throughout.

University of Minnesota, December, 1913.

A. A. S.




INTRODUCTION.


I.

In the personality of Esaias Tegnér the vigor and idealism of the
Swedish people find their completest and most brilliant incarnation. A
deep love of the grandeurs of nature, keen delight in adventure and
daring deeds, a charming juvenility of spirit that at least in the prime
of his life caused him to battle bravely and hopefully for great ideas, a
clearness of perception and integrity of purpose that abhor shams and
narrow prejudices and with reckless frankness denounce evils and abuses,
a disposition tending at times to brooding and melancholy, all these
elements, combined in Tegnér, have made him the idealized type of the
Swedish people. He was cast in a heroic mold and his countrymen continue
to regard him as the completed embodiment of their national ideals. And
in the same measure that Tegnér stands forth as an expression of Swedish
race characteristics it may be said that Fritiofs Saga is the
quintessence of his own sentiments and ideals.

Tegnér, according to his own words, "was born and reared in a remote