FRITHJOF'S (frleyerf) SAGA. This lyrical epic in 24 cantos by Esaias Tegner was completed in 1825. This is the most famous literary work produced in Sweden, and for many years has been very popular throughout Europe. It is based on the romantic story, 'Frithjof's Saga,' written by an unknown au thor in Iceland ,about 1300. We find in the original saga, for the first time in the early Norwegian-Icelandic literature, resignation praised as a virtue of real manhood; also, for the first time, a love story with a happy ending. According to Tegner's Letter,' CEhlenschlzger's (Helge) gave him the idea of Frithjof, but the treatment is different. The Swedish author has modified the original saga and made many additions, drawn from other Icelandic sagas and from the "My object was to represent a poetical image of the old Northern hero age. The heroine Ingeborg says of Frithjof : How glad, how daring, how inspired with hope "Against the breast of Norn [Fate) he sets the point Of his good sword, commanding: ' Thou shalt yield.' " These lines contain the key to Frithjof's char acter. All that may be offensive to the modern
way of thinking in the conduct of a hero and warrior of old has been left out or smoothed over. The poem presents itself in conformity with the literary views and taste of the author's own age. As works of consummate art may be mentioned such cantos as 'Frithjof's Court ship,' (Ingeborg's Lamentation,' The Viking Code,' 'The King's Election.' Each canto has its own 'peculiar form of stanza and metre. 'Frithjof's Saga> has been translated into Eng lish more than a score of times, also into almost all the languages of the Continent. It has been set to music by B. Crusell and others. In Ger many it was for a long time customary to give boys and girls a beautifully bound copy of this work as a present at the time of their confirma tion. In 1913 the Kaiser presented to the Nor wegian people a colossal monument of Frithjof, which has been erected at $ogn, where he was supposed to have lived about WO A.D.