Tegnér to write a poem "Nore", a high-minded protest against politics of
aggression and a plea for justice and a spirit of fraternity.

In "The New Year 1816" (Nyåret 1816) he scores the Holy Alliance in
bitter and sarcastic terms. The liberal ideas of Tegnér are further
elucidated in a famous address, delivered in 1817 at the celebration of
the three hundredth anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. In this
event the poet saw the unfolding of the great forces that led to the
spiritual and intellectual emancipation of man, and ushered in a new era
of freedom and progress. The reactionaries in the realm of literature
become the object of his attack in "Epilogue at the Master's
Presentation" (Epilog vid magisterpromotionen). Other poems of this
period, as "The Children of the Lord's Supper" (Nattvardsbarnen),
admirably translated by Longfellow, "Axel", the tragic tale of one of the
warriors of Charles XII., and his fair Russian bride, "Karl XII", which
breathes the defiant spirit not only of the hero king but of the nation,
"Address to the Sun" (Sång till solen), an eloquent eulogy to the
marvelous beauty of the King of Day, merely served to establish Tegnér
more firmly in the affection of the people. But his fame was to be placed
on a still firmer foundation when the greatest creation of his fertile
mind, Fritiofs Saga, appeared.


II.

The genesis of Fritiofs Saga is to be found partly in the renascence of a
strong national sentiment in Sweden after the disastrous wars and loss of
Finland, early in the nineteenth century, partly in Tegnér's personality
and in his profound knowledge and warm admiration of the Old Norse sagas.
We have seen how already as a boy he had read the sagas with keen zest