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FRITIOFS SAGA

BY
ESAIAS TEGNÉR

Introduction, Bibliography, Notes, and Vocabulary _Edited by_
ANDREW A. STOMBERG




PREFACE.


Ever since the establishment, many years ago, of courses in Swedish in a
few American colleges and universities the need of Swedish texts,
supplied with vocabularies and explanatory notes after the model of the
numerous excellent German and French editions, has been keenly felt.
This need has become particularly pressing the last three years during
which Swedish has been added to the curricula of a large number of high
schools. The teachers in Swedish in these high schools as well as in
colleges and universities have been greatly handicapped in their work by
the lack of properly edited texts. It is clearly essential to the success
of their endeavor to create an interest in the Swedish language and its
literature, at the same time maintaining standards of scholarship that
are on a level with those maintained by other modern foreign language
departments, that a plentiful and varied supply of text material be
furnished. The present edition of Tegnér's Fritiofs Saga aims to be a
modest contribution to the series of Swedish texts that in the most
recent years have been published in response to this urgent demand.

Sweden has since the days of Tegnér been prolific in the creation of
virile and wholesome literary masterpieces, but Fritiofs Saga by Tegnér
is still quite generally accorded the foremost place among the literary
products of the nation. Tegnér is still hailed as the prince of Swedish
song by an admiring people and Fritiofs Saga remains, in popular
estimation at least, the grand national epic.

Fritiofs Saga has appeared in a larger number of editions than any other
Scandinavian work with the possible exception of Hans Christian
Andersen's Fairy Tales. It has been translated into fourteen European
languages, and the different English translations alone number
approximately twenty. In German the number is almost as high. Several
school editions having explanatory notes have appeared in Swedish and in
1909 Dr. George T. Flom, Professor of Scandinavian Languages and
Literature of the University of Illinois edited a text with introduction,
bibliography and explanatory notes in English, designed for use in
American colleges and universities, but the present edition is the first
one, as far as the editor is aware, to appear with an English vocabulary.

Fritiofs Saga abounds in mythological names and terms, as well as in
idiomatic expressions, and the preparation of the explanatory notes has
therefore been a perplexing task. A fairly complete statement under each
mythological reference would in the aggregate reach the proportions of a
treatise on Norse mythology, but the limitations of space made such
elaboration impossible. While brevity of expression has thus been the
hard rule imposed by the necessity of keeping within bounds, it is hoped
that the notes may nevertheless be found reasonably adequate in
explaining the text. Many mythological names occur frequently and in
different parts of the text, and as constant cross references in the
notes would likely be found monotonous, an effort has been made to
facilitate the matter of consulting and reviewing explanatory statements
for these terms by adding an index table.

It has not been thought necessary or desirable to translate many
idiomatic expressions in the text, as the vocabulary ought to enable the
student, without the assistance of a lavish supply of notes, to get at
the meaning. It would seem that the study of a foreign text would be most
stimulating and invigorating to a student, if he himself be given a
chance to wrestle with difficult sentences.

The introduction that precedes the text makes no pretension of being
anything more than an attempt to state in broad outline the salient facts
in the life of Tegnér and in the genesis and development of the Fritiofs
Saga theme.

The text in the present edition has been modernized to conform with the
orthography officially adopted in Sweden in 1906.

This new edition of the great masterpiece is accompanied by the editor's
sincere hope that it may in a measure at least serve to create an
increased interest in the study of the sonorous Swedish language and its
rich literature and give a clearer conception of the seriousness and
strength of Swedish character.

The book owes much to the kindly suggestions and corrections of those
who have examined it in proof or manuscript. Special acknowledgment is
due Professor A. Louis Elmquist of Northwestern University, who carefully
revised the vocabulary, and to Mr. E. W. Olson of Rock Island, Ill.,
whose accuracy and scholarship has been of invaluable assistance
throughout.

University of Minnesota, December, 1913.

A. A. S.




INTRODUCTION.


I.

In the personality of Esaias Tegnér the vigor and idealism of the
Swedish people find their completest and most brilliant incarnation. A
deep love of the grandeurs of nature, keen delight in adventure and
daring deeds, a charming juvenility of spirit that at least in the prime
of his life caused him to battle bravely and hopefully for great ideas, a
clearness of perception and integrity of purpose that abhor shams and
narrow prejudices and with reckless frankness denounce evils and abuses,
a disposition tending at times to brooding and melancholy, all these
elements, combined in Tegnér, have made him the idealized type of the
Swedish people. He was cast in a heroic mold and his countrymen continue
to regard him as the completed embodiment of their national ideals. And
in the same measure that Tegnér stands forth as an expression of Swedish
race characteristics it may be said that Fritiofs Saga is the
quintessence of his own sentiments and ideals.

Tegnér, according to his own words, "was born and reared in a remote
mountain region where nature herself composes noble but wild music, and
where the ancient gods apparently still wander about on winter evenings."
His ancestry went back for several generations through the sturdy bonde
class, though his father was a preacher and his mother the daughter of a
preacher. The father's people dwelt in the province of Småland and the
mother's ancestors had lived in the picturesque province of Värmland. The
future poet was born on the 13 of November, 1782, at Kyrkerud, Värmland,
his father holding a benefice in that province. While he was yet a mere
child of nine the father died and the family was left in poverty. A
friend of the Tegnér family, the judicial officer Branting, gave the
young Esaias a home in his house. The lad soon wrote a good hand and was
given a desk and a high, three-legged chair in the office. Branting took
a fancy to the young clerk and soon fell into the habit of inviting him
to accompany the master upon the many official journeys that had to be
made through the bailiwick. Thus Esaias came to see the glories of nature
in his native province, and deep and lasting impressions were left upon
his mind. His quick imagination was further stirred by the heroic sagas
of the North, in the reading of which he at times became so absorbed that
the flight of the hours or the passing events were entirely unnoticed by
him.

Branting, who had become convinced that his young clerk was by nature
endowed for a much higher station than a lowly clerkship offered,
generously provided Esaias with an opportunity for systematic study. In
1796 he wrote a good friend in whose home an elder brother of Esaias was
then acting as tutor, suggesting that the younger brother be given a home
there also and thus have the advantage of the brother's tutelage. A ready
acquiescence meeting this proposal, Esaias now went to Malma, the home of
Captain Löwenhjelm, and at once plunged into the study of Latin, French
and Greek under the brother's guidance. Independently of the instructor
he at the same time acquired a knowledge of English and read principally
the poems of Ossian, which greatly delighted him.

The following year the elder brother accepted a more profitable position
as tutor in the family of the great iron manufacturer Myhrman at Rämen in
Värmland and thither Esaias accompanied him. Here he could drink deep
from the fountain of knowledge for at Rämen he found a fine library of
French, Latin and Greek classics. He worked prodigiously and this,
coupled with a remarkably retentive memory, enabled him to make
remarkably rapid progress in his studies. He would have remained in the
library all the time poring over his dear classic authors but for the
fortunate intervention of the young members of the Myhrman family, seven
in all, who frequently would storm into his room and carry him off by
sheer force to their boisterous frolics. To one of these playmates, Anna
Myhrman, the youngest daughter of the family, he soon became attached by
the tender ties of love.

In 1799 Tegnér was enabled, through the generosity of Branting and
Myhrman, to repair to Lund and enter the university of that place. Here
he made a brilliant record as a student, particularly in the classics,
and after three years he was awarded the master's degree. In recognition
of his remarkable scholarship he was soon after made instructor in
aesthetics, secretary to the faculty of philosophy and assistant
librarian. In 1806 he claimed Anna Myhrman as his bride.

We have the testimony of Tegnér himself that already as a child he began
to write poetry, in fact these efforts began so early in his life that he
could not remember when he for the first time exercised the power that
later was to win him an abiding fame. As early as his clerkship days in
the office of Branting he wrote a poem in Alexandrine verse with the
subject taken from the Old Norse sagas. His numerous productions before
1808 attracted little attention and failed to get any prize for the
young author. But in the above mentioned year he sprang into immediate
popularity by the stirring "War Song of the Scanian Reserves" (Krigssång
för skånska lantvärnet), the Marseillaise of the Swedish nation. Sweden
had just suffered great reverses in war, her very existence as an
independent power seemed to hang in the balance, and confusion and
discouragement were evident on every hand. Then came Tegnér's patriotic
bugle blast, stirring the nation to renewed hope and courage. Speaking
of this poem Professor Boyesen says: "As long as we have wars we must
have martial bards and with the exception of the German Theodore Körner
I know none who can bear comparison with Tegnér. English literature can
certainly boast no war poem which would not be drowned in the mighty
music of Tegnér's 'Svea', 'The Scanian Reserves', and that magnificent
dithyrambic declamation, 'King Charles, the Young Hero'. Tennyson's
'Charge of the Light Brigade' is technically a finer poem than anything
Tegnér has written, but it lacks the deep, virile bass, the tremendous
volume of breath and voice, and the captivating martial lilt which makes
the heart beat willy nilly to the rhythm of the verse" (Essays on
Scandinavian Literature, 233).

The ability evinced by Tegnér as an instructor, but principally the
enthusiasm aroused by his "Song to the Scanian Reserves", gave him in
1810 a call to the Greek professorship at Lund. He did not, however,
enter into this position until 1812.

In the meantime Tegnér had given to his native land the solemn didactic
poem "Svea". In stately Alexandrine verse he scathingly rebukes his
countrymen for their foolish aping after foreign manners and depending
on foreign goods to satisfy their desires. The people, says the poet, can
become strong again only by a return to the simple life and homely
virtues of the great past. Not on the arena of war but through faithful
endeavor in industry, science and art may the Swedish people restore to
their fatherland its former power and glory. As though transported by
this noble thought into a state of ecstasy, the bard then, in the
concluding portion of the poem, pictures in magnificent dithyrambic song
the titanic struggle that ensues and enthrones Peace as the beneficent
ruler of the land. "Svea" won the prize of the Swedish Academy and firmly
established Tegnér in the affection of his countrymen.

The most productive and brilliant period of Tegnér's literary activity is
contemporaneous with his incumbency of the Greek professorship at Lund
(1812-1824). In this period he enriches Swedish literature with a series
of lyrics which still rank among the best both in point of lucidity of
thought and brilliance of diction. Only a few that stand out most
prominently in a list of about one hundred poems from this period can
receive mention here.

The intolerance and bitterness of the reaction that followed close upon
the downfall of Napoleon and found its cruel instrument of oppression in
the Holy Alliance aroused the bitter opposition of Tegnér. His vision was
not obscured, a fate that befell so many in that day, but he saw clearly
the nobility and necessity of tolerance, freedom and democracy. It is to
the great glory of Tegnér that he consistently used his brilliant powers
in battling against the advancing forces of obscurantism and tyranny. His
enlightened and humanitarian ideas find a beautiful utterance in the
poem "Tolerance" (Fördragsamhet) which dates from 1808, but later was
rewritten and appeared under the title "Voices of Peace" (Fridsröster).
In "The Awakened Eagle" (Den vaknade örnen), 1815, he celebrates the
return of Napoleon from Elba, The Union of Norway and Sweden stirs
Tegnér to write a poem "Nore", a high-minded protest against politics of
aggression and a plea for justice and a spirit of fraternity.

In "The New Year 1816" (Nyåret 1816) he scores the Holy Alliance in
bitter and sarcastic terms. The liberal ideas of Tegnér are further
elucidated in a famous address, delivered in 1817 at the celebration of
the three hundredth anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. In this
event the poet saw the unfolding of the great forces that led to the
spiritual and intellectual emancipation of man, and ushered in a new era
of freedom and progress. The reactionaries in the realm of literature
become the object of his attack in "Epilogue at the Master's
Presentation" (Epilog vid magisterpromotionen). Other poems of this
period, as "The Children of the Lord's Supper" (Nattvardsbarnen),
admirably translated by Longfellow, "Axel", the tragic tale of one of the
warriors of Charles XII., and his fair Russian bride, "Karl XII", which
breathes the defiant spirit not only of the hero king but of the nation,
"Address to the Sun" (Sång till solen), an eloquent eulogy to the
marvelous beauty of the King of Day, merely served to establish Tegnér
more firmly in the affection of the people. But his fame was to be placed
on a still firmer foundation when the greatest creation of his fertile
mind, Fritiofs Saga, appeared.


II.

The genesis of Fritiofs Saga is to be found partly in the renascence of a
strong national sentiment in Sweden after the disastrous wars and loss of
Finland, early in the nineteenth century, partly in Tegnér's personality
and in his profound knowledge and warm admiration of the Old Norse sagas.
We have seen how already as a boy he had read the sagas with keen zest
and even tried his hand at a heroic poem in stately Alexandrine verse.

To the thoughtful minds of that day it seemed clear that the cause of
Sweden's misfortunes was to be found in her loss of a strong manhood, due
to a senseless readiness in adopting enervating foreign customs and to a
fatal relaxation in morals. In 1811 a handful of enthusiastic students,
mostly from Tegnér's native province of Värmland, formed the Gothic Union
(Götiska förbundet) for the purpose of working with united efforts for
the regeneration of the nation. This, they believed, could best be
achieved by reviving the memories of the old Goths, merely another name
for the people of the Saga period, which in turn would help to bring back
the vigorous integrity and dauntless courage of the past. The ancient
sagas must therefore be popularized.

Tegnér, who already in his "Svea" had bewailed the loss of national power
and urged his people to become independent and strong again, joined the
Gothic Union, at the same time expressing his disapproval of a too
pronounced and narrow-minded imitation of old Gothic life and thought.
Erik Gustaf Geijer, the great historian and poet, also a native of
Värmland and in power of mind and loftiness of ideals almost the peer of
Tegnér, published in Iduna, the organ of the Gothic Union, a few poems
that faithfully reproduce the old Northern spirit and in strength and
simplicity stand almost unsurpassed. An extremist in the camp was Per
Henrik Ling, an ardent patriot, who, inspired by Danish and German
Romanticism, would rehabilitate the nation by setting before it in a
series of epics the strong virtues of the past, albeit that these often
appeared in uncouth and brutal forms. For the physical improvement of
his countrymen Ling worked out a scientific system of exercise, and
though his epics were failures, largely because they set up coarse models
for an age that aesthetically had risen superior to them, his system of
physical training entitles him to an honored place among the great men of
Scandinavia.

Tegner had been greatly grieved at Ling's literary mistakes. It seemed
to him deplorable that a worthy cause should be doomed to ignominious
failure just because unskilled hands had undertaken to do the work. This
feeling prompted him to undertake the writing of a great epic based on
the old sagas, but excluding their crudities. But it would be a mistake
to think that this was the only force that impelled him to write. Tegnér
has now reached the heyday of his wonderful poetic powers and he must
give expression to the great ideas that stir his soul. And so he proceeds
to paint a picture of Fritiof the Bold and his times. The great Danish
poet Oehlenschläger had already published "Helge", an Old Norse cycle of
poems which Tegnér warmly admired. This poem revealed to him the
possibilities of the old saga themes in the hands of a master.

Fritiofs Saga did not appear as a completed work at first, but merely in
installments of a certain number of cantos at a time and these not in
consecutive order. In the summer of 1820, cantos 16-19, being the first
installments or "fragments," as Tegnér himself called them, appeared in
Iduna; the five concluding cantos were completed and published two years
later, and not until then did the poet proceed to write the first part.
The work was finally completed in 1825.

Although the first cantos published had received a most enthusiastic
reception on the part of the people and won unstinted praise from most of
the great literary men, even from many who belonged to opposing literary
schools, an enthusiasm that grew in volume and sincerity as the
subsequent portions appeared, Tegnér became increasingly dissatisfied and
discouraged because of the task that confronted him and the serious
defects that he saw in his creation. Tegnér was at all times his own
severest critic and there is found in him an utter absence of vanity or
illusion. "Speaking seriously", he wrote in 1824, "I have never regarded
myself as a poet in the higher significance of the word. -- -- -- I am at
best a John the Baptist who is preparing the way for him who is to come."
[Tegnér, Samlade Skrifter, II, 436.]


III.

As the basis for Tegnér's epic lies the ancient story of Fritiof the
Bold, which was probably put in writing in the thirteenth century,
although the events are supposed to have transpired in the eighth
century. But Tegnér has freely drawn material from other Old Norse sagas
and songs, and this, and not a little of his own personal experience, he
has woven into the story with the consummate skill of a master. He made
full use of his poetic license and eliminated and added, reconstructed
and embellished just as was convenient for his plan. "My object", he
says, "was to represent a poetical image of the old Northern hero age. It
was not Fritiof as an individual whom I would paint; it was the epoch of
which he was chosen as the representative." [Tegnér, Samlade Skrifter,
II, 393.]

It was Tegnér's firm conviction that the poet writes primarily for the
age in which he himself lives, and since he wrote for a civilized
audience he must divest Fritiof of his raw and barbarous attributes,
though still retaining a type of true Northern manhood. On this point
Tegnér says: "It was important not to sacrifice the national, the lively,
the vigorous and the natural. There could, and ought to, blow through the
song that cold winter air, that fresh Northern wind which characterizes
so much both the climate and the temperament of the North. But neither
should the storm howl till the very quicksilver froze and all the more
tender emotions of the breast were extinguished."

"It is properly in the bearing of Fritiof's character that I have sought
the solution of this problem. The noble, the high-minded, the bold--which
is the great feature of all heroism--ought not of course to be missing
there, and sufficient material abounded both in this and many other
sagas. But together with this more general heroism, I have endeavored to
invest the character of Fritiof with something individually Northern--
that fresh-living, insolent, daring rashness which belongs, or at least
formerly belonged to the national temperament. Ingeborg says of Fritiof
(Canto 7):

'How glad, how daring, how inspired with hope,
Against the breast of norn he sets the point
Of his good sword, commanding:
"Thou shalt yield!"'

These lines contain the key to Fritiof's character and in fact to the
whole poem." [Tegnér, Samlade Skrifter, II, p. 393. The entire treatise
is found in English translation in Andersen's Viking Tales.]

In what manner Tegnér modernizes his story by divesting the original saga
of its grotesque and repugnant features can most readily be illustrated
in a comparison between his account of Fritiof's encounter with king
Helge in Balder's temple (Canto 13) and the original story. The latter
tells how Fritiof unceremoniously enters the temple, having first given
orders that all the king's ships should be broken to pieces, and threw
the tribute purse so violently at the king's nose that two teeth were
broken out of his mouth and he fell into a swoon in his high seat. But as
Fritiof was passing out of the temple, he saw the ring on the hand of
Helge's wife, who was warming an image of Balder by the fire. He seized
the ring on her hand, but it stuck fast and so he dragged her along the
floor toward the door and then the image fell into the fire. The wife of
Halfdan tried to come to her assistance, only to let the image she was
warming by the fire fall into the flames. As the image had previously
been anointed, the flames shot up at once and soon the whole house was
wrapped in fire. Fritiof, however, got the ring before he went away. But
as he walked out of the temple, said the people, he flung a firebrand at
the roof, so that all the house was wrapped in flames. Of the violent
feeling that, according to Tegnér, racked Fritiof's soul as he went into
exile or of the deep sense of guilt that latter hung as a pall over his
life there is no mention in the original. Here we touch upon the most
thoroughgoing change that Tegnér made in the character of his hero. He
invested him with a sentimentality, a disposition towards melancholy, an
accusing voice of conscience that torments his soul until full atonement
has been won, that are modern and Christian in essence and entirely
foreign to the pagan story. On this point Tegnér: "Another peculiarity
common to the people of the North is a certain disposition for melancholy
and heaviness of spirit common to all deeper characters. Like some
elegiac key-note, its sound pervades all our old national melodies, and
generally whatever is expressive in our annals, for it is found in the
depths of the nation's heart. I have somewhere or other said of Bellman,
the most national of our poets:

'And work the touch of gloom his brow o'shading,
A Northern minstrel-look, a grief in rosy red!'

For this melancholy, so far from opposing the fresh liveliness and
cheering vigor common to the nation, only gives them yet more strength
and elasticity. There is a certain kind of life-enjoying gladness (and of
this, public opinion has accused the French) which finally reposes on
frivolity; that of the North is built on seriousness. And therefore I
have also endeavored to develop in Fritiof somewhat of this meditative
gloom. His repentant regret at the unwilling temple fire, his scrupulous
fear of Balder (Canto 15) who--

'Sits in the sky, cloudy thoughts sending down,
Ever veiling my spirit in gloom',

and his longing for the final reconciliation and for calm within
him, are proofs not only of a religious craving, but also and still more
of a national tendency to sorrowfulness common to every serious mind, at
least in the North of Europe." [Tegnér, Samlade Skrifter, II, p. 394.]

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