Fritof's Saga

ndet) for the purpose of working with united efforts for the regeneration of the nation. This, they believed, could best be achieved by reviving the memories of the old Goths, merely another name for the people of the Saga period, which in turn would help to bring back the vigorous integrity and dauntless courage of the past. The ancient sagas must therefore be popularized.

Tegnér, who already in his "Svea" had bewailed the loss of national power and urged his people to become independent and strong again, joined the Gothic Union, at the same time expressing his disapproval of a too pronounced and narrow-minded imitation of old Gothic life and thought. Erik Gustaf Geijer, the great historian and poet, also a native of Värmland and in power of mind and loftiness of ideals almost the peer of Tegnér, published in Iduna, the organ of the Gothic Union, a few poems that faithfully reproduce the old Northern spirit and in strength and simplicity stand almost unsurpassed. An extremist in the camp was Per Henrik Li