in Christiania came to my house and
smashed all my windows. For when they had finished their assault, and
were starting home again, they felt that they had to sing something,
and so they began to sing, 'Yes, we love this land of ours'--they
couldn't help it. They had to sing
the song of the man they had attacked."

Into this collection were gathered the lyrics scattered through the
peasant tales and the saga dramas, thus making it completely
representative of his quality as a singer. A revised and somewhat
extended edition of this volume was published about ten years later.
Bjoernson has had the rare fortune of having his lyrics set to music by
three composers--Nordraak, Kjerulf, and Grieg--as intensely national in
spirit as himself, and no festal occasion among Norwegians is
celebrated without singing the national hymn, "Yes, We Love This Land
of Ours," or the noble choral setting of "Olaf Trygvason." The best
folk-singer is he who stands in the whirling round of life, says the
poet, and he reveals the very secret of his power when he tells us that
life was ever more to him than song, and that existence, where it was
worth while, in the thick of the human fray, always had for him a
deeper meaning than anything he had written. The longest poem in
Bjoernson's collection is called "Bergliot," and is a dramatic monologue
in which the foul slaying of her husband Ejnar Tambarskelve and their
son Ejndride is mourned by the bereaved wife and mother. The story is
from the saga of Harald Haardraada, and is treated with the deepest
tragic impressiveness.

"Odin in Valhal I dare not seek
For him I forsook in my childhood.
And the new God in Gimle?
He took all that I had!
Revenge:--Who says revenge?--
Can revenge awaken my dead
Or shelter me from the cold?
Has it comfort for a widow's home
Or for a childless mother?
Away with your revenge: Let be!
Lay him on the litter, him and the son.
Come, we will follow them home.
The new God in Gimle, the terrible, who took all,
Let him also take revenge, for he understands it!
Drive slowly: Thus drove Ejnar ever;
--Soon enough shall we reach home."

It was also to the "Heimskringla" that Bjoernson turned for the subject
of his epic cycle, "Arnljot Gelline." Here we read in various rhythms
of Arnljot the outlaw, how the hands of all men are against him; how he
offers to stay his wrath and end the blood feud if the fair Ingigerd,
Trand's da