physical training entitles him to an honored place among the great men of
Scandinavia.

Tegner had been greatly grieved at Ling's literary mistakes. It seemed
to him deplorable that a worthy cause should be doomed to ignominious
failure just because unskilled hands had undertaken to do the work. This
feeling prompted him to undertake the writing of a great epic based on
the old sagas, but excluding their crudities. But it would be a mistake
to think that this was the only force that impelled him to write. Tegnér
has now reached the heyday of his wonderful poetic powers and he must
give expression to the great ideas that stir his soul. And so he proceeds
to paint a picture of Fritiof the Bold and his times. The great Danish
poet Oehlenschläger had already published "Helge", an Old Norse cycle of
poems which Tegnér warmly admired. This poem revealed to him the
possibilities of the old saga themes in the hands of a master.

Fritiofs Saga did not appear as a completed work at first, but merely in
installments of a certain number of cantos at a time and these not in
consecutive order. In the summer of 1820, cantos 16-19, being the first
installments or "fragments," as Tegnér himself called them, appeared in
Iduna; the five concluding cantos were completed and published two years
later, and not until then did the poet proceed to write the first part.
The work was finally completed in 1825.

Although the first cantos published had received a most enthusiastic
reception on the part of the people and won unstinted praise from most of
the great literary men, even from many who belonged to opposing literary
schools, an enthusiasm that grew in volume and sincerity as the
subsequent portions appeared, Tegnér became increasingly dissatisfied and
discouraged because of the task that confronted him and the serious