The other world was Niflheim, cold and
dark.
Yggdrasil. The tree Yggdrasil is a symbol of the present world.
Dragons, warships with carved dragons as figure-heads.
Poland's night. For Gustavus Adolphus the Polish War, which he
waged before he took part actively in the Thirty Years' War in
Germany, was also undertaken for the defense of Protestantism.
Saga, here=History.
Note 27.
LECTOR THAASEN. Johan Edvard Thaasen (born in 1825; died February
17, 1865) was a classical philologist and a man of broad culture,
well versed in Old Norse and in modern French and German literature.
From 1852 he was teacher in the Cathedral School in Christiania, and
from 1860 lecturer in Greek at the University, where he treated
chiefly the Greek poets and archaeology. He came from a poor family
and passed his early life under hard conditions. During the last few
years he was sickly, and he died of consumption. In 1858 he was
president of the Students' Union, and spokesman for the Norwegians
at the Student Meeting in Copenhagen in 1862.
Note 28.
DURING A JOURNEY IN SWEDEN. Written in the summer of 1866,
Bj?rnson's speeches then made a sensation by reason of the warmth
of his feeling for Sweden. Ellen Key has written with approval of
his characterization of the Swedes here, which agrees with that of
Sch?ck in his History of Swedish Literature, i, 325, 326.
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