historical verisimilitude by veiled allusions to contemporaneous
conditions. Greatly superior is his next drama, "Sigurd Slembe"[4]
(1862).

[4] An English version of "Sigurd Slembe" has been published by
William Morton Payne (Boston, 1888).

The story of the brave and able pretender, Sigurd Slembe, in his
struggle with the vain and mean-spirited king, Harold Gille, is the
theme of the dramatic trilogy. Bjoernson attempts to give the spiritual
development of Sigurd from the moment he becomes acquainted with his
royal birth until his final destruction. From a frank and generous
youth, who is confident that he is born for something great, he is
driven by the treachery, cruelty, and deceit of his brother, the king,
into the position of a desperate outlaw and guerilla. The very first
scene, in the church of St. Olaf, where the boy confides to the saint,
in a tone of _bonne camaraderie_, his joy at having conquered, in
wrestling, the greatest champion in the land, gives one the key-note to
his character:

"Now only listen to me, saintly Olaf!
To-day I whipped young Beintein! Beintein was
The strongest man in Norway. Now am I!
Now I can walk from Lindesnaes and on,
Up to the northern boundary of the snow,
For no one step aside or lift my hat.
There where I am, no man hath leave to fight,
To make a tumult, threaten, or to swear--
Peace everywhere! And he who wrong hath suffered
Shall justice find, until the laws shall sing.
And as before the great have whipped the small,
So will I help the small to whip the great.
Now I can offer counsel at the Thing,
Now to the king's board I can boldly walk
And sit beside him, saying 'Here am I!'"

The exultation in victory which speaks in every line of this opening
monologue marks the man who, in spite of the obscurity of his origin,
feels his right to be first, and who, in this victory, celebrates the
attainment of his birthright. Equally luminous by way of
characterization is his exclamation to St. Olaf when he hears that he is
King Magnus Barefoot's son:

"Then we are kinsmen, Olaf, you and I!"

According to Norwegian law at that time, every son of a king was
entitled to his share of the kingdom, and Sigurd's first impulse is to
go straight to Harold Gille and demand his right. His friend Koll
Saebjoernson persuades him, however, to abandon this hopeless adventure,
and gives him a ship with which he sai