The village Mossebäcken (which is a fictive village) is located in the province of Dalarna (directly translated as The Vales), which is in the geographical middle-to-south Sweden, but when looking at where the majority of the population lived, was considered bordering the north. Dalarna is sparsely populated and the villages are far in between – the soil is hard to farm, the forests are deep, and there are mountainous areas where the climate is harsh. Mossebäcken is surrounded by forest, and the closest town is Mora – a small town, by both Swedish and international standards, but nevertheless the biggest most of the villagers of Mossebäcken have seen. 

The villagers own their land, and pay tax to use it, often in the form of timber or charcoal delivered directly to the copper mine in Falun, the largest copper mine in the world at the time. Because of the poor quality of the land the main livelihood is keeping livestock, and the families of Mossebäcken also fish, hunt or snare, sell crafts in the markets, and/or sell timber or coal to the mines to complement their needs. It is not uncommon for the men to leave for work for a limited time, and every summer the unmarried women take the livestock to their summer pastures and stay there with them for some months. Villages in the area tend to specialise in a craft, to sell or trade with other villages, and in Mossebäcken, this has become yarn, wool and knitting. Most people in the village are involved in some way, either by tending the sheep, shearing, processing and spinning, dying the yarn, or making socks, hats and mittens. 

Mossebäcken is a village of about 60 people – a small village, where everyone knows everyone and most of the families have lived there for generations. Life is harsh, requires hard work and very few mistakes. Death is a constant presence and threat, both through the wars, through bad winters and starvation, or through accidents and injuries, and no one knows when or how it will come for their families. The villagers are under hard pressure, which can lead to conflicts, malice and sometimes suspicion, when your neighbour suddenly seems to fare much better than you under the same circumstances. Bad days can lead to fights or sharp arguments, or even family feuds. At the same time, the people in Mossebäcken are aware that they are all dependent on each other for their survival – they help each other on the fields, with the livestock, and with anything major that needs repairing or building. Strong bonds of friendship and kinship are the basis of their society.

The families 

Every participant at The One Without Sin will play a part of one of the families. The families are varied in size, happiness and wealth, though all belonging to the same social class (with the exception of the priest and his family). 

Some of the families keep maids or farmhands. For people in 17th century Sweden without families of their own (or chances of inheritance), becoming maids or farmhands on someone else’s farm was one of the only options in life which offered some stability. There would generally not be any wages paid, but the maid or farmhand would share food and board with the family, and if they were lucky, the family would be welcoming and they would become indispensable, able to stay on for as long as they liked. The only time of year when it was seen as acceptable and proper to leave your place and seek a new one, or to let your maid or farmhand go, was during Mickelsmass in September, after the harvests. Leaving your place, or being let go, at any other time of year was seen as highly suspicious. 

The characters have first names, and often use the homestead’s name to distinguish between people (i. e Urban of Elsarbo, Britta of Maden). Some people use their father’s name, if their homestead has no distinguishable name, to mark who they are (i. e Lussi Jonsdotter = Lussi Jon’s daughter, whose homestead would be spoken of as “Jon’s homestead”). If someone is serving as a maid or farmhand, they don’t use last names at all, but are thought of as “belonging” to their homestead (i. e Maden’s Kristina). 

Annon’s Homestead 

The siblings Annonsson and Annonsdotter are a peculiar family in the village, and are seen as a bit strange. They are not married, but have instead chosen to stay on their parents’ homestead, taking care of the farm work together. They were too poor to be good matches for anyone in the village, and these days they are too old anyway, at least the older two of the siblings. Ragnil is the oldest sister and acts as the village midwife. She has helped most of the local children into this world, and sees them as partly her own. The brother, Benal, is more at home in nature and surrounded with animals than among people. The youngest sister Sylvi is the only one out of the three that isn’t completely at peace to live out her days in the company of her siblings on the family homestead. They used to have another sister, Märta, who was married to Jon Jonsson, but she passed away 10 years ago. The siblings have all done their best to support their nephews and nieces in Jon’s homestead ever since, seeing them as a natural part of their own family by extension.

Elsarbo

The richest family in Mossebäcken is Elsarbo. The houses are solid and well-built, and they own good farm land and a lot of sheep. The homestead technically belongs to Urban of Elsarbo, but in practice his older sister Gertrud is the one who’s been in charge ever since their parents passed. Urban’s new wife, Ingeborg, has been very clear on the fact that she think it’s time Urban took charge of the homestead, and that she got her rightful position as mistress. Urban is torn between wanting to keep his wife happy and not offend his older sister who is almost like a mother to him. 

Gertrud’s husband was enlisted into the military 5 years ago, and despite not having received any official notification of his passing, the whole family has given up hope to ever see him again. Left on the homestead are his three children. The older two, Annika and Hindrick, are orderly and well behaved, but youngest sister Beata often feels forgotten and overlooked, acting out in order to get more attention from the people around her.

The farmhand Olof has been working at the homestead for many years now and is very close to Gertrud. Elin of Håll, who comes from the poorest family in the village, has also worked on the homestead as a maid for several years, and lives at Elsarbo as her own home is too crowded. Newly arrived from Mora is the boy Pål, a relative to Ingeborg, who has made a name as the boy who accused his own mother for being a witch and got her executed for her sin. 

Gråå 

The priest’s family Gråå is obviously the most respected and revered family in the whole village. The Reverend Hans is very honoured to be the spiritual leader of the village, the person to whom everyone turns for advice and comfort. His wife Birgitta is very proud of her family as well as their position in the community. Therefore it is also extremely important that the two children Heid and Märet behave perfectly, and never do anything that could bring shame to the family. It is of course necessary that they treat everyone in their congregation with kindness, but that does not mean it would be suitable for them to marry into some of the local families. 

The oldest daughter Anna did manage to convince her parents to let her marry into a local family of lesser means. She is already married to Måns of Kvissle and does not live in the parsonage anymore.

The maid in the Gråå family, Agneta, is a bit too happy and free spirited, and some might even call her irresponsible, but she is still eager to keep her place with the priest’s family and doesn’t want to risk losing the position it gives her to work for such an honourable family. Magnus of Håll, the oldest son in the poorest family in the village, works as a farmhand for the priest and his family, happy to get out of the toxic family situation back home during the days. 

Horsnäs 

Despite having lived in Mossebäcken for three years now, most of the locals view the family from Horsnäs as foreigners and therefore less trustworthy. The family father has been a soldier for a long time now, and no one dares to hope he will ever be coming back. Instead mother Torvi has had to become both mother and father for her children. She has fought hard to make a living as a woman and as a stranger in the village, trying to become a part of the community. Things turned for the better once some of the other families’ sheep suddenly died two summers ago, increasing the value of the wool from her own sheep that she bought together with the plot of land from the Maden homestead, when the family arrived to settle in Mossebäcken. The wool is not the only thing of value she has brought to the area. In a time with many young men off in the war, her eldest son would be a valuable match for the young women in the village, and perhaps her younger son could make a good match himself.

The children, Erik, Mats and Åsa, all struggle hard to make friends and get accepted by the locals. Mats seems to be the only one actually succeeding, while Erik is trying to keep his family together, and Åsa is plagued by being visibly different, with a large birthmark. Torvi’s brother Håkan also lives on the homestead, and seems to be doing all he can to help his sister and her children in these hard times.

The family is bound together by a secret – the reason they had to leave their home village. No one in Mossebäcken knows why they had to leave but it is a well known truth that their departure was hasty and that none from the family has been back to their old village Horsnäs since they left. 

Håll

Håll is the poorest, and among the largest, families in all of Mossebäcken. The parents, Staffan and Kerstin, once married for love, but poverty and starvation, many misfortunes and an ever growing amount of mouths to feed has seemingly turned that love into bitterness. The loss of a child, little Katti, didn’t make their relationship any better, even though it has been 18 years now. Arguments around the dinner table are more a rule than an exception. 

The two elder children Magnus and Elin have been forced to take up work as servants in other local families. Magnus works as a farmhand in the priest’s family and Elin has moved into Elsarbo where she works as a maid. Not that this has helped with the crowded space back home in the Håll homestead. The son Jakop, who had been away working as a farmhand in another village, is now back with his new wife Greta, which has caused a new wave of conflicts at home. The two younger children, Jöran and Karin, are both neglected and restless, often getting up to mischief in the village with the other youths rather than taking care of their chores around the homestead. 

Jon’s homestead

Since the mother of the family, Märta, died 10 years ago, Jon has lived alone with his three children. Despite doing his very best he never felt like he was enough to compensate for the loss of his children’s mother. He has had a lot of help from his wife’s siblings, Ragnil, Benal and Sylvi, at the Annon’s homestead, but neither they nor he himself have been able to fill the empty space Märta left behind.

The oldest of the children, Maria, has had to take a lot of responsibility over the homestead and her two younger siblings, the twins Ers and Lussi. The twins have been shaped by their upbringing without a lot of supervision or parenting since not only their sister and father, but the whole village have been prone to look the other way at their mischievous behaviour, pitying the two motherless children. Lussi has always spent a lot of her time with her aunt Ragnil, wanting to learn more about healing and medicine whereas Ers spends most of his time with the other young boys in the village, especially the more adventurous ones.

Kvissle 

When Karl of Kvissle was young he was the one man all the girls of Mossebäcken wanted to marry. Then one day, he came back home to the village with a woman from another village, Maretta, and her then three year old daughter Helga. Despite being an unusual family they are happy together, and Karl has never shown preference for anyone but Maretta. Maretta has found a function in the village through her knowledge of herbs and their healing properties, and always does all she can to help anyone who turns to her with any kind of ailment. Helga is very close to her mother and wants to follow in her footsteps, much more interested in learning about medicine than finding a man to marry. Both Maretta and Helga have felt the weight of being strangers, viewed with suspicion over the years, and that some might look cautiously at the work they do with their medicinal herbs. They never cared much about that though, knowing that what they do they do for good.

Karl and Maretta also have a child together, their son Måns, heir to the homestead, who is married to the priest’s daughter Anna. Their marriage started out happy, but is marred by the loss of their young baby daughter Hilda, who was born in early spring and passed in May. Anna and Måns were devastated, and the grief seems to drive them further apart. Additionally, both Karl and Måns have started to wonder whether it is time for Karl to step down and move out to the separate living on the homestead, and let Måns take over as head of the household, but the thought is uncomfortable for most people in the family.

Maden 

The Maden Family used to be one of the most prominent families in the whole village, with the biggest herd of sheep in the whole community, and the best quality wool that helped support all of Mossebäcken during hard times. Then something happened. The past three years have brought a string of misfortunes. First a failed harvest, then two summers ago many of their sheep mysteriously became ill and died. However, these hardships are nothing compared to the loss of their youngest son Eskil last year. The parents, Bogge and Margareta, have struggled to keep a brave face, but it is getting harder and harder to keep the family together.

Sven, their son, is turning bitter as he sees what was supposed to be a comfortable inheritance dwindle in front of his eyes. Their daughter Britta is spending less and less time at home where the misfortune is spoiling the mood. Kristina, their maid, is lately starting to worry if there will even be space for her to stay on at Maden’s, if things don’t turn out for the better soon. 

Myra

Eleven years ago, Per of Myra died in King Karl X Gustav’s war against the Danes, leaving behind a widow, Ilo, and two children. Ilo was distraught by the news and almost paralysed by hopelessness, but finally managed to write to her cousin Hans Gråå, the priest of the little village Mossebäcken asking for his help. He was the one who made it possible for the little family to move to Mossebäcken to try and start over. 

Ilo does all she can to try and fit into her new home and to make her and her children become a natural part of Mossebäcken, including trying to push out even newer arrivals, making them the others instead of herself and her family, but she is still not too much help at home. Instead the son, Nils, has become the one to take care of the homestead in his father’s stead, despite him initially being far too young for such a big obligation. The daughter, Gjoli, has instead turned to God for comfort in her grief, feeling the pressure to try and compensate for their mother’s failings.

In order to be able to manage the homestead they took on a farmhand six years ago, Arent, who originally is from the village Horsnäs. He is more interested in getting drunk and slacking off than working hard for his keep, but he has so far managed to get away with his laziness.

Pipare

It hasn’t escaped anyone that life is looking bright for the Pipare household lately. The homestead is thriving, with big harvests and both livestock and family members in good health. Furthermore, what no one dared to hope would happen happened, as head of the household Melker Pipare came back from the war with nothing more than a light wound.

His wife Katarina was over the moon and is looking forward to a bright future.
The family has three children: Mattis, who dreams about joining the army like his father did before him; the very religious Lisbet, who worries a lot about all these rumours about witchcraft and the devil; and Agnis, who always was a special child, more comfortable herding the goats singing to herself, than spending time with the other children her age in the village.

At the homestead also lives Gjördis, who has been working there as a maid ever since Melker and Katarina were newlyweds, and the siblings Simon and Malin, who also work as a farmhand and a maid at the homestead, but are viewed especially by Katarina as part of the family. After all, it was much thanks to their hard work that they all did so well in Melker’s absence.