Fritofs Saga | Page 5

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