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 assistance, only to let the image she was warming by the fire fall into the flames. As the image had previously been anointed, the flames shot up at once and soon the whole house was wrapped in fire. Fritiof, however, got the ring before he went away. But as he walked out of the temple, said the people, he flung a firebrand at the roof, so that all the house was wrapped in flames. Of the violent feeling that, according to Tegnér, racked Fritiof's soul as he went into exile or of the deep sense of guilt that latter hung as a pall over his life there is no mention in the original. Here we touch upon the most thoroughgoing change that Tegnér made in the character of his hero. He invested him with a sentimentality, a disposition towards melancholy, an accusing voice of conscience that torments his soul until full atonement has been won, that are modern and Christian in essence and entirely foreign to the pagan story. On this point Tegnér: "Another peculiarity common to the people of the North is a certain disposition for melancholy and heaviness of spirit common to all deeper characters. Like some elegiac key-note, its sound pervades all our old national melodies, and generally whatever is expressive in our annals, for it is found in the depths of the nation's heart. I have somewhere or other said of Bellman, the most national of our poets:
'And work the touch of gloom his brow o'shading,
A Northern minstrel-look, a grief in rosy red!'
For this melancholy, so far from opposing the fresh liveliness and cheering vigor common to the nation, only gives them yet more strength and elasticity. There is a certain kind of life-enjoying gladness (and of this, public opinion has accused the French) which finally reposes on frivolity; that of the North is built on seriousness. And therefore I have also endeavored to develop in Fritiof somewhat of this meditative gloom. His repentant regret at the unwilling temple fire, his scrupulous fear of Balder (Canto 15) who—
'Sits in the sky, cloudy thoughts sending down,
Ever veiling my spirit in gloom',
and his longing for the final reconciliation and for calm within him, are proofs not only of a religious craving, but also and still more of a national tendency to sorrowfulness common to every serious mind, at least in the North of Europe." [Tegnér, Samlade Skrifter, II, p. 394.]
Tegnér thus found it easy to justify the sentimentality that characterizes Fritiof's love for Ingeborg, an element in Fritiofs Saga that has been most severely condemned by the critics. To the criticism that this love is too modern and Platonic, Tegnér correctly answers that reverence for the sex was from the earliest times a characteristic of the German people so that the light and coarse view that prevailed among the most cultivated nations of antiquity was a thing quite foreign to the habits of the North.
Ingeborg like Fritiof is idealized by the poet although here the departure from the original is not as wide. That delicacy of sentiment which is inseparable from Ingeborg and guides her right in the great crisis is not, he maintains, a trait merely of the woman of ancient Scandinavia but is inherent in each noble female, no matter when or where she lives. And Tegnér, who surely was no realist after the fashion of Strindberg, chooses to picture woman as she appears in her loveliest forms.
The brooding and melancholy spirit that Tegnér had infused into the soul of Fritiof had in a large measure come from his own life. The depression of mind that had cast its shadows over him in the years that saw the creation of Fritiofs Saga grew steadily worse. The period that followed immediately upon the completion of this work was filled with doubt and despair. The explanation for this must be found partly in the insidious progress of a physical disease, partly to a change of place and environment. Certain hereditary tendencies, which caused him to fear that the light of reason would desert him, also played a part in this.
In 1824 he gave up the Greek professorship at Lund to become bishop of the diocese of Växiö in the province of Småland, but the duties of the new position were not congenial to him. The spiritual and intellectual life of the diocese was on a low plane and Tegnér threw himself with tremendous earnestness into the work of reform, but the prejudice and inertia of clergy and people stood constantly in the way. In his efforts to purge the church of some unworthy ecclesiastics he encountered bitter opposition and suffered some humiliations. He took a special interest in the schools of his diocese and his many pedagogical addresses are models in point of clearness and practical good sense.
The many and varied duties imposed on him by the episcopal office, particularly official inspection trips, attendance upon the sessions of the Riksdag, and serving on numerous important committees made it impossible for Tegnér to continue his literary activities in the manner of his university days, but occasionally he would give to his countrymen a literary masterpiece that showed that the brilliant mind had not been dimmed.
His mental and physical ailments grew steadily worse and after 1840 there came periods of insanity which expressed itself in the most chimerical plans for travel, literary activities, and great national enterprises. Light came to his reason again, but his strength had been permanently broken. He died on November 2, 1846, and his body was laid to rest in the cemetery at Växiö, where a simple monument of marble and Swedish granite marks his final resting place.