Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/511



And what if I shattered my roaming bark, It was passing sweet to be roaming!

Hurrah!

P. 18. "William Russel." An original historic tragedy, founded upon the career of the ill-fated Lord William Russell, by Andreas Munch, cousin of the historian P. A. Munch. It was produced at Christiania in 1857, the year of Ibsen's return from Bergen, and reviewed by him in the Illustreret Nyhedsblad for that year, Nos. 51 and 52. Professor Johan Storm of Christiania, to whose kindness I owe these particulars, adds that "it is rather a fine play and created a certain sensation in its time; but Munch is forgotten."

P. 20. A grey old stager. Ibsen's friend P. Botten-Hansen, author of the play Hyldrebryllupet.

P. 59. A Svanhild like the old. In the tale of the Völsungs Svanhild was the daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun,—the Siegfried and Kriemhild of the Nibelungenlied. The fierce king Jormunrek, hearing of her matchless beauty, sends his son Randwer to woo her in his name. Randwer is, however, induced to woo her in his own, and the girl approves. Jormunrek thereupon causes Randwer to be arrested and hanged, and meeting with Svanhild, as he and his men ride home from the hunt, tramples her to death under their horses' hoofs. Gudrun incites her sons Sorli and Hamdir to avenge their sister; they boldly enter Jormunrek's hall, and succeed in cutting off his hands and feet, but are themselves slain by his men. This last dramatic episode is told in the Eddic Hamthismol.

P. 94. In the remotest east there grows a plant. The germ of the famous tea-simile is due to Fru Collett's romance,