FRITHJOF'S SAGA, which was probably first written down at the end of the 13th or in the beginning of the 14th c., is an ancient Icelandic. myth, which records the life and adventures of the hero Frithjof (properly FrkIhtAjofr; i.e., "peace-destroyer"), who loved the beautiful Ingeborg, the daughter of a petty kino. of Norway. After being rejected by the brothers of Ingeborg, and having committed various acts of revenge on his ene mies, he comes to the court of the old kin.. Hring, to whom Ingeborg has been married, and is received with kindness.. At the king of her husband, Ingeborg is married to her lover, who acquires with her hand the dominions of Hring, over which he rules prosperously to the end of his days. Frithjof is supposed to have lived in the 8th c.; but some writers assign to him a much earlier period. This saga was included by Bjorner in his collection Nordiska Hampadater (Stock. 1737); and by Raft' in his Fornal detr &.gur Nordhrlanda (Copen. 1820). Attention has of late years been more especially drawn to this ancient saga, which is, in fact, merely one of a number of similar myth ical narratives, in consequence of the distinguished Swedish poet, bishop Tegner, having selected it for the ground-work of a poem (Frithjof '8Saga),which was published in its com plete form in 1825, and at once became the most popular poem that had ever appeared in Sweden, and raised its author to the height of his reputation. Tegner follows the saga
so closely, that the merits or demerits of the plan of the story must be ascribed more to the original than to himself; but to foreigners the poem scarcely seems to present the excellences that have been attributed to it by Swedish critics. The diversity of meter employed in the 24 cantos; of which each differs wholly from the others, detracts from the completeness of the whole, and produces an inharmonious effect. The Frithjof's Saga of Tegner has been translated into several other languages; among the six or seven English translations, we may instance those by R. G. Latham (1838) and G. Stephens (1841).