Alarum

Alarum is the rural setting of Ulrika of Västergöhl’s childhood and the place where, by her account, an orphaned girl was exploited by the foster family that had taken her in. Recalled during the voyage to America, it stands behind her adult reputation and her defiant challenge to the community that condemned her while honoring the powerful man who had abused her.

Childhood and fosterage

After her parents died, Ulrika was sent out to be raised by a household in Alarum. She says that the couple took her at auction for eight daler a year, a low bid the farmer later regretted because, in his view, her food and clothing cost more than the payment. The arrangement made an orphan’s care a matter of accounting, and the farmer used that supposed debt to justify exploiting her when she was fourteen.

Ulrika recalls that she cried and begged to be released, but was a slight child and could not resist the adult who controlled her home. The abuse recurred, and she says she eventually grew accustomed to the treatment. The account describes Alarum not simply as her birthplace or a point on a map, but as the setting where an unequal household relationship shaped the choices available to a child dependent on her foster parents.

From escape to stigma

When she could, Ulrika ran away from her foster home. She later found company and obtained food and other necessities by giving what she understood to be the only thing she had to offer; she links this understanding to the treatment she had been taught to accept in Alarum. In time she became known as Ulrika of Västergöhl, and was condemned by the church and excluded from the Lord’s table for the life she had led.

Her account rejects the idea that this later stigma can be separated from the conditions in which she grew up. She says that those who had used her also judged her, while the community’s women treated her as an outcast. The narrative thus connects Alarum to a wider pattern in which the consequences of exploitation fell on Ulrika, while those with greater standing could avoid public blame.

Reputation and public memory

Ulrika contrasts the farmer’s social respectability with what she says he did to her as a child. He was a friend of the dean, attended his gatherings, and received praise at his funeral. According to Ulrika, that public eulogy omitted his abuse of the orphan in his care. After the coffin was lowered into the grave and the mourners had left, she went to the graveside and spat on it; she describes the gesture as satisfying.

Alarum is therefore recalled through testimony that contests the village’s official memory. The farmer’s standing and funeral praise do not erase Ulrika’s account; they sharpen its accusation. The place’s significance lies in the contrast between a respected household’s public image and the private power exercised over a dependent child, and in Ulrika’s insistence that the silenced history be told.