Dedication
TO NORMAN HAPGOOD — CRITIC AND FRIEND
Author’s Note
The invocation of Ingimund to Odin, on page 38, is adapted from Fragments of a Spell Song, preserved as an insertion in the Great Play of the Wolsungs, and to be found, both original and translation, in the Corpus Poeticum Boreale of Vigfusson and Powell, Oxford, 1883.
For dramatic reasons, various liberties have been taken by the writer with those elements of this play which are drawn from Scandinavian mythology. For example, according to mythology, the Fenris-wolf is the offspring, not of Odin, but of Loki; the wolf and Baldur are not brothers; no mention is made of the wolf’s Pack. Moreover, in the Old Icelandic utterances of the Pack—for purposes of sound merely—a preterite form has twice been used for a present tense, as in Ulfr sofnathi, “the wolf sleepeth.”
Where authenticity, however, has harmonised with the dramatic idea, it has equally been the writer’s aim.
Cornish, N.H., March, 1905.
CHARACTERS
Of the Prologue
ODIN
BALDUR
THOR
LOKI
FENRIS
FENRIS’S PACK
FREYJA
Of the Play
INGIMUND, Priest of Odin
EGIL, a Hunter
ARFI, a Dwarf, his brother
YORUL, liegeman of Egil
ROLF, liegeman of Egil
ERIC, liegeman of Egil
WULDOR, liegeman of Arfi
A LITTLE BOY
THORDIS, daughter of Ingimund and priestess of Odin’s temple
FRIDA, one of her Virgins
A LITTLE GIRL
Folk, Priests, Virgins, Children
| SCENES | ||
| THE | PROLOGUE. | The crater of a volcano; dawn. |
| ACT | FIRST. | |
| Scene I. | The rune-stone of Odin, outside a tribal temple; morning. | |
| Scene II. | Egil’s lodge in the forest; toward twilight. | |
| ACT | SECOND. | |
| Scene I. | A prison chamber; day. | |
| Scene II. | The same; night. | |
| ACT | THIRD. | A forest glade; the pool of Freyja; early morning. |
| ACT | FOURTH. | The rune-stone again; sunset. |
Time and Place
The Age of Northern Mythology; Iceland. The incidents of
the play are conceived as taking place within the cycle
of a year.