This was to happen later.
In the Icelandic "family" Sagas, on the other hand, I found in
abundance what I required in the shape of human garb for the moods,
conceptions, and thoughts which at that time occupied me, or were,
at least, more or less distinctly present in my mind. With these
Old Norse contributions to the personal history of our Saga period
I had had no previous acquaintance; I had hardly so much as heard
them named. But now N. M. Petersen's excellent translation--
excellent, at least, as far as the style is concerned--fell into
my hands. In the pages of these family chronicles, with their
variety of scenes and of relations between man and man, between
woman and woman, in short, between human being and human being,
there met me a personal, eventful, really living life; and as the
result of my intercourse with all these distinctly individual men
and women, there presented themselves to my mind's eye the first
rough, indistinct outlines of _The Vikings at Helgeland_.
How far the details of that drama then took shape, I am no longer
able to say. But I remember perfectly that the two figures of
which I first caught sight were the two women who in course of
time became Hiordis and Dagny. There was to be a great banquet
in the play, with passion-rousing, fateful quarrels during its
course. Of other characters and passions, and situations produced
by these, I meant to include whatever seemed to me most typical
of the life which the Sagas reveal.
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