style of the sagas, and reduced life to its primitive elements. The
stories of 'Fiskerjenten' (The Fisher Maiden: 1868), and 'Brude Slaaten'
(The Bridal March: 1873), belong, on the whole, with this group;
although they are differentiated by a touch of modernity from which a
discerning critic might have prophesied something of the author's coming
development. These stories have been translated into many languages, and
have long been familiar to English readers. It is worth noting that
'Synnöve Solbakken,' the first of them all, appeared in English a year
after the publication of the original, in a translation by Mary Howitt.
This fact seems to have escaped the bibliographers; which is not
surprising, since the name of the author was not given upon the
title-page, and the name of the story was metamorphosed into 'Trust
and Trial.'

The inspiration of the sagas, strong as it is in these tales, is still
more evident in the series of dramas that run parallel with them. These
include 'Mellem Slagene' (Between the Battles: 1858), 'Halte Hulda'
(Lame Hulda: 1858), 'Kong Sverre' (1861), 'Sigurd Slembe' (1862), and
'Sigurd Jorsalfar' (Sigurd the Jerusalem-Farer: 1872). The first two of
these pieces are short and comparatively unimportant. 'Kong Sverre' is a
longer and far more ambitious work; while in 'Sigurd Slembe,' a trilogy
of plays, the saga-phase of Björnson's genius reached its culmination.
This noble work, which may almost claim to be the greatest work in
Norwegian literature, is based upon the career of a twelfth-century
pretender to the throne of Norway, and the material was found in the
'Heimskringla.' There are few more signal illustrations in literature of
the power of genius to transfuse with its own life a bare mediæval
chronicle, and to create from a few meagre suggestions a vital and
impressive work of art. One thinks instinctively, in seeking for some
adequate parallel, of what Goethe did with the materials of the Faust