Poems and Songs

by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

Note 38. THE MEETING. The Student Meetings, i.e., conventions of university students in the three countries, were originally an important part of "Scandinavism" (see Note 21). The first was held in 1843; that of 1862 was the last to have a distinctly political character. After 1864 the chief aim of these gatherings was to improve the position and strengthen the influence of the student in the community. In 1869 Christiania invited the Danish students to meet there with their Swedish and Norwegian comrades, in the interest of culture, better acquaintance with one another, people, and land, and cooperation in general for the future of the kingdoms. Gjallar-horn, Heimdall's horn, to be blown especially at the beginning of Ragnarok, symbolical here of the painful passing of the old order, which ushers in a new world.

Note 39. NORSE NATURE. See note to the preceding poem. King Halfdan the Black (died 860) was the father of Harald Fairhair. It was said of him that he once dreamed he had the most beautiful hair one could see, luxuriant locks of various lengths and colors, but one of them larger, brighter, and fairer than all the others. This was interpreted to mean that King Halfdan would have many descendants, and they would rule Norway with great honor; but one of them would surpass the others, and later this was said to be Olaf the Saint. Nore, the largest mountain of Ringerike.

Note 40. I PASSED BY THE HOUSE. Written in 1869. The translator has not been able to verify the statement that the poem refers to a cousin, to whom Björnson was devoted from his student days.

Note 41. THOSE WITH ME. This poem of tender homage to his wife (see Note 12) and home was written during the summer of 1869, while Björnson was on a lecture tour, which took him to northernmost Norway. His fourth child, and first daughter, Bergliot, was born June 16, 1869, in Christiania. When their golden wedding was celebrated in 1908, Björnson said to his wife: "You knew me and knew how ungovernable I was, but you loved me, and there was a holy joy in that. To you always came back from much wildness and many wanderings. And with all my heart I give you the honor. To you I wrote the poem: 'As on I drive, in my heart joy dwells'. It was not poetical and not sentimental, but just plain and direct. I wrote it to glorify my home and you. And I believe that no more beautiful and deep poem in praise of home has been written. For there is life's wisdom in it. It is yours, Karoline, and your honor."

Note 42. TO MY FATHER. Written in 1869. Peder Björnson was settled as a pastor at Kvikne in Österdal at the time of the poet's birth. Originally he was an independent farmer, like his father and grandfather, on the large farm Skei on the Randsfjord, where he was born in 1797. He completed his theological training in 1829, came to Kvikne in 1831, to Nes in Romsdal in 1837, and to Sogne in 1852. On retiring in 1869 he moved to Christiania, where he died, August 25, 1871. His large frame and great physical strength were hereditary in his father's family. Our race. Allusion to the tradition of the descent of the Björnsons from ancient kings through the poet's great-grandmother, Marie Öistad. The Norwegian peasant, see Note 78.

Note 43. TO ERIKA LIE (-NISSEN) (1847-1903). One of the great pianists in Norway, she was born in Kongsvinger on the river Glommen, where her parents resided also when this poem was written in 1869. She gained European fame by her concerts from 1866 on, married the physician Oskar Nissen in 1874, and after 1876 resided in Norway. She was distinguished for the poetic quality of her playing, for warmth and fullness of tone, and for faultless technique.

Note 44. AT MICHAEL SARS'S GRAVE. He was born in Bergen, August 30, 1805, and died in Christiania, October 22, 1869. In 1823 he became a student of the University in Christiania, where for a time he devoted himself to natural science, continuing his boyhood's lively interest. But the necessity for self-support turned him to theology. In 1830 he was appointed pastor at Kinn in the Söndfjord, married in 1831 a sister of Welhaven, and in 1839 was transferred to Manger, near Bergen. Both the places mentioned were very convenient for zoölogical study, which Sars resumed at once and continued unbrokenly. His earliest published work appeared in 1829; it was of first-rate importance, and his reputation was soon established everywhere in the world of learning. In 1853 he sought retirement from the Church, and in 1854 was professor of zoölogy in the University, where he continued his remarkable researches until his death. He was a pioneer in his special field, the lower marine fauna, and his aim from the beginning was not merely to discover new species, but to trace the physiological processes and the development of these lower, minuter forms of life,—ovology, embryology, organology. It was his work that led to the deep-sea expeditions of The Challenger and other similar voyages.

Note 45. TO JOHAN SVERDRUP. Written in November, 1869. Johan Sverdrup (1816-1892) was the greatest political leader and statesman of Norway in the nineteenth century, and left the deepest traces in all its recent history. He settled in Laurvik in 1844 as a lawyer, was soon active in municipal politics, laboring for the interests of the working-class, was elected to the Storting in 1851. Reëlected in 1854, and regularly thereafter till 1885, his authority in the Storting and his power in public life steadily increased. From 1871 on he was President of the Storting, except in 1881 for reasons of health; from 1884 to 1889 he was Prime Minister. A consistent democrat, he created and led the party of the Left, or "Peasant- Left," and contended all his active life for the establishment of real government by the people, i.e., a constitutional democracy with parliamentary rule. This, the fulfillment of his famous saying, "All power ought to be gathered in this hall [i.e., in the Storting]," was consummated in June, 1884. Few men in Norway have been so bitterly assailed by political opponents, and few so idolized by followers. He was a masterful orator, inferior only to Björnson. Assassination. An allusion to Ibsen's The Young Men's Union, first performed in Christiania on September 30, 1869. Björnson regarded the drama as directed against himself and his political friends. In 1881 he wrote: "With the word assassination I did not mean that conditions and well-known men were aimed at. What I meant was, that The Young Men's Union tried to make our young liberal party into a band of ambitious speculators, whose patriotism could be carried off with their phraseology, and especially that prominent men were first made recognizable, and that then false hearts and base characters were fictitiously given them and spurious alliances pasted on them." The words of Einar. For Einar Tambarskelve, see Note 11, and for Magnus the Good, Note 6. Immediately after the death of Magnus in Denmark, Harald proposed to make himself King over all Denmark, but Einar arose and spoke, ending with the words: "It seems to me better to follow King Magnus dead, than any other King living." Nearly all the Norwegians joined Einar, and Harald was left with too small a force to carry out his plan. My childhood's faith unshaken stands. Björnson was at the time With full conviction an orthodox Christian; Sverdrup was for himself a free thinker in religion. Brotherhood in all three lands. Sverdrup was always opposed to any close federation of the three countries, and to Scandinavism, see Note 21. What ought just now to be. The whole political programme of the Left, as it was gradually wrought out during the next two decades. Sverre, see Note 5. One nation only and one will, Sverdrup's ideal, as outlined above. That impelled the viking, see note on Harald Fairhair, Note 5. At Hjörung, see Note 11. Wesssel's sword, seeTordenskjold, Note 5. Wesssel's pen. Johan Herman Wessel (1742-1785) was a grand-nephew of Peder Wessel Tordenskjold. He was the leader and most popular member of the "Norwegian Society" in Copenhagen, in spirit and style the most Norwegian of the writers born in Norway in the eighteenth century. That in faith so high, etc., refers to the teaching of Grundtvig (see Note 57), who looked upon the Edda-gods as representing a religion originally akin to Christianity. Brun. Johan Nordal Brun (1745-1816) became bishop in 1804. A popular poet, he was the creator of the older national hymn and other patriotic songs; an ardent lover of his country, opposed to Danish influences in politics and culture; strictly orthodox and a powerful orator. Hauge. Hans Nilsen Hauge (1771-1824), a peasant lay-preacher, of whom a biographer has said: "Since the Reformation no single man has had so profound an influence on ecclesiastical and Christian life in Norway." The "Haugian revival" of the emotional religious life is proverbial. Its value was great in every way; directly and also by his widely distributed writings it fostered intellectual enlightenment. The peasant political movement started soon after 1830 among his followers. This explains Björnson's great sympathy with Hauge and his school. Modern bishop-synod's letter, the dogmatic literalism of the State Church, seeking to impose itself on free popular religions faith. Chambers, reference to proposals to revise the Act of Union with Sweden, in particular to the plan of a Union-Parliament, all of which were rejected by Norway. Folk-high-school's, see Note 65.

Note 46. OLE GABRIEL UELAND (born October 28, 1799; died January 9, 1870) was the son of a farmer. He was self-taught, reading all the books he could find in the region about his home; became a school teacher in 1817. His marriage in 1827 brought to him the farm Ueland, whose name he took. He early became foremost in his district, and from 1833 to 1869 was member of the Storting for Stavanger. He organized and led the Peasant party. In his time one of Norway's most remarkable men, the most talented peasant and most powerful member of the Storting, belonging to the generation before Sverdrup, he prepared the way for the latter, with whom he then coöperated. Sverdrup once said: "All of us who are engaged in practical politics are Ueland's pupils."

Note 47. ANTON MARTIN SCHWEIGAARD, jurist and statesman, was born in Kragerö, April 11, 1808, and died in Christiania, February 1, 1870. After five years as lecturer in the University he was, in 1840, made professor of law, political economy, and statistics. Regarded as the most representative Norwegian of his age and its aspirations, he was called by his countrymen "Norway's best son." Though interested in the reform of education and the introduction of European culture, and hence favorable to Danish literature, standing with Welhaven and against Wergeland, it was in economics that his influence was greatest, and indeed greater than that of any other one man in all Scandinavia. He was the soul of the organizing labor that accompanied and conditioned Norway's surprisingly rapid material advance in the decades before and after the middle of the nineteenth century. A friend of Scandinavism, in politics a liberal conservative, but never a party man, he was member of the Storting for Christiania from 1842 to 1869. Schweigaard's personality contributed most to the high esteem in which he was universally held; his character was open and direct, actively unselfish, loftily ideal. His wife died on January 28, 1870. On a walk the next day he suddenly was seized with intense pains, had to go home and to bed, and died on February 1. An autopsy showed that his heart had ruptured. Their joint funeral was held on February 5.