Without knowing it, he had adopted a modern and really most
excellent method of acquiring the language. For Homer became literature
to him instead of a mere text for excruciating grammatical gymnastics.
It was Tegner's good fortune that his playfellows, the seven young
Myhrmans, were not so fond of Greek as he was. Often, when he was
revelling in a glorious Homeric passage, these lusty barbarians would
come storming into his room and carry him off bodily, compelling him to
share in their sports; for Esaias was a capital hand at inventing new
games, and they willingly accepted his leadership and acted upon his
suggestions. Particularly his Homeric games were greatly enjoyed. They
divided their troop into Greeks and Trojans and captured Troy. Esaias
was always Hector, and the other boys became the raging Ajax, the
swift-footed Achilles, the wily Ulysses, etc. The youngest daughter of
the house, Anna Myhrman, must, I should fancy, have played somewhat more
of a part in Tegner's boyhood than his biographer allows, for the
descriptions of Frithjof's and Ingeborg's childhood in Hilding's house
are obviously personal reminiscences:
"No bird's nest found so high a spot
That he for her could find it not;
The eagle's nest from clouds he sundered,
And eggs and young he deftly plundered.
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