As regards this point and the matter in general, I might confine myself to referring those interested to the writings of Dr. Valfrid Vasenius, lecturer on Æsthetics at the University of Helsingfors. In the thesis which gained him his degree of Doctor of Philosophy, _Henrik Ibsen’s Dramatic Poetry in its First Stage_ (1879), and also in _Henrik Ibsen: The Portrait of a Skald_ (Jos. Seligman & Co., Stockholm, 1882), Vasenius states and supports his views on the subject of the play at present in question, supplementing them in the latter work by what I told him, very briefly, when we were together at Munich three years ago. But, to prevent all misconception, I will now myself give a short account of the origin of _The Feast at Solhoug_. I began this Preface with the statement that _The Feast at Solhoug_ was written in the summer of 1855. In 1854 I had written _Lady Inger of Östråt_. This was a task which had obliged me to devote much attention to the literature and history of Norway during the Middle Ages, especially the latter part of that period. I did my utmost to familiarise myself with the manners and customs, with the emotions, thoughts, and language, of the men of those days. The period, however, is not one over which the student is tempted to linger, nor does it present much material suitable for dramatic treatment. Consequently I soon deserted it for the Saga period. But the Sagas of the Kings, and in general the more strictly historical traditions of that far-off age, did not attract me greatly; at that time I was unable to put the quarrels between kings and chieftains, parties and clans, to any dramatic purpose. This was to happen later. In the Icelandic “family” Sagas, on the other hand, I found in abundance what I required in the shape of human garb for the moods, conceptions, and thoughts which at that time occupied me, or were, at least, more or less distinctly present in my mind. With these Old-Norse contributions to the personal history of our Saga period I had had no previous acquaintance; I had hardly so much as heard them named. But now N. M. Petersen’s excellent translation—excellent, at least, as far as the style is concerned—fell into my hands. In the pages of these family chronicles, with their variety of scenes and of relations between man and man, between woman and woman, in short, between human being and human being, there met me a personal, eventful, really living life; and as the result of my intercourse with all these distinctly individual men and women, there presented themselves to my mind’s eye the first rough, indistinct outlines of _The Vikings at Helgeland_.