is made the central fact on which hinges the whole action of the play,
while by Brand's fatal vacillations and the insults offered to Helga by
his henchmen important tributary impulses are given toward the following
development. Unfortunately, the third act, dramatically considered, is
concerned chiefly with details. It suffers, even more than the first
act, from a certain prolixity which is not wholly made good by its
theatrically effective ending. However bright and skillfully wrought in
the incident of the fraudulent miracle, it might well be spared, with a
view for the whole. And the same is true of a considerable part of the
dialogue.

There is small doubt that the fifth act offered the greatest
difficulties to be overcome, because here the poet is face to face with
the essentially epic nature of his subject matter and was certainly
put to it to overcome this handicap. This is the state of affairs: The
enraged chieftain is prevented by his implacable wife from yielding. The
allies do all in their power to obtain peace. If Old Norse conceptions
are adhered to there is a deadlock. Now, nothing prevents the epic art
of the saga from telling, at this juncture, that forth stepped Bishop
Botolf and with threat of excommunication brought about a satisfactory
conclusion. It is different in the drama. In it the intervention of the
bishop as _deus ex machina_ is a quasi-external element, because not
sufficiently motivated in the preceding development. It remains an
incident.

For all that the title is justifiable. Conceding that this sudden 'good'
ending looks like a concession and certainly is a constructive weakness,
yet in the inwardness of the subject it is excellently motivated by the
typically mediæval attitude of Kolbein to salvation and the Church as
its sole bestower. Notwithstanding the ambiguity of its victory,