Young Frithiof was the sapling tree;
In budding beauty by his side,
Sweet Ingeborg, the garden’s pride.”
Tegnér, Frithiof Saga (Longfellow’s tr.).
Frithiof soon became hardy and fearless under his foster father’s training, and Ingeborg rapidly developed the sweetest traits of character and loveliness. Both were happiest when together; and as they grew older their childish affection daily became deeper and more intense, until Hilding, perceiving this state of affairs, bade the youth remember that he was a subject of the king, and therefore no mate for his only daughter.
“To Odin, in his star-lit sky,
Ascends her titled ancestry;
But Thorsten’s son art thou; give way!
For ‘like thrives best with like,’ they say.”
Tegnér, Frithiof Saga (G. Stephens’s tr.).