Next comes a powerful chorus for mixed voices (“Then from those cavernous Eyes”), which leads up to the opening of the Viking’s story (“I was a Viking old”), a barytone solo, which is made very dramatic by the skilful division of the song between recitative and the melody. In the fourth number the male chorus continues the narrative (“But when I older grew”), describing in a vivacious and spirited manner the wild life of the marauders on the sea and their winter wassails as they told the Berserker legends over their cups of ale. In the fifth the soprano voice tells of the wooing of “The blue-eyed Maid” in an aria (“Once, as I told in Glee”) remarkable for its varying shades of expression. At its close a brilliant march movement, very sonorous in style and highly colored, introduces a vigorous chorus (“Bright in her Father’s Hall”), which describes the refusal of old Hildebrand to give his daughter’s hand to the Viking. A dramatic solo for barytone (“She was a Prince’s Child”) pictures the flight of the dove with the sea-mew, which is followed by a chorus of extraordinary power as well as picturesqueness (“Scarce had I put to Sea”), vividly describing the pursuit, the encounter, and the Viking’s escape with his bride. A graceful but pathetic romance for tenor (“There lived we many Years”), which relates her death, and burial beneath the tower, leads to the closing number, a soprano solo with a full stately chorus, admirably worked up, picturing the death of the Viking, who falls upon his spear, and ending in an exultant and powerful burst of harmony, set to the words:—
“‘Thus, seamed with many scars,
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars
My soul ascended;
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior’s soul,
Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!’
Thus the tale ended.”
