and it reveals the whole secret of the author's genius , as
displayed in his early tales. It is by these tales of peasant
life that Bjornson is best known outside of his own country; one
may almost say that it is by them alone that he is really familiar
to English readers. A free translation of "Synnove Solbakken"
was made as early as 1858, by Mary Howitt, and published under
the title of "Trust and Trial." Translations of the other tales
were made soon after their original appearance, and in some
instances have been multiplied. It is thus a noteworthy fact
that Bjornson, although four years the junior of Ibsen, enjoyed
a vogue among English readers for a score of years during which
the name of Ibsen was absolutely unknown to them. The whirligig
of time has brought in its revenges of late years, and the long
neglected older author has had more than the proportional share
of our attention than is fairly his due.

In his delineation of the Norwegian peasant character, Bjornson
was greatly aided by the study of the sagas, which he had read
with enthusiasm from his earliest boyhood. Upon them his style
was largely formed, and their vivid dramatic representation
of the life of the early Norsemen impressed him profoundly,
shaping both his ideals and the form of their expression. The
modern Scandinavian may well be envied for his literary
inheritance from the heroic past. No other European has
anything to compare with it for clean-cut vigor and wealth of
romantic material. The literature which blossomed in Iceland
and flourished for two or three centuries wherever Norsemen
made homes for themselves offers a unique intellectual phenomenon,
for nothing like their record remains to us from any other
primitive people. This