Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 2).djvu/12



Ibsen himself has told us, in his preface to the second edition of The Feast at Solhoug, how the reading of the Icelandic family-sagas suggested to him, in germ, the theme of The Vikings at Helgeland. What he first saw, he says, was the contrasted figures of the two women who ultimately became Hiördis and Dagny, together with a great banquet-scene at which an interchange of taunts and gibes should lead to tragic consequences. So far as one can gather from this statement, the particular theme which he ultimately borrowed from the Volsung-Saga had not yet entered his mind. On the other hand, the conception of the two women's characters was certainly not new to him, seeing that a similar contrast presents itself in his very earliest work, Catilina, between the aptly-named Furia and the gentle Aurelia; while even in Lady Inger of Ostråt it reappears, somewhat disguised, in the contrast between Inger Gyldenlöve and her daughter Eline. While the scheme of The Vikings was still entirely vague, however, fresh influences, both of a personal and of a literary nature, intervened, and, transposing the theme from the purely dramatic