The
north wind blows through it:
"Good is the sea, your complaining you squander,
Freedom and joy on the sea flourish best.
He never knoweth effeminate rest
Who on the billows delighteth to wander.
When I am old, to the green-growing land
I, too, will cling, with the grass for my pillow.
Now I will drink and will fight with free hand,
Now I'll enjoy my own sorrow-free billow."
I might continue in the autobiographical vein; but must forbear. For
there is a period in the life of every young Norseman when, untroubled
by its anachronism, he glories in Frithjof's melancholy mooning, his
praise of Ingeborg, his misanthropy, and all the manifold moods of love
so enchantingly expressed in Tegner's melodious verse.
When a book acquires this significance as an expression of the typical
experience in the lives of thousands, the critical muse can but join in
the general chorus, and find profound reasons for the universal praise.
In the case of "Frithjof's Saga" this is not a difficult matter.
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