Fritiofs Saga

by Esaias Tegnér

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 a foreign text would be most stimulating and invigorating to a student, if he himself be given a chance to wrestle with difficult sentences.

The introduction that precedes the text makes no pretension of being anything more than an attempt to state in broad outline the salient facts in the life of Tegnér and in the genesis and development of the Fritiofs Saga theme.

The text in the present edition has been modernized to conform with the orthography officially adopted in Sweden in 1906.

This new edition of the great masterpiece is accompanied by the editor's sincere hope that it may in a measure at least serve to create an increased interest in the study of the sonorous Swedish language and its rich literature and give a clearer conception of the seriousness and strength of Swedish character.

The book owes much to the kindly suggestions and corrections of those who have examined it in proof or manuscript. Special acknowledgment is due Professor A. Louis Elmquist of Northwestern University, who carefully revised the vocabulary, and to Mr. E. W. Olson of Rock Island, Ill., whose accuracy and scholarship has been of invaluable assistance throughout.

University of Minnesota, December, 1913.

A. A. S.

INTRODUCTION.

I.

In the personality of Esaias Tegnér the vigor and idealism of the Swedish people find their completest and most brilliant incarnation. A deep love of the grandeurs of nature, keen delight in adventure and daring deeds, a charming juvenility of spirit that at least in the prime of his life caused him to battle bravely and hopefully for great ideas, a clearness of perception and integrity of purpose that abhor shams and narrow prejudices and with reckless frankness denounce evils and abuses, a disposition tending at times to brooding and melancholy, all these elements, combined in Tegnér, have made him the idealized type of the Swedish people. He was cast in a heroic mold and his countrymen continue to regard him as the completed embodiment of their national ideals. And in the same measure that Tegnér stands forth as an expression of Swedish race characteristics it may be said that Fritiofs Saga is the quintessence of his own sentiments and ideals.