Ingeborg Refling Hagen
Encyclopedia
Ingeborg Refling Hagen was a Norwegian
author
and teacher
.
, Norway
, in the parish Tangen
besides Mjøsa
, as the fourth child of the local miller. Her childhood was enriched by strong folk tradition and story-telling, and also a strong religious consciousness, mostly derived from her mother, who taught in the spirit of Hans Nielsen Hauge
.
Her father died early, and the family had to work hard for self-support. Ingeborg herself and her younger sisters were forced into child labour and hard work. This incident forced her to quit elementary school, and apart from a year at a public high school, seven years of children's school were her sole official education.
From 1911, she worked as a nurse for the Kielland family in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and during this time, she studied Shakespeare in her leisure-time. Later in life, she stated that she also learned to understand the emigrant's plight. From Newcastle she brought with her a vivid memory of the "dock-rats", English orphans on the Newcastle quay. Later, in her writings, she interpreted these children as a preview to the rise of fascism
. The dock-rats haunted her for years, and she described them later as a nightmarish vision of Hell
. Another curious remembrance of her Newcastle years is a strong geordie
accent she developed in socializing with other members of the local lower class (whenever she spoke English in later years). This trait is said to have humored her brother who lived in Boston
when she visited him there in 1947.
The experiences the hard work gave her made way for strong socialist sympathies later in her life. She supported the Norwegian Labour Party for most of her life, but was mostly considered a left-winger. She opposed the official political statements done by the party in later years, as well as protesting the official school policy. But in whole, she applauded the idea of the welfare state
, and even wrote a poem about it. In spite her criticism, she remained on friendly terms with Einar Gerhardsen
throughout her life.
. She was the first to make use of the local dialect
s from this part of Norway
, thus inspiring Alf Prøysen
.
She made a lyrical breakthrough in 1933, with a book of Immigrant poems, describing the immigrant's longing for home. This book became her greatest success.
During this time, Hagen supported the republicans
in the Spanish civil war
, and began to warn against the rise of fascism
, along with authors like Nordahl Grieg and Arnulf Øverland
. Earlier on, she had made a journey to Italy
, and experienced a fascist
rally, and a public speech given by Benito Mussolini
. When she later used this experience in a novel, she was accused of exaggerations, as the Norwegian right-wing press at the time did not understand the actual danger.
Her political attitude led to active resistance during World War II
, and she was arrested for opposing the Nazi regime late in 1942. She managed to get out of imprisonment by playing mad, and was released in 1944, living in isolation for the rest of the war - none other than her most trusted friends and family knew at the time that she in fact was quite sane. When the Germans turned their backs towards her, she revealed that her sick-bed was stuffed with books, and she taught her nurses while they tended her. After some months, the nurses showed remarkable insight in classical literature, and they became her devoted friends for the rest of her life.
In 1946 Hagen took part in the conference held by Eleanor Roosevelt
, "The world we live in , the world we want", assembling women from all over the world, many of whom had participated in the war resistance.
From 1945 and on, Hagen gradually built her own "post-war resistance", trying to find a way to hinder fascism from rising again in Norway. This had begun while she was at hospital, and became the root of her cultural work for children, called "Suttung", rather a pedagogical principle than a movement. She gradually gathered teenagers and students around her, and read with them, and those that she taught, passed the knowledge on. They read the classics, poets like Henrik Wergeland
, Ibsen, Hans E. Kinck
, Dante
, Victor Hugo
, Charles Dickens
, Dostoyevsky and others. Further on, she studied William Shakespeare
, the Greek
playwrights and Homer
, and folk-tales from all over the world.
The movement grew, and established in time a theatre for presentations of plays written by Henrik Wergeland
and Hans E. Kinck
among others. The theatre proved that Wergeland was in fact playable, and even an exciting and profound playwright.
Hagen tried to give Norwegians a better understanding of Henrik Wergeland, and therefore she established her known "flower feast" on his birthday - a celebration that is still held alive. The value of her work has been important to a number of Norwegian cultural personalities, and even for the younger members of the royal family.
Ingeborg Refling Hagen continued to write poems until she was almost 90 years, and her dark and dramatic side mellowed into a mild summer evening in her late production. She died in her bed in 1989, in fact in the very chamber in which she was born.
.
, Plato
and the church fathers
. This was strangely blended with a vast knowledge of world literature
. She was in a way connected to Carl Jung
and his thought of collective unconscious
when she fitted together different pieces of literature into a whole. This notion is most clearly perceived in her analysis of the entity she often called The Old One, similar to Jung's archetype
"the old man" or philemon
. Hagen recognized the figure in several fairy-tales. In this respect, she unknowingly takes a Mythopoetic point of view.
In her autobiographical works, her fictional "self" learns how to listen to her own "old one", and gaining wisdom
from it. She called it "a grey and wide eye inside her mind". In a wider sense, this way of thinking is connected to her respect for old oral traditions handed down. In many of her books, one finds an old storyteller
, giving advice, pointing out the way, or setting the plot. This also occurs in her poems.
From childhood she had been somewhat of a visionary
, and in her autobiographical works she describes her visions in many places, often prompted by hard pondering on philosophical problems occurring in literature. She developed a clear feminist statement based on an interpretation of the Bible
, especially Mother Mary and Eve
, whom she often compared as female archetypes. She was, however, known to think of males as weaker in many ways than her own gender, and discussed many times the relationship between man and woman, and the way they treated children. She would often criticize certain types of self-righteous women. Much of her thinking in this respect derived from the fact that she herself had experienced what a defenseless child could suffer under the hands of a mighty farmer's wife. She believed that women often would discriminate pauper's children on behalf of those they themselves had given birth to. She often cited the Norwegian phrase: "One's own children, other people's brats", to explain an attitude she opposed.
Ingeborg Refling Hagen's basic philosophy and thinking is a strange blend of old Christian
ideas and socialist thinking. The vision of collecting all myths and stories in one universal system of thoughts was in a way her lifelong project, as she put it: "making an archive for those that are to follow, so that they can work further". This way of thinking may be characteristic for her generation - the thought of a common ground for stories prompted her English contemporary J.R.R. Tolkien in his epic project of a mythology for England
.
Hagen's philosophical outlook can most easily be spotted in her 1972 poem Guds Tuntre (The Courtyard Tree of God). Here, she describes the Norse
World Tree
Yggdrasil
as planted by God
, and takes comfort in the mythic explanation when she gets "dizzy from hurrying thoughts". She finds a quiet point, Tangen, and decides to work from there. Here, she finds friends and family, but acknowledges that "life comes from the same root". Yggdrasil is in fact the revolving earth, and all the world, all humanity, are inside its branches.
Then, war comes, and the father in the poem enlists to defend the country. His farewell-song contains the statement that a conquering power never will win over a small country, mostly because the country always will live in the stories and the songs. The poem is patriotic, and universal at the same time. The father advises his children to
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
.
Early life
Ingeborg Refling Hagen was born in HedmarkHedmark
is a county in Norway, bordering Sør-Trøndelag, Oppland and Akershus. The county administration is in Hamar.Hedmark makes up the northeastern part of Østlandet, the southeastern part of the country. It includes a long part of the borderline with Sweden, Dalarna County and Värmland County. The...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, in the parish Tangen
Tangen
Tangen is a village lying near the shores of Mjøsa in the municipality of Stange, Norway. Its population is 471.Former Prime Minister of Norway Odvar Nordli was born and raised in Tangen....
besides Mjøsa
Mjøsa
Mjøsa is Norway's largest lake, as well as one of the deepest lakes in Norway and in Europe as a whole, after Hornindalsvatnet. It is located in the southern part of Norway, about 100 km north of Oslo...
, as the fourth child of the local miller. Her childhood was enriched by strong folk tradition and story-telling, and also a strong religious consciousness, mostly derived from her mother, who taught in the spirit of Hans Nielsen Hauge
Hans Nielsen Hauge
Hans Nielsen Hauge was a noted revivalist Norwegian lay minister who spoke up against the Church establishment in Norway. Hauge is considered an influential personality in the industrialization of Norway...
.
From 1911, she worked as a nurse for the Kielland family in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and during this time, she studied Shakespeare in her leisure-time. Later in life, she stated that she also learned to understand the emigrant's plight. From Newcastle she brought with her a vivid memory of the "dock-rats", English orphans on the Newcastle quay. Later, in her writings, she interpreted these children as a preview to the rise of fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
. The dock-rats haunted her for years, and she described them later as a nightmarish vision of Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
. Another curious remembrance of her Newcastle years is a strong geordie
Geordie
Geordie is a regional nickname for a person from the Tyneside region of the north east of England, or the name of the English-language dialect spoken by its inhabitants...
accent she developed in socializing with other members of the local lower class (whenever she spoke English in later years). This trait is said to have humored her brother who lived in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
when she visited him there in 1947.
The experiences the hard work gave her made way for strong socialist sympathies later in her life. She supported the Norwegian Labour Party for most of her life, but was mostly considered a left-winger. She opposed the official political statements done by the party in later years, as well as protesting the official school policy. But in whole, she applauded the idea of the welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
, and even wrote a poem about it. In spite her criticism, she remained on friendly terms with Einar Gerhardsen
Einar Gerhardsen
was a Norwegian politician from the Labour Party of Norway. He was Prime Minister for three periods, 1945–1951, 1955–1963 and 1963–1965. With 17 years in office, he is the longest serving Prime Minister in Norway since the introduction of parliamentarism...
throughout her life.
Writing career and activism
She published her first books in the 1920s, and was soon regarded as a great talent. Her novels at the early stage were dark and expressionistic, based on her native environment, HedmarkHedmark
is a county in Norway, bordering Sør-Trøndelag, Oppland and Akershus. The county administration is in Hamar.Hedmark makes up the northeastern part of Østlandet, the southeastern part of the country. It includes a long part of the borderline with Sweden, Dalarna County and Värmland County. The...
. She was the first to make use of the local dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s from this part of Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, thus inspiring Alf Prøysen
Alf Prøysen
Alf Prøysen , was a writer and musician from Norway. He was born at Rudshøgda in Ringsaker. Prøysen was one of the most important Norwegian cultural personalities in the second half of the twentieth century, and he made significant contributions to literature, music, TV and radio.His childhood was...
.
She made a lyrical breakthrough in 1933, with a book of Immigrant poems, describing the immigrant's longing for home. This book became her greatest success.
During this time, Hagen supported the republicans
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
in the Spanish civil war
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, and began to warn against the rise of fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
, along with authors like Nordahl Grieg and Arnulf Øverland
Arnulf Øverland
Ole Peter Arnulf Øverland was a Norwegian author born in Kristiansund and raised in Bergen. His works include Berget det blå and Hustavler .-Life:...
. Earlier on, she had made a journey to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and experienced a fascist
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
rally, and a public speech given by Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
. When she later used this experience in a novel, she was accused of exaggerations, as the Norwegian right-wing press at the time did not understand the actual danger.
Her political attitude led to active resistance during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and she was arrested for opposing the Nazi regime late in 1942. She managed to get out of imprisonment by playing mad, and was released in 1944, living in isolation for the rest of the war - none other than her most trusted friends and family knew at the time that she in fact was quite sane. When the Germans turned their backs towards her, she revealed that her sick-bed was stuffed with books, and she taught her nurses while they tended her. After some months, the nurses showed remarkable insight in classical literature, and they became her devoted friends for the rest of her life.
In 1946 Hagen took part in the conference held by Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
, "The world we live in , the world we want", assembling women from all over the world, many of whom had participated in the war resistance.
From 1945 and on, Hagen gradually built her own "post-war resistance", trying to find a way to hinder fascism from rising again in Norway. This had begun while she was at hospital, and became the root of her cultural work for children, called "Suttung", rather a pedagogical principle than a movement. She gradually gathered teenagers and students around her, and read with them, and those that she taught, passed the knowledge on. They read the classics, poets like Henrik Wergeland
Henrik Wergeland
Henrik Arnold Thaulow Wergeland was a Norwegian writer, most celebrated for his poetry but also a prolific playwright, polemicist, historian, and linguist...
, Ibsen, Hans E. Kinck
Hans E. Kinck
Hans Ernst Kinck was a Norwegian author and philologist who wrote novels, short stories, dramas, and essays.He was born in Øksfjord in Loppa, Finnmark, where his father was the local health inspector. He died in Oslo....
, Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
, Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, Dostoyevsky and others. Further on, she studied William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, the Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
playwrights and Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
, and folk-tales from all over the world.
The movement grew, and established in time a theatre for presentations of plays written by Henrik Wergeland
Henrik Wergeland
Henrik Arnold Thaulow Wergeland was a Norwegian writer, most celebrated for his poetry but also a prolific playwright, polemicist, historian, and linguist...
and Hans E. Kinck
Hans E. Kinck
Hans Ernst Kinck was a Norwegian author and philologist who wrote novels, short stories, dramas, and essays.He was born in Øksfjord in Loppa, Finnmark, where his father was the local health inspector. He died in Oslo....
among others. The theatre proved that Wergeland was in fact playable, and even an exciting and profound playwright.
Hagen tried to give Norwegians a better understanding of Henrik Wergeland, and therefore she established her known "flower feast" on his birthday - a celebration that is still held alive. The value of her work has been important to a number of Norwegian cultural personalities, and even for the younger members of the royal family.
Ingeborg Refling Hagen continued to write poems until she was almost 90 years, and her dark and dramatic side mellowed into a mild summer evening in her late production. She died in her bed in 1989, in fact in the very chamber in which she was born.
Personal life
Hagen never married. She stated herself that she in a way was "called" to a duty, and would not risk the life of a man in her task. She meant she would be better off alone. Her second collection of poems, Jeg har møtt en engel (I have met an angel), hints on some strong erotic longing, and as the story goes, she was attracted to one man. "But", she said late in life, "one man in my life is enough for me". The man in question died from her, and left her heavy with grief. This can also be spotted in one of her early novels, Brudgommen (The Bridegroom), later made to a great choral work by her brother-in-law, Eivind GrovenEivind Groven
Eivind Groven was a Norwegian microtonal composer and music-theorist. He was from Telemark and had his background in the folk music of the area.- Biography :...
.
Philosophy
Ingeborg Refling Hagen was in many ways a self-taught philosopher, who based her way of thinking on romanticismRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
and the church fathers
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were early and influential theologians, eminent Christian teachers and great bishops. Their scholarly works were used as a precedent for centuries to come...
. This was strangely blended with a vast knowledge of world literature
World literature
World literature refers to literature from all over the world, including African literature, American literature, Arabic literature, Asian literature, Australasian literature, Caribbean Literature, English literature, European literature, Indian literature, Latin American literature, Persian...
. She was in a way connected to Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
and his thought of collective unconscious
Collective unconscious
Collective unconscious is a term of analytical psychology, coined by Carl Jung. It is proposed to be a part of the unconscious mind, expressed in humanity and all life forms with nervous systems, and describes how the structure of the psyche autonomously organizes experience...
when she fitted together different pieces of literature into a whole. This notion is most clearly perceived in her analysis of the entity she often called The Old One, similar to Jung's archetype
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
"the old man" or philemon
Philemon
Philemon may refer to:Arts and literature:* Philemon , the recipient of Saint Paul's Epistle to Philemon* Baucis and Philemon, the couple from the Metamorphoses of Greek mythology...
. Hagen recognized the figure in several fairy-tales. In this respect, she unknowingly takes a Mythopoetic point of view.
In her autobiographical works, her fictional "self" learns how to listen to her own "old one", and gaining wisdom
Wisdom
Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgements and actions in keeping with this understanding. It often requires control of one's emotional reactions so that universal principles, reason and...
from it. She called it "a grey and wide eye inside her mind". In a wider sense, this way of thinking is connected to her respect for old oral traditions handed down. In many of her books, one finds an old storyteller
Storytelling
Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
, giving advice, pointing out the way, or setting the plot. This also occurs in her poems.
From childhood she had been somewhat of a visionary
Visionary
Defined broadly, a visionary, is one who can envision the future. For some groups this can involve the supernatural or drugs.The visionary state is achieved via meditation, drugs, lucid dreams, daydreams, or art. One example is Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century artist/visionary and Catholic saint...
, and in her autobiographical works she describes her visions in many places, often prompted by hard pondering on philosophical problems occurring in literature. She developed a clear feminist statement based on an interpretation of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, especially Mother Mary and Eve
Eve (Bible)
Eve was, according to the creation of Abrahamic religions, the first woman created by God...
, whom she often compared as female archetypes. She was, however, known to think of males as weaker in many ways than her own gender, and discussed many times the relationship between man and woman, and the way they treated children. She would often criticize certain types of self-righteous women. Much of her thinking in this respect derived from the fact that she herself had experienced what a defenseless child could suffer under the hands of a mighty farmer's wife. She believed that women often would discriminate pauper's children on behalf of those they themselves had given birth to. She often cited the Norwegian phrase: "One's own children, other people's brats", to explain an attitude she opposed.
Ingeborg Refling Hagen's basic philosophy and thinking is a strange blend of old Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
ideas and socialist thinking. The vision of collecting all myths and stories in one universal system of thoughts was in a way her lifelong project, as she put it: "making an archive for those that are to follow, so that they can work further". This way of thinking may be characteristic for her generation - the thought of a common ground for stories prompted her English contemporary J.R.R. Tolkien in his epic project of a mythology for England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Hagen's philosophical outlook can most easily be spotted in her 1972 poem Guds Tuntre (The Courtyard Tree of God). Here, she describes the Norse
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
World Tree
World tree
The world tree is a motif present in several religions and mythologies, particularly Indo-European religions, Siberian religions, and Native American religions. The world tree is represented as a colossal tree which supports the heavens, thereby connecting the heavens, the earth, and, through its...
Yggdrasil
Yggdrasil
In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is an immense tree that is central in Norse cosmology. It was said to be the world tree around which the nine worlds existed...
as planted by God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, and takes comfort in the mythic explanation when she gets "dizzy from hurrying thoughts". She finds a quiet point, Tangen, and decides to work from there. Here, she finds friends and family, but acknowledges that "life comes from the same root". Yggdrasil is in fact the revolving earth, and all the world, all humanity, are inside its branches.
Then, war comes, and the father in the poem enlists to defend the country. His farewell-song contains the statement that a conquering power never will win over a small country, mostly because the country always will live in the stories and the songs. The poem is patriotic, and universal at the same time. The father advises his children to
- "...learn all the stories, all the songs, all the inherited wisdom from the generations before. Own the language, and you will prevail. Through the stories, you will find your way to the roots of the old tree, which is rooted in the old days, and spreads its branches all over the world. The people with a memory will live."