of the national character.
The story of 'Synnoeve Solbakken' (1857) was quickly followed by 'Arne'
(1858), 'En Glad Gut' (A Happy Boy: 1860), and a number of small pieces
in similar vein. They were at once recognized both at home and abroad as
something deeper and truer of their sort than had hitherto been achieved
in the Scandinavian countries, and perhaps in Europe. In their former
aspect, they were a reaction from the conventional ideals hitherto
dominant in Danish literature (which had set the pace for most of
Bjoernson's predecessors); and in their latter and wider aspect they were
the Norwegian expression of the tendency that had produced the German
and French peasant idyls of Auerbach and George Sand. They embodied a
return to Nature in a spirit that may, with a difference, be called
Wordsworthian. They substituted a real nineteenth-century pastoral for
the sham pastoral of the eighteenth century. They reproduced the simple
style of the sagas, and reduced life to its primitive elements. The
stories of 'Fiskerjenten' (The Fisher Maiden: 1868), and 'Brude Slaaten'
(The Bridal March: 1873), belong, on the whole, with this group;
although they are differentiated by a touch of modernity from which a
discerning critic might have prophesied something of the author's coming
development. These stories have been translated into many languages, and
have long been familiar to English readers. It is worth noting that
'Synnoeve Solbakken,' the first of them all, appeared in English a year
after the publication of the original, in a translation by Mary Howitt.
This fact seems to have escaped the bibliographers; which is not
surprising, since the name of the author was not given upon the
title-page, and the name of the story was metamorphosed into 'Trust
and Trial.'

The inspiration of the sagas, strong as it is in these tales, is still
more evident in the series of dramas that run parallel with them. These
include 'Mellem Slagene' (Between the Battles: 1858), 'Halte Hulda'
(Lame Hulda: 1858), 'Kong Sverre' (1861), 'Sigurd Slembe' (1862), and
'Sigurd Jorsalfar' (Sigurd the Jerusalem-Farer: 1872). The first two of
these pieces are short and comparatively unimportant. 'Kong Sverre' is a
longer and far more ambitious work; while in 'Sigurd Slembe,' a trilogy
of plays, the saga-phase of Bjoernson's genius reached its culmination.
This noble work, which may almost claim to be the greatest work in
Norwegian literature, is based upon t