[_Starts up._] The ring? The ring! [_Rushes up and snatches the ring from him._ Sten Sture’s ring! [_With a shriek._] Oh God, oh God—my son! [_Throws herself down on the coffin._ THE MEN-AT-ARMS. Her son? JENS BIELKE. [_At the same time._] Inger Gyldenlöve’s son? NILS LYKKE. So is it. JENS BIELKE. But why did you not tell me——? BIÖRN. [_Trying to raise her up._] Help! help! My lady—what ails you? what lack you? LADY INGER. [_In a faint voice, half raising herself._] What lack I? One coffin more. A grave beside my child—— [_Sinks again, senseless, on the coffin._ NILS LYKKE _goes hastily out to the right. General consternation among the rest._ ----- Footnote 12: Pronounce _Knoot_. Footnote 13: Pronounce _Stoorë_. Footnote 14: Pronounce _Stayn Stoorë_. Footnote 15: Pronounce _Tronyem_. Footnote 16: Pronounce _Mayraytë_. Footnote 17: Pronounce _Loonghë_. Footnote 18: Pronounce _Ahkers-hoos_. Footnote 19: That is, Peter the Chancellor. Footnote 20: King Christian II. of Denmark (the perpetrator of the massacre at Stockholm known as the Blood-Bath) fled to Holland in 1523, five years before the date assigned to this play, in order to escape death or imprisonment at the hands of his rebellious nobles, who summoned his uncle, Frederick I., to the throne. Returning to Denmark in 1532, Christian was thrown into prison, where he spent the last twenty-seven years of his life. Footnote 21: The words in the original are “Kongemoder” and “Kongemorder,” a difference of one letter only. Footnote 22: Pronounce _Oaghë_. ----- THE FEAST AT SOLHOUG (1856) THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION I wrote _The Feast at Solhoug_ in Bergen in the summer of 1855—that is to say, about twenty-eight years ago. The play was acted for the first time on January 2, 1856, also at Bergen, as a gala performance on the anniversary of the foundation of the Norwegian Stage.