Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/261

Rh not believe a word of what he said. I even laughed at it all, and yet the idea of a chain of events with Christ as the middle link had found its way into my soul."

Already in his youth Grundtvig had become known by the publication of historical, religious and poetical works, particularly by his brief and spirited "Nordens Mythologi." In the years 1809-11 he published in two volumes a large poetical work: "Optrin af Kæmpelivets Undergang i Norden (Scenes from the close of the heroic age in the North). This work contains episodes partly from the time when heathendom and Christianity were still contending for the supremacy (Gorm den Gamle, Palnatoke, Vagn Aagesön), and partly from the mythic-heroic time (Asers og Norners Kamp; Volsunger og Niflunger), descriptions written in a genuine northern spirit and full of dramatic power and poetic beauty. Grundtvig was an uncommonly fertile composer of songs. Among his poems, which have an essentially historical character, the most prominent are "Roskilde Rim" and "Roskilde Saga." His numerous sacred songs are equal to Kingo's psalms, and many of his national songs belong to the best and most popular which the Danish people possess.

Grundtvig's activity in the service of the church was no less extensive or important than his work as a poet. The religious transformation which he underwent, and which brought him into the most violent conflict with the spiritless and antiquated views of Christianity that were in vogue in his day, revealed itself for the first time in his maiden sermon, delivered in 1810, on the text: "Hvi er Herrens Ord forsvundet fra haus Hus?" (Why has the word of God departed from His house?) By this sermon he provoked the hostility of the whole clergy of the capital and received the sentence of expulsion from the consistory. Some time after he obtained, though with great difficulty, permission to act as assistant to his own father in the country. After many years (in 1825) he again resumed the warfare which he had begun against the infidelity and rationalism of the age, and wrote