Fritofs Saga

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Fritof's Saga

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Title: Fritofs Saga
Author: Esaias Tegner
Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8518] [Yes, we are more than one

year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 18, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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SAGA ***

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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