It will be seen from this that Tegner was fully conscious of what he was doing. He civilized Frithjof, because he was addressing a civilized audience which would have taken little interest in the rude viking of the eighth century, if he had been presented to them in all his savage unrestraint. He did exactly what Tennyson did, when he made King Arthur the model of a modern English gentleman and (by implication) a Protestant a thousand years before Protestantism existed. Ingeborg, too, had to be a trifle modified and disembarrassed of a few somewhat too naturalistic traits with which the saga endows her, before she became the lovely type that she is of the faithful, loving, long-suffering, womanhood of the North, with trustful blue eyes, golden hair, and a heart full of sweet and beautiful sentiment. It was because Oehlenschlaeger had neglected to make sufficient concessions to modern demands that his "Helge" (though in some respects a greater poem than "Frithjof's Saga") never crossed the boundary of Scandinavia, and even there made no deep impression upon the general public. Though the story of "Frithjof" is familiar to most readers, I may be pardoned for presenting a brief _resume_. The general plot, in Tegner's version, coincides in its main outlines with that of the saga. Frithjof, the son of the free yeoman Thorstein Vikingson, is fostered in the house of the peasant Hilding, with Ingeborg, the daughter of King Bele of Sogn. The King and the yeoman have been life-long friends, and each has a most cordial regard for the other. "By sword upheld, King Bele in King's-hall stood, Beside him Thorstein Vikingson, that yeoman good, His battle-friend with almost a century hoary, And deep-marked like a rune-stone with scars of glory." The yeoman's son and the king's daughter, thrown into daily companionship in their foster-father's hall, love each other; and Frithjof, after the death of their fathers, goes to Ingeborg's brothers, Helge and Halfdan, and asks her hand in marriage. His suit is scornfully rejected, and he departs in wrath vowing vengeance. The ancient King Ring, of Ringerike, having heard of Ingeborg's beauty, sends also ambassadors to woo her. Her brothers make sacrifices in order to ascertain the will of the gods. The omens are inauspicious, and they accordingly feel compelled to decline the King's offer.