greatest poet is he who
understands how to awaken fancy and feeling to their highest degree of
self-activity. And this is Bjoernson's greatness in his peasant novels,
that he has poured from his horn of plenty a wealth of situations and
motives that hold the reader's mind and burn themselves into it, that
become his personal possession just because the author has known how to
suggest so much in so few words."

In some respects, the little sketch called "The Father" is the supreme
example of Bjoernson's artistry in this kind. There are only a few
pages in all, but they embody the tragedy of a lifetime. The little
work is a literary gem of the purest water, and it reveals the whole
secret of the author's genius, as displayed in his early tales. It is
by these tales of peasant life that Bjoernson is best known outside of
his own country; one may almost say that it is by them alone that he is
really familiar to English readers. A free translation of "Synnoeve
Solbakken" was made as early as 1858, by Mary Howitt, and published
under the title of "Trust and Trial." Translations of the other tales
were made soon after their original appearance, and in some instances
have been multiplied. It is thus a noteworthy fact that Bjoernson,
although four years the junior of Ibsen, enjoyed a vogue among English
readers for a score of years during which the name of Ibsen was
absolutely unknown to them. The whirligig of time has brought in its
revenges of late years, and the long neglected older author has had
more than the proportional share of our attention than is fairly his
due.

In his delineation of the Norwegian peasant character, Bjoernson was
greatly aided by the study of the sagas, which he had read with
enthusiasm from his earliest boyhood. Upon them his style was largely
formed, and their vivid dramatic representation of the life of the
early Norsemen impressed him profoundly, shaping both his ideals and
the form of their expression. The modern Scandinavian may well be
envied for his literary inheritance from the heroic past. No other
European has anything to compare with it for clean-cut vigor and wealth
of romantic material. The literature which blossomed in Iceland and
flourished for two or three centuries wherever Norsemen made homes for
themselves offers a unique intellectual phenomenon, for nothing like
their record remains to us from any other primitive people. This

"Tale of the Northland of old