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132 NOTES
“When Arnljot sees that here is the goal of his longings, the higher
mission to which he can consecrate his strength, his choice is to go
with Olaf’s army. There he will find much of what allured him in
the old warrior-life of the heathen. He sees tall, hardened warriors with
weapons and shields, the king himself in mailed armor, his beard
streaming —red as Thor’s—over his breast. The skalds sing of battle
—at whose cost only may peace be won—now as before.
‘As of yore blood-red
Peace fell from heaven,
Lofty the claim
Of the cross, O King,
Be thou /eader,
Thee we follow,
It was this common element in the old heathen war-ideal and the higher
life-aim of Christianity that impelled so many brave men to take part
in the crusades. The assurance that they were fighting in a sacred cause
brought peace to their conscience.
“When the poet in this Song pictures Arnljot’s spiritual transition
from selfish pride to the yielding of self, he gives us at the same time
an image of the transition from heathendom to Christianity. The pas-
sage from winter to summer is a good metaphor for the passage from
fEsir faith to Christianity, from the hard to the gentle, from the cold
to the warm.
“Into this description Bjornson has doubtless poured much of his own
mood and life-experience. He has—like Arnljot—felt the danger of
leaving a too free rein to the passions —ambition, vengefulness, pride,
the self-regarding impulses —felt the need of men to join themselves
in pursuit of a common aim, either merely human, or religious. He
had, during years in which Arnljot’s figure was taking shape in his
mind, become a warm adherent of Grundtvig’s conception of Chris-
tianity, and of his view of human life. Grundtvigianism was assuredly
at that time for Bjornson what the shining army of Olaf on the milk-
white bridge was for Arnljot, when it was revealed to his gaze in the
midst of the wild tempest of his passions.
“The Grundtvigian view of Christianity and history stamps the en-
tire work. For Grundtvig, God is the people’s great leader throughout
the course of history, with whom men ally themselves of their own free
will, as the warriors of old took service with a king, as free men givy-
ing him their full devotion. In this spirit of free devotion, men bring
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