When Henrik Ibsen celebrated his seventieth birthday, the Berlin Press Society, as an introduction to the celebration, had an Ibsen première, at which his early drama, The Warriors' Tomb, was recited. This piece exhibits him not as the psychological but as the romantic poet, in his twenty-second year. He wrote the work in 1850 while he was a poor student in Christiania. It was written immediately after Catilina, and was performed on the stage at Christiania on September 26 of the same year. When Ibsen became stage manager of tin Bergen Theatre a revised version of the play was given, January 2, 1854. A local newspaper printed it as a feuilleton, but every copy of that paper has vanished, and The Warriors' Tomb exists only in two prompter's copies, one in Christiania, the other in Bergen. The latter is the one which he regards as the authorized version. The piece is in verse and has a good movement and swing in it. It may be called a dramatized ballad, and treats of the last great struggle between Heathendom and Christendom. Students of English history know how the Saxons wiped out Christianity from the Roman provinces they conquered, except in a petty mountainous district in Wales, and how a second wave of invaders ruined the Celtic church of Ireland and the Celtic church of Iona, and founded an empire in Russia. It seemed indeed as if the men who went to death hoping to drink mead in Valhalla, would drive back those who went to battle hoping to sing hymns among the cherubim. It is with this period of the world's history that Ibsen's juvenile play is occupied. King Gandalf and his men sail to Sicily to avenge the death of his father, who had fallen in a Viking raid. There the rough wielder of the sword meets the Christian maiden Blanca, and is conquered by her. The word "forgiveness" overcomes him. He has sworn to die or be revenged, so now resolves to die. Then he recognizes in a Christian hermit the father whom he had believed to be dead. He buries only his sword and his Viking spirit in the tomb of warriors. The language of the piece is decidedly juvenile, and the whole of no dramatic importance, yet it exhibits traces of the dramatic Viking of to-day. In an address delivered at the Press Society's meeting, Dr. Julius Elias points out that it contains another Ibsen motive, "the ethical mission of woman." In the Lady of Ostraat, Ibsen's character, Nils Lykke, says, "A woman is the most powerful thing on earth; in her hands it lies to lead the man where God would have him," and here Gandalf referring to an old saga says:-- 'Tis said that to Valfather's share belongs Only one-half of the slain warrior; The other half falls into Freia's lot. This saying I could never understand, But now I grasp it. A slain warrior Am I myself--and the best half of me Belongs to Freia.