PRONUNCIATION

LONGFELLOW justly describes the Swedish language as being "soft

and musical, with an accent like the lowland Scotch." The following incomplete table is designed to aid the general reader in pronouncing proper names.

a, e, and i are pronounced as in Latin or German:

a like a in father.

e like a in fame.

i like ee in seen.

o is like oo in bloom.

u is a sound unknown in regular English, but like ui in Scotch dialect: : e.g., guid. It is formed like oo with the lips more pursed. It is just between Swedish and 0

y.

ä and are like similar letters in German:

ä the same as Swedish e.

ö like French eu in fleur.

All of these vowels may be either long or short.

The chief differences of the consonants from English are:

g before e, i, y, ä, and ö is like our consonantal y; e.g., Geijer = Yeiyer.

j is always like our consonantal J.

k before e, i, y, ä, ö, is like our ch; e. g., Kellgren Chailgrain. stj is like our sh; e.g., Stjerne = Shairnay.

v and w are alike, both corresponding to our v.

The secondary accent and the other peculiarities of Swedish are too difficult to be treated here.

Pages 37, 38.

TEXTUAL NOTES

Askur and Embla. The Adam and Eve of Old Norse mythology.

Page 38.

Mimer. The giant who guarded the spring of wisdom.

Page 59.

Sandels. One of the leading generals of the Finnish army in the war with Russia, 1808-9.

Page 79.

Lappo. A battle in which the Finns defeated the invading Russians, July 14, 1808. Uttismalm. Also in Finland. Here Gustaf III defeated the Russians in 1789. Willmanstrand. Near Uttismalm in southeastern Finland. Here the Finns and Swedes were beaten by the Russians in 1741.

Page 88.

Sveaborg. A supposedly impregnable fortress on the Gulf of Finland which surrendered to the Russians. Svithiod's strand. A patriotic synonym for Sweden.

Page 131.

Magenta and Caprera. Where victories were won in the Italian war of independence. The latter was won by Garibaldi, to whom possibly Snoilsky refers on page 132, stanza 5, as “my lion.”

Page 145.

King Erik. Erik XIV, son of Gustaf Vasa, was the most romantic of Swedish kings. He was a poet, a suitor for the hand of Mary Queen of Scots, and a passionate devotee of the sex in general. The happiest of his many love affairs was that with Karin, a peasant girl. In the end Erik was dethroned and murdered in prison, 1577.

Page 188.

The Old Mountain Troll. The Norse troll is properly a loathsome and carnivorous giant living in the mountains.

Page 194.

The Dance by the Roadside. Swedish names have been Anglicized, as frequently elsewhere, for the sake of directness.

Page 201.

This Dreamer cometh! The dreamer is of course Joseph. Cf. Genesis

37:19.

Page 202.

Karl-Johan. This is Bernadotte, Napoleon's marshal, afterwards chosen by the Swedes as their king under the title of Charles XIV.