Poems and Songs Part 31

After Erik and Svein were established in power as a result of that battle, Einar became reconciled and married their sister Bergliot.

In 1023 he went to King Knut the Great in England, who was also King of Denmark, and urged him to conquer Norway. Knut did so in 1028 and made his son Svein King of Norway. Einar opposed this, and Magnus the Good (see Note 6) was called to rule, whose most faithful va.s.sal Einar became. He followed King Magnus and his co-regent Harold Hardruler to Denmark, where Magnus died. Here and in Norway Einar, as the champion of all that was good, opposed many of the illegal and unrighteous deeds and plans of Harald, and incurred the latter's bitter enmity. In the year 1055, under the pretext of reconciliation, Harold lured Einar with his wife and son Eindride (p.r.o.nounced as three syllables) to Nidaros (Trondhjem), where the murder was committed within the hall of the royal residence, as related in the poem.

Haakon Ivarson was a man of force and influence.

Harald Hardruler was a half brother of Olaf the Saint. Late in the reign of Magnus the Good, after adventurous wanderings in Russia and the Orient, he returned to Norway and demanded a share in the kingdom. By agreement they divided the royal power and their wealth. Before his death Magnus determined that Harald should be King of Norway, but Svein Estridson King of Denmark. Harald, however, tried unsuccessfully to conquer Denmark. He died in England, being slain at the battle of Stanford Bridge in 1066. His harshness as King secured him his epithet. The murder of Einar brought him much hate.

Ting-peace. The spelling "ting" is adopted in place of "thing."

Peasants, for this word see Note 78.

Gimle, the heaven of the new Christian faith.

Heath of Lyrskog, in Jutland. Magnus the Good, at the time also King of Denmark, won a decisive victory here in 1043 over a much larger invading army of Wends. (See also Note 23.) Tronder, one from the region about Trondhjem.

Haakon from Hjorungavaag. Haakon Jarl (970-995) was the last pagan King in Norway. His defeat in 986 of the Jomsborg vikings, allies of King Harald Bluetooth of Denmark, in a naval engagement at Hjorungavaag, a bay in western Norway, was the greatest naval battle ever fought in that country.

Valhall, the hall where those slain in battle dwell after death.

Note 12.

TO MY WIFE. Written in Rome in 1861 or 1862, first printed in 1865.

Bjornson's wife was Karoline Reimers, born December 1, 1835. They were married on September 11, 1858; she is still living (June, 1915). At the celebration of their golden wedding Bjornson addressed touching words of grat.i.tude to her, saying at the close: "I know that you will live longer than I. It will be your lot to cover the sheet over me. There is much in a man that needs to be covered over. Of our life, Karoline, you shall have the honor. See also the poem Those with Me, and notes thereto.

Note 13.

IN A HEAVY HOUR. Written in Italy rather late in 1861, after Bjornson received tidings of the sharp criticism of his drama King Sverre and of its lack of success on the stage in Christiania, where it was first performed on October 9. In a letter from Hans Christian Andersen Bjornson wrote on December 10, 1861: "At a time when I was in a mood to write the following verses, which perhaps tell so much that I need not tell more [the poem is quoted],--at a time when I, the man, nay, the product of friends.h.i.+p, was in a mood to write this, it came just like a Christmas hymn among strangers, to hear that you had dedicated to me your last four Tales. You ..., you had a heart to remember me, when many friends from tested times did not."

Note 14.

KAARE'S SONG. Helga was the daughter of Maddad, a prominent and wealthy man at Katanes. She came to Orkney, where the ruler, Haakon Earl, fell in love with her and made her his mistress. She bore him a son, Harald, and lived at Orkney sixteen years in spite of the hate and disdain showed her by so many, especially by the Earl's lawful wife. She and her sister Frakark exerted an evil influence over Haakon Earl, inciting him among other things to murder his co- ruler and kinsman Magnus Erlendson. It was believed that Haakon Earl became crazy when he first saw Helga. This song, which Kaare, one of the Earl's men, sings, describes this first meeting and was commonly sung by Helga's enemies.

Note 15.

IVAR INGEMUNDSON'S LAY. In the first half of the twelfth century an Icelandic skald of this name lived and sang at the court of King Eystein in Norway. He loved a young Icelandic girl, but had not declared his love. When his brother was going home to Iceland, Ivar asked him to tell her of his love and beg her to wait for him. But on his later coming to Iceland, she met him as that brother's wife.

Ivar returned Norway and was thereafter always melancholy and thoughtful. When Harald Gille became King, Ivar lived at his court, but sympathized warmly with the able and bold Sigurd Slembe, who claimed to be Magnus Barefoot's son and Harald Gille's half-brother.

After many years of hards.h.i.+p Sigurd came to Harald Gille and asked him to recognize him. Harald was a good-natured, but weak and ignorant man, entirely controlled by his chieftains, who persuaded him to have Sigurd imprisoned, with the intention of killing him.

Sigurd, however, escaped and fled.

Note 16.

MAGNUS THE BLIND. Magnus was born in 1115, and became King in 1130.

He had Harald Gille as co-regent. Their agreement was that Harald could not demand a larger share in the kingdom as long as Magnus lived. But Magnus made himself hated by his own deeds, and in 1131 a breach resulted between the Kings. The chieftains were on Harald's side. He seized Magnus in 1135, had him blinded and castrated, and sent him into the monastery at Nidarholm. Sigurd Slembe, who made war on Harald and conquered him, freed Magnus from the monastery and caused him to fight in his army. He died in the sea-battle of Holmengraa.

Note 17.

SIN, DEATH. Written during the latter half of 1862 in Munich, and possibly, according to an oral statement of Bjornson's, under impressions received from German ecclesiastical art: "It is only natural that in Munich symbolical poems should present themselves."

Note 18.

FRIDA. This poem was first printed March 24, 1863, soon after the death, at the age of twenty-two, of her whom it commemorates. She was a younger sister of the leading Danish literary critic, Clemens Petersen, born 1834. He became Bjornson's friend in 1856 and aided greatly in opening the way for him in Denmark. Until 1868 Petersen had much influence on public opinion. Soon after that he came to America, and did not return to Copenhagen until 1904. He was a follower of Heiberg, but more liberal.

Note 19.

BERGEN. Written in 1863 for a musical festival in which Bjornson and Ibsen took part. Bergen's unusually favorable situation made it for a long time Norway's first city in commerce; it has only recently fallen behind Christiania. It has ever had a large local fleet and great traffic in its harbor. Founded about 1070 by King Olaf the Quiet, Bergen was very important in the older history of the land, as the residence of the Kings, until about 1350, when Hanseatic control began, continuing until late in the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century Bergen was incomparably the first commercial city in the Danish-Norwegian monarchy; in the eighteenth it was surpa.s.sed by Copenhagen. The people of Bergen have always been distinctly liberal in thought and feeling.

Holberg, Ludvig (1684-1754), was born in Bergen, but resided in most of his life in Denmark. His comedies, which founded modern Danish-Norwegian literature, are indeed immortal.

Dahl, John Christian Clausen (1788-1857), a Norwegian landscape painter, who, though born in Bergen, went in 1811 to Copenhagen and from 1818 resided in Dresden. As subjects he preferred water, rock, and strand, and showed a realistic tendency in his light-effects.

Welhaven, see Note 36.

Ole Bull (1810-1880), a violinist of world-wide renown. In his later life he pa.s.sed most of his time in the United States, but every year he returned to the home which he maintained near Bergen, at a distance of about two hours by steamer. Carrying out a plan conceived in 1848, he established in Bergen with his own means the first Norwegian National Theater, which was opened January 2, 1850.

Collin says that the last line of the poem sums up Bjornson's view of Norway's historical memories as motive power for new achievement.

This seems realized in Bergen's recent development,--it now had the largest steam-fleet of all the cities in Norway.

Note 20.

P. A. MUNCH. Peter Andreas Munch (born in Christiania, December 15, 1810; died in Rome, May 25, 1863) became professor of history in 1841 and Keeper of the Archives in 1861. He was not only one of the greatest historians of Norway, but also a philologist, an ethnographer, an archaeologist, a geographer, and a publicist. His chief field was the prehistoric age and the medieval period.

He traveled much in the Scandinavian lands and elsewhere in Europe, made several long stays in Rome, and was buried there. His main and best known work is the History of the Norwegian People, in eight large volumes, published from 1851 to 1863. This and his other writings greatly strengthened the national self-consciousness and sense of independence. Munch had a phenomenal memory, marked talent for music and drawing, playful humor, incredible capacity for work, rare intuition for epoch-making discoveries. In a speech in 1892 Bjornson placed Munch by the side of Wergeland (see Note 78) as a fosterer of national self-consciousness and faith in the future: "We can remember when we were young, how P. A. Munch's History came out in parts, and how he fought with the Danish professors, to get Norway brought home again from Danish captivity in history also, --we can remember how eventful it was for us, and how it had its share in molding us. ... He had his large share in what our generation has done. I put his work in this way by the side of Wergeland's."

Through provincial Asian forests, etc. These lines refer to the so-called "immigration-theory" advanced by Rudolf Keyser and elaborated by Munch, which maintained that the remote ancestors of the Swedes and the Norwegians migrated from the northeast into the Scandinavian peninsula about 300 B.C.: the Swedes from Finland and the Northmen through Lapland. These scholars also held that Old Norse literature, as being the product of Norway and Iceland, was distinctly Norse, and not "Northern" or joint-Scandinavian.

When I call, paraphrase of Isaiah xlviii, 13 Who again shall reunite fit? Munch left no peer in international reputation. Coursed the sea-ways toward his standard. Not only was Munch honored throughout Europe, but he was the first to secure for Norwegian history its rightful place in European history.

Note 21.

KING FREDERIK THE SEVENTH. His death occurred November 15, 1863, just before the crisis with Prussia and Austria. He was born October 6, 1808, the son of Prince Christian Frederik, later King Christian VIII of Denmark, and his first wife. The early divorce of his parents resulted in his education being neglected; he was left for several years in the hands of relatives and strangers; had unsympathetic teachers and almost no trace of parental guidance.

All his life he had less than average attainments in knowledge, except in a practical way in Scandinavian archaeology. He had natural dignity, but a broad, undisciplined nature, and shunned court etiquette and constraint. In 1834, he was in effect banished to Jaegerspris, a royal estate near Frederikssund, and later was sent on a cruise to Iceland. Afterwards he resided in disfavor in Fredericia, where his tendencies to plain, direct intercourse with people of all cla.s.ses were further developed. When Christian VIII ascended the throne, Frederik's position was somewhat improved, and his free a.s.sociation with officials and commoners made him very popular. It was found that he could show at times surprisingly clear and sure insight into practical conditions. His interest continued active in archaeological investigations, sea- voyaging, and fis.h.i.+ng. During the increasing national and political difficulties Frederik, because of his p.r.o.nounced Danish feeling and sympathy with the common people, was disposed to take a stand more national and const.i.tutionally liberal than could please the government circles. This became known among the people and made him a still greater favorite. In 1847 he submitted a proposal for the introduction of a joint Const.i.tution for the entire monarchy, but King Christian died before action could be taken.

Frederik VII ascended the throne January 20, 1848. The change of ministry which he made in March as a result of the Schleswig revolt, his opposition to the division of Schleswig, and his establishment of really const.i.tutional government made his popularity forever secure, although he was not a sure and purposeful ruler. Frederik's character played an important part in the relations of Denmark with Sweden and Norway. The personal friends.h.i.+p between the two Kings united the countries more closely and lifted political "Scandinavism" to the height it reached shortly before the war of 1864 with Prussia and Austria over Schleswig-Holstein.

This "Scandinavism" is referred to in the poem by the words "to the North," "his course," and similar expressions. It was the name given to the sense of kins.h.i.+p of the three Northern peoples and the desire of closer union, whether in spiritual or material or political relations. It was evoked first by poets and scholars, and gathered strength from 1843 on in meetings of university students.

In 1848 there was warm sympathy in both Sweden and Norway with the cause of Denmark; the a.s.sistance of volunteers and even of Swedish- Norwegian troops was given. Towards 1864 the three countries came more closely together politically, promises of help to Denmark were made by Sweden and Norway, and there was even talk of a treaty of alliance. But the end of the war of 1864, and Germany's victory over France in 1870-71, destroyed the hopes of political Scandinavism, and thereafter it became rather cultural and practical, at least until 1905, when Norway's full independence of Sweden led to emphasis on individual nationality. The war of 1914-15 may bring about a revival of political Scandinavism. (See also Note 38.)

Note 22.

TO SWEDEN. This poem and several following breathe the spirit of Scandinavism described above.

Yellow-blue. The flag of Sweden shows a yellow cross on a blue ground.

Christian Fourth, King of Denmark and Norway, 1588-1648.

Haakon Earl, see Note 14.

Palnatoki, the legendary leader of the Jomsborg vikings. Ancient enemies are now allies, and so also Tordenskjold (see Note 5) fights by the side of, not against, Charles XII.

Jenny=the famous singer, Jenny Lind, 1820-1887.

Lutzen. Gustavus Adolphus prayed and his troops sang hymns before the battle.

Narwa, where Charles XII, in November, 1700, was victorious over the Russians under Peter the Great.

Note 23.

OUR FOREFATHERS. A festival, memorial poem, written just before the outbreak of the Danish-German war. Danish troops were stationed along the river Eider, which the Germans crossed on February 1, 1864. The last lines of the poem refer to what is told in the saga of Magnus the Good about the battle of Lyrskog Heath (see Note 11): "The night before the battle Magnus was wakeful and prayed to G.o.d for victory. Towards morning he fell asleep and dreamed that his father, King Olaf the Saint, came to him and said: 'You are now very sick at heart and full of fear, because the Wends are coming against you with a great army; but you must not be afraid of the heathen host, though they be many together. I shall follow you into this battle and join in the fight, when you hear my horn.' At dawn the King wakened, and then all heard up in the air the ringing of a bell, and those of the King's men who had been in Nidaros [Trondhjem] recognized by its sound the bell which King Olaf had given to the church of St. Clement. Then Magnus had the signal for battle blown, and his men made such a furious onset on the Wends, that fifteen thousand fell and the rest fled."

Note 24.

WHEN NORWAY WOULD NOT HELP. Written upon the adjournment of the extraordinary meeting of the Norwegian Storting, called in March, 1864. The action of the Storting providing for Norway's partic.i.p.ation with Denmark in the war coupled this with conditions which made it equivalent to a refusal to help.

Wessel, see Note 5.

Dannebrog, see next note.

Note 25.

TO THE DANNEBROG. The original t.i.tle was "The 19th of April, 1864."

Dybbol [Duppel]. This strongly fortified Danish place in Schleswig was taken by the Germans on April 18, 1864.

Dannebrog, the traditional name of the Danish flag, consisting of a red ground whereon is a broad white cross, extending to all four margins. According to an old legend the original Dannebrog ("broge"

is an old Danish word, meaning a piece of colored cloth) soared down from Heaven during the battle of Reval in 1219 and brought victory to the Danes, while a voice was heard promising the Danes a complete victory as often as they raised this banner against their enemies.

Note 26.

TOAST FOR THE MEN OF EIDSVOLD. First called "Toast for the 17th of May;" written for the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Const.i.tution (see Note 5).

Note 26.

THE NORRoNA-RACE. Written for the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Act of Union with Sweden.

Norrona= Northern.

Surtr. According to Norse mythology there were in the beginning two worlds, the first of which, called Muspell, was filled with fire, light, and warmth; over this Surtr ruled, sitting with a sword of flame at its border. The other world was Niflheim, cold and dark.

Yggdrasil. The tree Yggdrasil is a symbol of the present world.

Dragons, wars.h.i.+ps with carved dragons as figure-heads.

Poland's night. For Gustavus Adolphus the Polish War, which he waged before he took part actively in the Thirty Years' War in Germany, was also undertaken for the defense of Protestantism.

Saga, here=History.

Note 27.

LECTOR THAASEN. Johan Edvard Thaasen (born in 1825; died February 17, 1865) was a cla.s.sical philologist and a man of broad culture, well versed in Old Norse and in modern French and German literature.

From 1852 he was teacher in the Cathedral School in Christiania, and from 1860 lecturer in Greek at the University, where he treated chiefly the Greek poets and archaeology. He came from a poor family and pa.s.sed his early life under hard conditions. During the last few years he was sickly, and he died of consumption. In 1858 he was president of the Students' Union, and spokesman for the Norwegians at the Student Meeting in Copenhagen in 1862.

Note 28.