It has that wonderful twang of the Hardanger
fiddle, and the color and sentiment of the ballads sung and the
legendary tales recited around the hearth in a Norwegian homestead
during the long winter nights. With Bjoernson it was in the blood. It was
his soul's accent, the dialect of his thought, the cadence of his
emotion. And so, also, is the touching minor undertone in the poem, the
tragic strain in the half burlesque, which is again so deeply Norwegian.
Who that has ever been present at a Norse peasant wedding has failed to
be struck with the strangely melancholy strain in the merriest dances?
And in Landstad's collection of "Norwegian Ballads" there is the same
blending of humor and pathos in such genuine folk-songs as _Truls med
bogin, Mindre Alf_, and scores of others. To this day I cannot read
"Nils Finn," humorous though it is, without an almost painful emotion.
All Norway, with a host of precious memories, rises out of the mist of
the past at the very first verse:
"Og vetli Nils Finn skuldi ut at ga,
Han fek inki ski 'i tel at hanga pa
--'Dat var ilt' sa'd 'uppundir.
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