ALONE AND REPENTANT. This poem was first printed in 1865, but was
probably written in 1861 or 1862 in Germany or Italy. The friend
was Ivar Bye, whom Bj?rnson had saved from distress and social
ostracism in Christiania before 1857, when Bye went as an actor with
Bj?rnson to the theater in Bergen. He was no great actor but an
unusual man, for whom Bj?rnson had deep respect and warm sympathy.
Bj?rnson described his character and life-experience in the study
"Ivar Bye," first published in 1894, in which he said: "Our
literature possesses a memorial of his way of receiving what was
confided to him. It lies in the poem: 'A friend I possess.' I
wrote it far away from him,--not that he might have it, his name is
not mentioned, and he never had it, but because at that time things
were hard for me."
Note 10.
OLAF TRYGVASON. Grandson of Harald Fairhair, and King from 995 to
1000. On one of his viking expeditions to England he was converted
to Christianity. Returning to Norway to win back his ancestral
inheritance from Haakon Jarl (see Note 14), he had fortune with
him; for as he steered into the Trondhjem Fjord, he received the
tidings of the successful uprising of the peasants against Haakon.
He founded Nidaros, the present city of Trondhjem, established
Christianity in a large part of the country, and soon became dearer
to the people than any other Norwegian King.
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