He was born in 1832 at Kvikne, in the valley of the Dovre Mountains. He lived seven years after the Nobel prize was given to him, keeping his mentality alert until almost the end of his seventy-eight years. His father was pastor in this small place, without beauty of scenery or fertility of soil. When the boy was six years old the family moved to a region of marked contrasts, in Romsdale. His memories of this picturesque scenery and his delights in the valleys, hills, and fjord, were commemorated in his poem, “Over the Lofty Mountains.” His school days at Molde were busy and happy; he read with insatiable appetite for sagas and history, and became devoted to the Swedish poet, Wergeland. At seventeen he went to Christiania to prepare for the University. Here he was a schoolmate of Ibsen; with typical humor he wrote--and treasured--this doggerel of these early days: Overstrained and lean, of the colour of gypsum, Behind a beard, huge and black, was seen Henrik Ibsen. The two families cemented their friendship of many years by the marriage of Björnson’s daughter, Bergliot, a singer of much talent, to the son of Ibsen. At Christiania, Björnson became much interested in Danish literature, especially drama, and he began his play, _The Newly-married Couple_, which was not finished until a decade later. He completed, however, a one-act play, _Between the Battles_, which was staged in Christiania with only moderate success. For a time he abandoned drama and devoted himself to the peasant tales, to characters of types familiar to him, against a background of Norwegian folklore. He was proud to recall that his forefathers were peasants; he knew the common people and sympathized with their customs and ambitions. He sought to blend sagas and scenes from modern life, with mutual interpretation. Those early stories of simple life, _Arne_, _The Fisher Maiden_, _A Happy Boy_, and _Synnöve Solbakken_, were well received in Denmark and Germany, as well as his own country. Soon they were translated into English and commended for their simplicity, poetry, and national spirit. Sir Edmund Gosse, writing in the late 1880’s, said of Björnson: “His spirit was as masculine as a Viking’s and as pure and tender as a maiden’s. Through these little romances there blows a wind as fragrant and refreshing as the odour of the Trondhjem balsam willows, blown out to sea to welcome the newcomer; and just as this rare scent is the first thing that tells the traveller of Norway, so the purity of Björnson’s _novelettes_ is usually the first thing to attract a foreigner to Norwegian literature.”[35]