yet, when I close my eyes, I see it all before me, once more.
Maybe there are things I have forgotten.
Maybe there are some things, things that have passed from my memory, and now exist nowhere. I am the oldest of the clan, and when I die, my memories will die with me, unless I have passed them on to the memory of others, through story.
So I have. I have told many stories in my life, and those stories that I have told, well, they will live on in the younger ones.
But there are some stories I have never told.
There is one story, one story…
There is one story, which some people know a little of, but of which only I know the whole truth, and I will take that truth with me to whatever it is that lies in wait for us, when we close our eyes for the last time. (6.1.1-8)
Stories are powerful things, and some of the best stories are nothing more than someone's memory. Melle understands the importance of passing on her memories as stories. If she doesn't the tale will die with her and stay trapped in the past. Why do you think Melle has never told this story before now?
Quote #9
Eirikr looks at his queen for the last time, and from all the thousands of memories of their time together, just one drifts into his mind; an image of them bathing together in the summer, at the south of the island. They used to spend as long as they could underwater, sleek like seals, before rising to the surface, gasping, and laughing. (7.2.41)
And this is where Eric Seven's little swimming memory comes from. As King Eirikr waits for death, he remembers all the happiness and love he felt in this moment with his wife. Thousands of memories and this is the one that comes to his mind, so it must have been a good one. It's fitting that Eric Seven would start to remember as he relives it.