"However swift, there ran no brook,
But o'er it Ingeborg he took;
How sweet, when roaring torrents frighten,
To feel her soft arms round him tighten.
"The first spring flowers by sunshine fed,
The earliest strawberries turning red,
The first of autumn's golden treasure
He proffered her with eager pleasure."[26]
[26] Translation of Thomas A. E. and Martha A. L. Holcomb, Chicago, 1877. I have taken the liberty to substitute "strawberries," which is the correct translation of "Smultron," for berries.
At the age of seventeen Tegnér entered the University of Lund, accompanied by three young Myhrmans, whose father had generously promised to share with Assessor Branting the expenses of his academic education. His playmate, familiarly called Achilles, had to share his room, and thus it came to pass that Hector and his deadly foe became bedfellows. In fact the bed in question, being intended for but one, afforded the scantiest possible accommodations for two, and often threatened to collapse under their united weight. Aching in every joint from the discomfort of their cramped position, they would then get up and spend the remainder of the night in playing chess.
At the University Tegnér soon made his mark, and two years later took his degree of Magister Artium with great distinction, being, according to the extraordinary custom of the country, laurel-crowned in the cathedral as the first of twenty-four candidates. The Swede loves pomp and ceremonious display, and rarely misses an opportunity for a fine stage effect. I do not mean to insinuate, of course, that Esaias Tegnér was unworthy of the honor which was conferred upon him; but it seems a terrible cheapening of the laurel to place it annually upon the brows of a herd of deedless striplings, standing upon the threshold of their careers. Tegnér was but nineteen years of age when the Muse, contrary to her habit, gave him the crown without the dust, generously rewarding him in advance of performance. But he came very near forfeiting the fruits of all his fair fame by participating in a hostile demonstration in front of the house of the University's rector, who was justly unpopular. His manly bearing, however, and the friendship of several of the professors saved him from the consilium abeundi cum infamia, with which he was threatened. Instead of that he was appointed docent in æsthetics, Secretary to the Faculty of Philosophy, and Assistant University Librarian. His summer vacations he spent at Rämen with the Myhrmans. His playmate, Miss Anna, was now sixteen years of age, and had undergone that miraculous transformation, which never loses its delightful mystery, from childhood into young womanhood. He went away one day and bade good-by to an awkward kangaroo-like girl in short skirts, and returned in a few months to greet a lovely, blushingly dignified young lady, who probably avowed no more her fondness for him with the same frank heedlessness as of old. But she would have been more than woman if she could have resisted the wooing of the beautiful youth upon whom nature had showered so many rare gifts. A stone has been found up in the woods above Rämen which yet shows under its coating of moss the initials of E. T. and A. M. It requires but little imagination to fill out the story of the brief and happy courtship; and two cantos in "Frithjof's Saga" ("Frithof's Wooing" and "Frithjof's Happiness") supply an abundance of hints which have a charmingly autobiographical tinge:
"He sat by her side and pressed her soft hand,
And he felt a fond pressure, responsive and bland,
Whilst his love-dreaming gaze
Was returned as the sun's in the moon's placid rays.
"They spoke of days bygone, so gladsome and gay,
When the dew was yet fresh on life's new-trodden way;
For on memory's page
Youth traces its roses; its briers old age.
"She brought him a greeting from dale and from wood,
From the bark-graven runes and the brook's silver flood;
From the dome-crownèd cave
Where oaks bravely stream o'er a warrior's grave."[27]
[27] Strong's translation.
But here, happily, Tegnér's life ceased to supply material for that of his hero. For Anna Myhrman, instead of pledging her troth to a high-born, elderly gentleman, like King Ring, married the young University instructor, Esaias Tegnér; and when her bridal wreath of myrtle failed to arrive from the city, she twined a wreath of wild heather instead; and very lovely she looked on her wedding-day with the modest heather blossoms peeping forth from under her dark locks.