elody which Grieg had called
"Fadrelandssang" ("Song of the Fatherland"). Bjornson there and then, to
the composer's great gratification, protested that he must write words
to fit the air. (It must be mentioned that each strophe of the melody
starts with a refrain consisting of two strongly accented notes, which
suggest some vigorous dissyllabic word.) A day or two later Grieg met
Bjornson, who was in the full throes of composition, and exclaimed to
him that the song was going splendidly, and that he believed all the
youth of Norway would adopt it enthusiastically; but that he was still
puzzled over the very necessary word to fit the strongly marked refrain.
However, he was not going to give it up. Next morning, when Grieg was
in his room peacefully giving a piano lesson to a young lady, a furious
ringing was heard at his front-door bell, as if the ringer would tear
the bell from its wires, followed by a wild shout of "'Fremad! Fremad!'
Hurrah, I have got it! 'Fremad!'" Bjornson, for of course the intruder
was he, rushed into the house the moment the maid's trembling fingers
could open the door, and triumphantly chanted the completed song to
them, over and over again, amidst a din of laughter and congratulations.

His first experiments in the "social drama," plays dealing with the
tragedies and comedies of every-day life in his own country, were made
at about the same time as Ibsen's; that is to say, in the seventies.
Bjornson's first successes in that field, which made him at once a
popular dramatist, were Redaktoeren (The Editor) in 1874 and En Fallit
(A Bankruptcy) in 1875. The latter especially was hailed as the earliest
raising of the veil upon Norwegian domestic life, and as a remarkable
effort in the detection of drama in the commonplace. Before he wrote
these, Bjornson had again been for some years out of Norway; and, as in
the case of Ibsen, who began the writing of his "social dramas" when in
voluntary exile, absence seemed to enable him to observe the familiar
from a new standpoint and in the proper perspective.

After his first successes in this line, when his plays (and his poems
and tales to an equal extent) had made him popular and honoured among
his own people, Bjornson settled at Aulestad, which remained his home
for the rest of his life. He also became a doughty controversialist in
social and religious matters, and the first outcome of this phase was
his play Leonarda (the second in this volume), which