Birk and Matt’s relationship

Birk and Matt’s relationship is a wary, hard-won accommodation shaped by inherited conflict and Ronia’s bond with Birk. Matt’s invitation to return to Matt’s Fort marks a decisive change: rather than demand that Birk submit or separate from Ronia, Matt acknowledges his daughter’s attachment and offers to make room for the boy she calls her brother. Birk accepts, but the agreement is practical and provisional, not a sudden friendship.

Identity and Background

Birk is Birk Borkason, the son of Borka and a member of Borka’s robbers. Matt is Ronia’s father and chief of Matt’s robbers. Their connection therefore begins inside the longstanding opposition between the two robber groups. Even when the book brings them into the same family space, the names of their respective bands continue to carry the weight of that conflict.

The relationship is also mediated by Ronia. During winter, while Birk’s family faces hunger, she gives him bread and milk and keeps her promise to meet him in the cellar vaults each morning, bringing food from Lovis’s larder. Birk is sometimes ashamed to accept what she brings, feeling that he is stealing from her; Ronia answers that she is a robber’s daughter. This repeated care sustains Birk and helps establish the sibling bond that later shapes Matt’s dealings with him. It does not mean that Matt and Birk themselves have already reconciled.

Distance and First Impressions

The sharpest early measure of their distance comes when Ronia wants Birk to greet Lovis. Birk refuses, explaining that his mother taught him not to greet uninvited guests. The exchange occurs when Ronia has returned to the cave with her parents: for her, an introduction might connect the people she loves, but Birk treats the invitation as a boundary he is entitled to maintain. His refusal is not a declaration of affection or hostility toward Matt in particular; it shows how firmly he resists being folded into another household on someone else’s terms.

That caution becomes explicit when Matt later calls him over. Birk approaches reluctantly and stops at a distance, looking at Matt defiantly and asking what he wants. Matt’s authority does not make Birk deferential. The scene retains the old antagonism even as the possibility of a different relationship begins to emerge.

Matt’s Invitation

Matt opens by admitting that he would like to beat Birk, then chooses instead to ask him to return with the family to Matt’s Fort. His words do not pretend the hostility has vanished: he stresses that the invitation is not because he likes Birk. The reason is that Ronia does, and Matt has spent the intervening months thinking things over and believes he may learn to like him too.

The offer changes the terms between them. Matt does not ask Ronia to give up Birk in order to come home, and he does not disguise the fact that acceptance will be difficult for him. By acknowledging Ronia’s affection aloud, he treats Birk as someone whose presence has to be reckoned with, rather than merely as the son of his enemy. The invitation is an opening, not proof that either man has forgotten the feud.

Suspicion, Choice, and Outcome

Matt’s words fill Ronia with relief because she no longer seems forced to choose between her father and Birk. Birk, however, does not share that immediate happiness. He looks confused and suspicious, and when Matt leaves them alone, he rejects the idea of returning to Matt’s Fort. He fears becoming a whipping boy for Matt’s robbers and would rather remain in Bear’s Cave, even if staying there means facing winter alone. His resistance makes plain that Matt’s welcome has not yet earned his trust.

Ronia challenges Birk’s conclusion and reminds him of their chosen-sibling bond. Birk finally says that he does not want her to throw away her life and will go wherever she goes, even if living among Matt’s robbers chokes him. His consent is therefore directed first toward staying with Ronia, not toward embracing Matt or Matt’s band. Still, it gives Matt and Birk a shared future at the fort that Matt’s invitation alone could not secure.

As they leave Bear’s Cave, Ronia whispers that they will move back there the following spring. Birk welcomes the thought because it means they expect to be alive and able to return. Their departure settles the immediate question of where they will spend the winter, while leaving the relationship between Matt and Birk open: Matt has made an effort to include him, and Birk has accepted the journey for Ronia’s sake, but neither their caution nor the history between their families is declared finished.