VOLUME VI

·.·

MODERN ICELANDIC PLAYS

This series of Scandinavian Classics is published by The American-Scandinavian Foundation in the belief that greater familiarity with the chief literary monuments of the North will help Americans to a better understanding of Scandinavians, and thus serve to stimulate their sympathetic coöperation to good ends.

ESTABLISHED BY NIELS POULSON

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

BOTH volumes of the Scandinavian Classics selected to appear in 1916 are by natives of Iceland. They belong, however, to periods of time and to modes of writing remote from each other. Snorri Sturluson, the greatest of Icelandic historians, was born in 1179. His Prose Edda, the companion-piece of the present volume, is a Christian's account of Old Norse myths and poetic conceptions thus happily preserved as they were about to pass into oblivion. More than seven hundred years separate Jóhann Sigurjónsson from Snorri, and his work is in dramatic, not saga form. But even as in outward appearance modern Iceland is not unlike ancient Iceland, so the Icelandic writers of the present have marked kinship with the past. Despite many centuries of relative neglect, the old traditions lived on, cherished by scholars, until now, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Icelandic mind appears to be again renascent and creative. Einar Jónsson, the sculptor, has his counterpart in the domain of letters in such recent writers as Jónas

Jónasson, Emar Hjörleifsson, Gudmundur Magnússon, Jónas Gudlaugsson, Gunnar Gunnarson, and Gudmundur Kamban, while every important fjord and valley can claim its own poet or novelist. As yet, the most distinguished performance of these younger authors is the play printed in this volume, Eyvind of the Hills (Bjærg-Ejvind og hans Hustru), by Jóhann Sigurjónsson. Among literary phenomena Eyvind of the Hills is a surprise, almost as though Iceland woke to find her naked mountains clothed in forest in a night.

Let Sigurjónsson tell his life story in his own words:1 viii "I was born June 19, 1880, on a large farm in the northern part of Iceland. Our household numbered about twenty people. A broad stream, well stocked with salmon; on both sides of the river, rocks where thousands of eider-ducks had their nests; a view out over the Atlantic with high cliffs where sea-birds lived; lava-fields with unusual flowers; and in the distance blue mountains; such was the theatre where I acted my childhood pieces and where I wrote my first poems.

"When fourteen years old, I was sent to school at Reykjavik; but after pocketing the diploma of the upper class, my longing led me down to Copenhagen, where I chose the study of veterinary science. For three years I worked zealously at my studies and took all the preliminary examinations required, until suddenly I burned my ships and resolutely threw myself into the work of a playwright. At first one difficulty piled up after another. To begin with, I had to write in a language not my own. And then, what knowledge I had of human nature was limited to a most incomplete knowledge of myself and of a few college chums of my own age. Besides, it was not long before I had to concern myself about mere bread and butter.

"My first victory was an appreciative letter from Björnstjerne Björnson, wherein he promised warmly to recommend me to Gyldendal's, the great publishing house, which subsequently published my first play, Dr. Rung.

"My second victory was the acceptance by the Dagmar Theatre of The Hraun Farm. After the sometime directors of that theatre resigned, my play passed into the control of the Royal Theatre. Finally, I made my stage debut with Eyvind of the Hills, which was received with much enthusiasm both by press and public.

ix "In order to give as much actuality as possible to this drama, I traversed Iceland on foot from north to south and saw the places high up in the wild mountain waste where Eyvind lived with his wife. In my little garret in Copenhagen I had learned by my own experience the agony of loneliness."

Sigurjónsson's first drama, Dr. Rung, was written in Danish and published in 1905. This tragedy presents a young Copenhagen physician, Harold Rung, who is endeavoring to find a specific against tuberculosis. In order to test the effect of his serum, he decides to inoculate himself with the disease, and the pleading of Vilda, who loves him, fails to shake him from his purpose. The remedy proves a failure; the young scientist goes mad, giving Vilda poisoned grapes.

The Hraun Farm was published in Icelandic in 1908 (Bóndinn á Hrauni), and in Danish in 1912 (Gaarden Hraun). In rewriting the play for the Copenhagen stage, Sigurjónsson gave it a happy ending, thus changing a tragedy into a pleasant dramatic idyl of contemporary country life in Iceland. It is the familiar Scandinavian theme of the struggle of human love with love of the homestead. An old farmer, Sveinungi, is a veritable patriarch living at the edge of the "hraun," the lava-field. His only daughter, Ljot, he has destined for a sturdy neighbor's son, who will keep up the estate. But the girl falls in love with a young geologist and arouses her father's wrath, until the play ends with a scene in which Sveinungi is won over by Jorunn, his persuasive wife. The action is interrupted by an earthquake. The dialogue is well maintained and rises to heights of lyrical splendor. In point of dramatic effectiveness, The Hraun Farm may be regarded as only a preliminary study compared x to the next play, but its picture of pastoral Iceland makes it a fitting

companion-piece to the greater drama in the present volume.

All other work of Sigurjónsson and the younger Icelandic dramatists pales beside Eyvind of the Hills, written in Danish and published in 1911.2 The high sky of dramatic vision, the simple nobility of the characters portrayed, and the poetry of exalted passion raise above the ordinary this stern tragedy of natural lives in the wilderness. Eyvind is a man of heroic mould, who was forced by circumstances and hunger to the state of a common thief. When outlawed, he fled to the mountains. Seeking human companionship, he now descends into a valley where his identity is unknown and takes service with Halla, a rich young widow. She learns of his disguise only to fall in love with his real character. Persecuted by her brother-in-law, who wishes to marry her, and possessed by a great love, she insists on sharing the outlaw's lot and escapes with him to his old haunt in the mountains. Here they have two children, but she is obliged to sacrifice them both in turn, and to flee ever farther away. The last act finds the outlaw and his wife facing each

other in a lonely hut, in the midst of a snowstorm which has shut off every avenue of sustenance. Although the beautiful reality of love is there, they are tormented by hunger and utter need into doubts and mutual reproaches, and at last seek death in the snow.

According to the historical facts upon which the story is based, a stray horse found its way to the hut of the starving couple, and so their lives were saved. Sigurjónsson used xi this ending when he rewrote the last scenes of the fourth act for Fru Dybvad, who played the part of Halla in Copenhagen, concluding with Halla's exclamation: "So there is then a God!" With Eyvind, as with The Hraun Farm, we can thus take our choice of two endings.

The Wish (Önsket), Sigurjónsson's latest play, was published in 1915. Gloomy and terrible, but strong and restrained, it is built on a theme of seduction, remorse, and forgiveness in death, woven about the legendary figure of Galdra-Loftur, who lived in Iceland at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It ends with an intensely dramatic scene in the old cathedral church at Hólar.

In addition to these four plays, Sigurjónsson has also written some beautiful verse.

In Mrs. Schanche, Sigurjónsson has a translator well fitted by artistic family traditions for the task. Herself of Norwegian descent, she has been for upward of thirty years a resident of Philadelphia. She has interpreted the pure idiom of Sigurjónsson's dialogue with real dramatic perception. In editing the volume the Publication Committee has had the valuable assistance of Hanna Astrup Larsen.

Georg Brandes, the veteran Danish critic, though not given to over optimism, has recognized Sigurjónsson's distinction, and the Icelander is acclaimed by the public who best know Ibsen and Strindberg, in Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Christiania. Eyvind has been successful also on the German stage. "Poetic talent of high order," says Brandes, "manifests itself in this new drama, with its seriousness, rugged force, and strong feeling. Few leading characters, but these with a most intense inner life; courage to confront the actual, and exceptional skill to depict it; material fully mastered and a corresponding confident xii style!" And the French critic, Leon Pineau, concludes a long account of Sigurjónsson's production with the following estimate of Eyvind of the Hills: "In this drama there is no haze of fantasy, no bold and startling thesis, not even a new theory of art—nothing but poetry; not the poetry of charming and fallacious words, not that of lulling rhythm, nor of dazzling imagery which causes forgetfulness, but the

sublimely powerful poetry which creates being of flesh and blood like ourselves—to whom Jóhann Sigurjónsson has given of his own soul."

Written by the author in a language not his by birth, this rock-ribbed tragedy of the strong and simple passions of Iceland lends itself peculiarly to international interpretation. It is with some curiosity, therefore, as well as satisfaction, that we introduce to English readers a young representative of the renaissance of Icelandic literature. How will he be judged by our countrymen, and what will be his place, if any, upon the American stage?

H. G. L.

New York, June 1, 1916.

1. A letter dated November 7, 1912, to M. Leon Pineau, published in La Revue (Paris), July 1, 1914.

2. The English translation combines features of the original edition and a revised version printed in 1913. The play appeared also in Icelandic (Fjalla-Eyvindur) in 1912.

EYVIND OF THE HILLS

[BJÆRG-EJVIND OG HANS HUSTRU]

A DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS

1911

Halla (pronounced Hadla), a well-to-do widow.

Kari (pronounced Kowri), overseer on Halla's farm.

Bjørn, Halla's brother-in-law, farmer and bailiff.

Arnes, a vagrant laborer.

Gudfinna, an elderly, unmarried relative of the family.

Arngrim, a leper.

A District Judge.

Tota, a child of three years.

Peasants, peasant women, and farm-hands.

The action takes place in Iceland in the middle of the eighteenth century. The story of the two principal characters is founded an historical events. Halla's nature is moulded on a Danish woman's soul.

ACT I

A "badstofa" or servants' hall. Along each side-wall, a row of bedsteads with bright coverlets of knitted wool. Between the bedsteads, a narrow passageway. On the right, the entrance, which is reached by a staircase. On the left, opposite the entrance, a dormer-window with panes of bladder. On the right, over the bedsteads, a similar window. Long green blades of grass are visible through the panes. In the centre back a door opens into Halla's bed-chamber, which is separated from the "badstofa" by a thin board partition. A small table-leaf is attached by hinges to the partition. A copper train-oil lamp is fastened in the doorcase. Over the nearest bedsteads a cross-beam runs at a man's height from the floor; from this to the roof-tree is half of a man's height. Under the window stands a painted chest. Carved wooden boxes are pushed in under the bedsteads. The "badstofa" is old, the woodwork blackened by age and soot.

It is early spring, a late afternoon. Gudfinna and Oddny are sitting on the beds facing each other, Gudfinna mending shoes, Oddny putting patches on a coat. The Shepherd Boy is standing in the middle of the room, throwing a dart adorned with red cock's feathers. The costumes are old Icelandic.

The Boy (throws his dart). Ho! ho! I came pretty near hitting her that time!

Gudfinna. Hitting whom?

The Boy. Can't you see the little spider hanging down from the beam? I mean to shoot and break her thread.

Oddny. You are always up to some tomfoolery.

Gudfinna. Leave the poor creature in peace! It has done you no harm.

The Boy (laughing). Do you think she'd break her legs if she should happen to fall down on the floor?

Gudfinna. I won't have it! Destroying a spider's web is sure to bring bad luck, and you'll end by tearing the window-pane with your dart.

The Boy. Kari has told me of a man who broke a bow-string with one shot, and that from way off. (Shoots.)

Gudfinna. If you don't stop, you shall wear your shoes with the holes in them.

The Boy (pulling the dart out of the beam). Would you rather have me shoot your ear-locks?

Gudfinna. Are you crazy, lad? You might hit my eyes.

The Boy. I must have some kind of fun. I think I'll have a shot at Oddny's plaits.

Oddny. If you dare!

The Boy (laughing). If I have bad luck, you will look at Kari with only one eye.

Oddny. You need a good spanking.

Gudfinna. Kari ought not to have given you that dart.

The Boy (going to the spider, makes a fanning motion with his hand). Up, old spinning-woman, if you bode good! Down, if you bode ill! Up, if you bode good! Down, if you bode ill!

Gudfinna. You are awfully hard on your shoes, worse than a grown man. I hope you don't walk on the sharpest stones just for fun?

Oddny. Of course he does!

The Boy. The sheep were so restless to-day. Some of them came near slipping away from me.

Oddny. If they had, you wouldn't be riding such a high horse now!

Gudfinna. Have they been bad to you, laddie? Do you never feel timid when you are alone so much?

The Boy. Sometimes I keep thinking what I should do if a mad bull came tearing down the mountains.

Gudfinna. Don't speak of them! They are the worst monsters in the world—except, perhaps, the skoffin.

The Boy. What is a skoffin?

Gudfinna. Don't you know that? When a rooster gets to be very old, he lays an egg, and if that's hatched, it becomes a skoffin. It kills a man by just looking at him, and the only thing that can slay it is a church-blessed silver bullet. Indeed, there are many things you have to be careful of, my child. Are you not afraid of the outlaws? They're not good, those fellows; they go about in skins with the wool on them and carry long sticks with ice-spurs, and that at midsummer. Have you ever seen anything of them?

The Boy. No, but yesterday I pretty near got scared. There came a man with a big bag under his arm. I didn't know him at first, but it was only Arnes.

Gudfinna. And what did he want of you?

The Boy. He asked me to show him the way to a spring. He was thirsty.

Gudfinna. You had better not have too much talk with him. (Hands him the shoes.) There! Now they will last till to-morrow anyway. (Kneels down, pulls out a box, and examines its contents.)

Enter Halla from her chamber.

Halla. It is time for the sheep to be milked.

The Boy. I am going now to drive them home. I was waiting for my shoes.

Halla. Have you seen anything of the cows to-day?

The Boy. No. (To Oddny.) When I get rich I'll give you a cow's tail to tie up your plaits with.

Oddny. Hold your tongue! Exit the Boy.

Halla (smiling). I heard him teasing you a while ago.

Oddny. He's forever pestering me about Kari—as if I cared!

Halla (with a little laugh). Well, Sigrid doesn't take such good care of Magnus's clothes as you of Kari's. Exit.

Oddny (is silent for a moment and looks at the door). If I were a widow and owned a farm, the men would be noticing me too, even if I had been nothing but a poor orphan servant girl before I married—like some others.

Gudfinna (rising, a pair of stockings in her hand). What are you talking about? (Pushes the box under the bed.)

Oddny. Do you know who was Halla's father?

Gudfinna. That is what no one seems to know. Some would have it that he was a parson. (She darns the stockings.)

Oddny. Yes, or a vagabond. There were also some ugly whispers about a stain on her birth.

Gudfinna. You'd better bridle your tongue!

Oddny. I am not so dull as you imagine. When Halla thinks no one is looking, she doesn't take her eyes from Kari. And she has made him overseer; that seems queer to others besides me. Last Sunday at church some one asked me if there was anything between the widow and the "overseer."

Gudfinna. And what did you say?

Oddny. I told them that it was quite possible Halla had her lines out for him, but that I did not think Kari would swallow the fly, even if it had gold on its wings.

Gudfinna. Much good it did you, the gospel you heard in church! I am sorry for you, poor girl! You are crazy about a man who has neither eye nor ear for you, but that is no reason why you should be running around spreading gossip. Halla is not the kind of woman that is fond of men. There was never a harsh word between her and her 7 husband, God rest his soul, but there was not much love-making between them either. No, indeed!

Oddny. Well, what of that! He was a man up in years and had a fine farm.

Gudfinna. He was an upright and honest man, and Halla made him a good wife, my dear.

Oddny. Who doubts that? (Silence.) I don't know what ails Kari of late. Yesterday he flew into a rage when I asked him if he knew of a cure for freckles. I hope Halla has not become such a saint yet that one can't notice her freckles.

Enter Kari and Magnus.

Kari and Magnus. Good evening!

Gudfinna and Oddny. Good evening!

Oddny (rising). I am sitting on your bed, I believe.

Magnus (throws off his cap). Oddny, ask Sigrid to come here and pull off my stockings. (Sits down.) It feels good to sit down. Oddny goes reluctantly.

Kari. Why is she so grumpy? She is not so cheerful a body as you are. I should like to have known you in your young days. I dare say you knew how to handle a rake.

Gudfinna (straightening her back). You may be sure. On dry ground, two lively fellows had all they could do to make ready for my rake.

Kari. And you were not afraid to tuck up your skirts, where the ground was low and marshy.

Gudfinna. Indeed not! Many a time I had water in my shoes.

Enter Sigrid and Oddny.

Magnus (stretching his feet out on the floor). Pull off my shoes! I'm so tired to-night I can't move.

Sigrid. It must be laziness that ails you, as usual. Kneels 8 down. How in the name of heaven did you manage to get so wet in this dry weather? I can wring the water out of your stockings.

Magnus. Kari wanted to jump the creek to make a short cut, and I fell in.

Oddny (to Kari). Aren't you wet, too?

Kari. No. (Sits down.)

Magnus. Kari skims over everything like a bird.

Kari. Every man has his gift. (To Sigrid.) You should see the rocks Magnus can lift.

Magnus. Well, it may be true that I am pretty strong, but I should like to see the man who could throw you in an honest glima.

Oddny. I know one whom Kari couldn't stand against.

Magnus. And who is that? (Sigrid pulls at his stockings.) There! There!

Oddny. Bjørn, Halla's brother-in-law.

Magnus. I should not be afraid to bet on Kari against him. (To Sigrid.) Give me the stockings! (Dries his feet with the stocking legs.)

(Sigrid pulls out a chest, where she finds dry stockings.)

Enter Halla.

Oddny. I don't think Kari would dare to try a fall with the bailiff.

Kari. If you were the prize, I should not dare to!

Gudfinna (laughing). There you got it!

(Everybody laughs except Oddny.)

Halla (smiling). Yet many have fought for less.

Magnus. I'm ready to make a wager with you, Oddny, that Kari would win.

Halla. It does not look as if the cows were coming 9 home to-night. Magnus, won't you go up the gorge and see if they are there, and I will send the boy down to the creek. Exit Sigrid with the wet stockings.

Magnus. Oh, why did I bother to change my stockings!

Halla. You can take a horse. (A dog is heard barking.) There! we shall have company.

Kari (rising). I'll run up there.

Halla. You have your trout nets to look after. I know Magnus won't mind.