R XVIII

NORWEGIAN FOLK SONGS

If the dwellers of the deep fjords, the somber fir-clad mountain
valleys, and the bleak ice-fields do not "open their lips so readily
for song" as the people of southern lands where the sun creates an
eternal spring, it is not because they are without lyric power, as is
clearly apparent from the rich and varied folk-songs and the splendid
creative work of Edvard Grieg.

The Norwegian folk-songs, spring dances, hallings, and wedding
marches, have been well characterized as the outpourings of the inner
lives of the common people, the expression of their dauntless energy,
their struggles and aspirations. The folk-song of Norway, more than in
any other land, embodies the character and expresses the tendencies of
Viking life, ancient and modern. It bears the unmistakable marks
of weal and woe of Norse life, the strongly marked and regularly
introduced rythms of the developed and developing national character.
And while an undercurrent of melancholy runs through most of it, it
is, after all, the faithful interpreter of the lives of isolated and
solitary occupants of fjords, fjelds, and dalen.

The folk-songs of Norway are singularly typical of the country and its
inhabitants. Some "seem to take us into the dense forest among mocking
echoes from, the life outside; others show us the trolls tobogganing
down the highest peaks of Norway; in some we feel human souls hovering
over reefs; in others, memories of the old sun-lit land flit before
us; but in none do we meet with sentimentalism, despondency, or
disconsolateness." But with their weird and minor strains, and their
odd jumps from low tones to high, on first acquaintance they strike
the hearer as strange and elusive.

Some of the epic songs, as Telemarken, are of great antiquity. But it
was not until the last century that Norse tone artists discovered the
wealth that had long been cherished by the peasants of the fjords and
mountain valleys. Lindeman (1812-1887) was the first to recognize
the musical significance of Norwegian folk-songs. He collected many
hundred national ballads, hymns and dances, and called attention
to their richness and variety as thematic material for a school of
national music. In Lindeman's collection will be found songs which
tell of the heroic exploits of old Norse vikings, kings, and earls
of the heathen days of Thor and Odin, together with lyrics, deep and
ardent, which sing of the loves, the joys, and the so