1920 Finnur Jónsson
Den oldnorske og oldislandske
litteraturs historie
The Old Norse and Old Icelandic
 Literary History

(On Gróugaldr and Fjölsvinnmál)

Uden her at komme ind på nogen mytologisk forklaring af digtet skal det bemærkes, at Fjölsviðr forekommer som navn på Odin ikke alene i Grímnismál v. 47, men også i navneremserne— og som navn på en dværg. Derimod forekommer navnet aldrig som et jætte navn. At der skulde være tale om en dværg som borgvogter er så unaturligt og så stridende mod alt, hvad der vides om dværgenes væsen og virken, at det på forhånd må afvises. Tilbage bliver således kun at opfatte navnet som et Odinsnavn. Den udvej, kun på dette sted at opfatte navnet som et jættenavn, kunde synes rimelig på grund af digtets første vers, jfr. Grógaldr 14,1-3 (ef orðum skiptir við enn naddgöfga jötun). Hvad der dog taler for, at Fjölsviðr her er Odin er — foruden udtrykket (er) med goðum (sáut menn hit meira forað) i v. 9. 11, der ikke behøver at være bevisende — især v. 33, hvor der udtrykkelig hentydes til noget indenfor »asasønnernes« (asernes) gård, der kun kan være identisk med Menglöðs borg. Hertil kommer, at omtalen af porten i v. 10 stærkt minder om beskrivelsen af Valhals port (8), og at hundenes navne: Gífr og Geri (i v. 14) synes ligefrem at være identiske med navnene på Odins ulve: Freki = Gífr og Geri. Man må vistnok give V. Rydberg ret, når han mener (9), at Fjölsvinnr er Odin.

Without going into any mythological explanation of the poem (Fjölsvinnsmál), it should be noted that Fjölsviðr appears as the name of Odin not only in Grímnismál v. 47, but also in a þula — and as the name of a dwarf. However, the name never occurs as a giant's name. That there should be a dwarf as a castle guardian is so unnatural and so contrary to everything that is known about the dwarf's being and work, it is inadmissible. Thus, all that remains is to understand the name as a name of Odin. The alternative, to understand the name as a giant's name, only in this poem, might seem reasonable on the basis of the poem's first verse, cf. Grógaldr 14:1-3 (ec orðum skiptir við enn naddgöfga jötun, 'if you exchange words with a weapon-strong giants). What, however, suggests that Fjölsviðr here is Odin — in addition to the term (s) med goðum (sáut menn hit meira forað) in v. 9, 11, which does not need to be convincing - especially v. 33, which explicitly alludes to something within the 'Asa-sons' (i.e. the Æsir's) estate that can only be identical to Menglöð's castle. In addition, the mention of the gate in v. 10 is very similar to the description of Valhalla gate (8), and that the dogs' names: Gífr and Geri (in v. 14) seem to be identical to the names of Odin's wolves: Freki = Gífr and Geri. One must certainly consider V. Rydberg correct when he concludes that Fjölsvinnr is Odin (9). But the poem seems to contain much symbolism, even the names are symbolic, making it difficult to learn what they actually mean or to what they refer. This symbolism does not militate against the poem's genesis in the 10th century.

 

8): Snorri's Edda I, 34 and 22 Grímnismál (particularly important).
9): Undersökningar in Germanisk Mythol. I. p. 565ff .

1920

The Luthern Companion

Augusta Journal no. 28, p. 170

 

And lest we forget, even that universally admired chieftain of Swedish literature Dr. V. Rydberg in his “Läran om Kristus” sends a few broadsides at the Lutheran conception of trinity, atonement etc. " 

 

1926 B. COLLINDER
Nordisk Tidskrift
Ett nytt uppslag i den fornnordiska religionsforskningen

[A new look at the research in Old Norse religion]

Vol. II, p. 223

 

Noreen, som i en vidräkning med Rydbergs germanska »teologi» gav uttryck åt samma radikala åsikter som Rühs åtta årtionden tidigare förfäktat med så ringa framgang. Men tidsandan var nu en annan än under nyromantikens jubeldagar.

En särställning intages av tysken Elard Hugo Meyer, som i ett lärt verk om Völuspa sökt uppvisa att denna dikt är ett maskerat kompendium i katolsk dogmatik. När man läser arbeten av detta slag kommer man lätt att tänka på de ofta anförda ord, som landshövdingen Festus yttrade till Paulus i Cesarea (Apg. 20, 24).


Noreen, who in an indictment of Rydberg's Germanic "theology" expressed the same radical views as Rühs eight decades earlier championed with so little success. But the spirit was now different from the new romantic's happy days .

A special position is occupied by German Elard Hugo Meyer, who in a scholarly work about Voluspá sought to demonstrate that this poem is a masked compendium of Catholic dogma. When one reads the works of this kind, it will be easy to think of the oft-quoted words, which the governor Festus spoke to Paul in Caesarea (Acts 20:24).

 

1922 Friedrich Klaeber

 Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg

 

The accidental killing of Herebeald by Hæcyn has been repeatedly [5] compared with the unintentional slaying of Baldr by the blind Hoðr, who is directed by Loki in shooting the mistletoe (Prose Edda, Gylfaginning, chap. 48). But it is difficult to believe that the story told in Beowulf has any mythological basis. It rather impresses us as a report of an ordinary incident that could easily happen in those Scandinavian communities and probably happened more than once. Maybe the motive was associated at an early date with names suggesting a warlike occupation, like Here-beald, Hæcyn (Baldr, Hoar).'

[5] Thus by Gisli Brynulfsson, Aniik-v. Tidikrift (1852/54), p. 132 ; Grundtvig (Ed.), pp. xliii, 175 ; Rydberg, Undersökningar i germanisk mythologi (1886), i 665 (who moreover called attention to Saxo's account (iii 69 fF.) of Hotherus' skill in archery [which was, however, only one of his numerous accomplishments] )

 

 

1923 Augustus John Cuthbert Hare

Walks in Rome (including Tivoli, Frascati and Albano) 

- 709 pages

  

1924 Katherine Margaret Buck

The Wayland-Dietrich Saga:

The Saga of Dietrich of Bern and his Companions

 

 "Readers may well ask wherein lies the connection and unity, and what is the epic significance of this "Song of Wayland," — this queer upcrop of stories packed one within the other in the fashion of the Arabian Nights, and resembling a Chinese "nest" of boxes rather than an orthodox epic poem. I will try to shew that there is connection, unity, and epic or psychological meaning in these various stories, and, also, that they have their logical sequel or fulfilment in the Song of Dietrich. First, as to the connection of the characters in the epic: — Nornaguest is Sigurd's "swain." I see him also as Widsith the Far-Wanderer, who was in many Kings' Halls and had a life of abnormal length (if he saw all that he claimed to have seen).


...consult Professor V. Rydberg) a link between the Race of Ivalde (Thjassi, Viking, Wade and Wayland), i.e., the Wilking stock and the Nibelungs. Witga, Wayland's son, is the link between the Wilkings and the Gothic Amelungs and Wolfings, whose chiefs are Dietrich of Bern and Master Hildebrand. Quintus Lupus, Romano-British Centurion, was, if I am not mistaken, the ancestor of Hildebrand for I see in him a member of the old Wolfing stock that had its roots in Central Asia ..".

 

... And at his heels his hound that bides with him. Of his three sons but little tell I here . . . The sagas give an account of an earlier Egil, also famed as an archer : " Of his (Ivalde's) sons but little tell I here Thjassi one, of whom came Viking's line, From which descended a right famous man The hero known as Witga, Wayland's son Of whom ye shall hear much ere my tale ends, An ye have patience and do mark me well. Another, Gjuki, who was ancestor Of the famed Niblung Princes, amongst whom Was Gibich, Lord of Rhine and Burgundy, And Aldrian his kinsman. From him too Hengest's and Irung's races claim descent.4 The third son was called Avo, archer skilled, Known too as Egil, once the friend of Thor ; Whose sons were Erik and his half brother Young Rolf, or Uller, as he has been called..... 4 Rydberg, p. 659. ...

 

1924
Jämten; Heimbygdas Arsbok

"... De bästa dragen hos den ariska rasen har Försynen nedlagt i den svenska folksjälen, därför kan ock vår store skald och tänkare Viktor Rydberg jublande sjunga i sin svansång, »Himlens blå»: »Till ariskt blod, det renaste och äldsta, till svensk jag vigdes av en vänlig norna». Dessa och många andra framstående egenskaper har ställt den svenska nationen bland de allra främsta på kulturens olika fält." ...The best features of the Aryan race has Providence instilled in the Swedish folk-soul, Viktor Rydberg jubilantly sings in his swan song, "Heavens Blue": "To Aryan blood, the purest and oldest, to Swedish, I was ordained by a friendly Norn." These and many other outstanding features have made ​​the Swedish nation among the best in the cultural fields.

 

1926 Adolf B. Benson

NORSE MYTHOLOGY, Legends of Gods and Heroes, by PETER ANDREAS MUNCH, in the Revision of Magnus Olsen, translated from the Norwegian by Sigurd Bernhard Hustvedt.  

Scandinavian Classics, Vol. XXVII. New York, The American- Scandinavian Foundation, 1926. pp. xx+397;  Price, $2.50.

 

Of more than ordinary general interest to all English-speaking teachers of languages and literatures is the last volume of the Scandinavian Classics, Norse Mythology. This book is "intended to serve alike the student of Old Norse literature, the reader of other literatures in which the ancient themes occur, and especially the general reader who has searched often and in vain for one handy volume to tell him of the Old Norse gods and their affairs." The work is an authoritative guide, and is calculated "to take its place with Bullfinch's Age of Fable and the other standard ex- ponents of pagan life and belief." It is divided into three main parts-Myths of the Gods, Heroic Legends, and The Worship of the Gods-contains an indispensably useful index and eighty pages of lucid, scholarly notes. The text followed by Professor Olsen (of the University of Oslo) is that of the third edition (1922) of Munch's famous handbook. There is one rather astonishing omission in the Bibliography (pp. 279-80). To the "list of the more important works in the field of Norse and Germanic mythology," there should certainly be added Viktor Rydberg's monumental Undersökningar i germanisk mytologi (1886, 1889), of which the first volume was at once translated into English by Professor Rasmus B. Anderson of Wisconsin, and published in London by Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1888-1891. Strange to say, however, the "Teutonic Mythology, by Viktor Rydberg," as Anderson's translation was called, does not seem to be known very well in America. Nor was it ever indicated that this translation was limited to the first volume. Nothing was said either by the translator or the publisher about a second volume. Rydberg also published in 1887 a condensed popular version of the Norse myths for young people, entitled Fádernas gudasaga. That the name of Rydberg should not even be mentioned by Professor Olsen is indeed a strange oversight. However, the omission of the above information is after all a minor matter. The reviewer can assure the prospective reader and teacher that the latest publication venture of the American- Scandinavian Foundation, all of whose classics deserve to be better known, is a decided success, and Norse Mythology should prove a valuable, not to say essential companion volume to The Prose Edda and The Poetic Edda, both previously published by the Foundation.

 

ADOLPH B. BENSON

 Yale University

1925 Karl Warburg

Viktor Rydberg. Pontus Wikner

 

1925 Louis Henry Jordan 

Comparative Religion: a Survey of its Recent Literature

 

"Sweden occupies a very honorable place in this connection. The services rendered by the late Professor Rydberg cannot be forgotten."

 

 1926 Sir Israel Gollancz 

The Shakespeare Classics, Volume 12‎ - Page 35

[Reprinted from Hamlet in Iceland (1898)]

 

"... In the stories of Orwendel found in the Eddas, there is nothing strongly suggestive of Saxo's Hamlet story, though Rydberg attempted, without success, to identify Hamlet with Orwendel's famous son Svipdagr, whose adventures in giant-land to  win the giant-guarded maiden are told so dramatically in the fine Eddaic Lay of Swipday and Menglad. "

 

 

1926 Alf Ahlberg  
Viktor Rydberg: En toleransens förkämpe i Sverige

 

Reprint:
1926 James Hastings
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Part 4‎, p. 708

 

"Urd is possibly the equivalent of the goddess Hel (Rydberg, 308 ; Simrock, 340)  ..."

 

   

1927 David Patrick, William Geddie

Chambers's Encyclopaedia:

A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge, p. 135

written by Rasmus B. Anderson

p. 198 "Sophus Bugge has published an elaborate work, Studier over de nordiske gode-, og heltesagns Oprindelse (German trans, by Professor Bremner, Munich, 1889), in which he attempts to trace the influence of Greek and Roman mythology and of Christianity on Scandinavian mythology. On the other hand, Viktor Rydberg, in his monumental work Teutonic Mythology (trans, into English by the present writer, London, 1889), has given an account of the mythology as it existed before it came in contact with and was modified by the Christian religion. The mythological materials in a more or less changed form have been largely augmented by Rydberg, particularly by him subjecting the mythic portions of the Historia Danica of Saxo Grammaticus to a most painstaking analysis. He has found the key to Saxo's method of turning myths and traditions into history, and by this discovery he has secured many new and important contributions to Scandinavian mythology. Rydberg shows that the Younger Edda is an unreliable record of the Odinic religion. He has also largely increased our stock of mythological materials by analysing, for the first time, the mythic fragments found in the old Norse literature outside of the Elder Edda. "

p. 332-3 "Seven Sleepers, the heroes of a celebrated legend, which is first related in the West by Gregory of Tours in the close of the 6th century (Miraculorum Liber, c. 92), but the date of which is assigned to the 3d century, and to the persecution of the Christians under Decius. According to the story, during the flight of the Christians from the persecution, seven Christians of Ephesus took refuge in a cave near the city, where they were discovered by their pursuers, who walled up the entrance in order to starve them to death. They fell instead into a preternatural sleep, in which they lay for nearly 200 years. This is supposed to have taken place in 250 or 251 ; and it was not till the reign of Theodosius II. (447) that they awoke. They imagined that their sleep had been but of a single night; and one of the seven went secretly into the city to purchase provisions, and he was amazed to see the cross erected on the churches and other buildings. Offering a coin of Decius in a baker's shop he was arrested, his startling story not being believed until he guided the citizens to the cavern where he had left his comrades. The emperor heard from their lips enough to convince him of the life beyond the grave of the dead, whereupon they sank again to sleep till the resurrection. Gregory explains that his story is of Syrian origin—it is widely current in the East, and was adopted by Mohammed (sur. xviii.), who even admits their dog Kitmer also into Paradise. The Roman Catholic Church holds their festival on June 27. The names usually given are Maximianus, Malchus, Martinianus, Dionysius, Joannes, Serapiou, and Constautius. Paulus Diaconus (8th century) locates a similar story in Germany, and Rydberg makes out a good case that the myth is of Teutonic origin intimately connected with the return of the dead Balder and of the other dead men from the lower world, with the idea of resurrection and the regeneration of the world, but possibly enough first Christianised in Syria or Asia Minor. The seven sons of Minier awakening from their long sleep at the blast of Heimdal's trumpet to take their part in the final struggle of the universe is a close parallel to the seven saints of Ephesus. Both in Germany and Sweden the seven sleepers are connected with the weather—if it rains on their day rain will follow for seven weeks together. They are supposed also to take especial care of sailors. See Koch, Die Siebetischlaferlegcnde (Leip. 1882); and Rydberg, Teutonic Mythology (Eng. trans. 1889) .

 

  

1927 ELIAS WESSÉN.

Eddadikterna om Helge Hundingsbane

Identitet av Urd och Hel antages bl. a. av SIMROCK (aa) och V. RYDBERG (Undersökningar i germansk mytologi I, s. 299 f., 341 f.)

"The identity of of Urd and Hel is assumed, among others, by Karl Simrock (aa) and Viktor Rydberg (Investigations into Germanic mythology, I, pp. 299 f, 341 f)"

 

 

1927 H. V. Routh

 God, Man, & Epic Poetry

The Modern Language Journal, Volume 12‎ - Page 79

 

p. 41 Routh follows Rydberg's conception of the six elements that form mankind, resting on Voluspa 17-18, from UGM1 no. 95. 

p. 45 "Here they would meet a race of mortals who had not yet died, or become sullied by life on erth, the Asmegir who were being reserved, as Rydberg has proved, to repopulate the earth after the downfall." 

Rydberg is also cited on pages 61, 80-81.

 1927 Hannes Gebhard 

The Present State of the Co-operative

Rural Bank Movement in Finland

"The great Swedish author and thinker Victor Rydberg has likened the Christian Faith to a casket full of glittering jewels. At long intervals someone succeeds in finding the key to it, and opening it, takes out a new jewel from this mysterious treasure, mankind's inheritance and its source of regeneration. In these words Victor Rydberg expressed his conviction of the undiminished power of the Christian Faith to renew life and his belief that new forces capable of exerting a regenerating effect on life continued to flow from this mysterious spring of life."

 

1928 Knut Hagberg

Viktor Rydberg - 168 pages

 

Viktor Rydberg hör till dem. Hans dikt och hans tankar betyda mer för oss än de gjorde för den generation, som såg honom i livet. I någon mån beror väl denna uppskattning av Viktor Rydberg därpå, att vi ha större kunskap om honom än ...

Viktor Rydberg belongs to them. His poetry and his thoughts mean more to us than they did for the generation who saw him in life. To some extent it's probably because this estimate by Viktor Rydberg, then, that we have more knowledge of him than ...

 

1928 Le Roy Andrews, Old Norse Notes

Modern Language Notes, Volume 43‎

Johns Hopkins University  Page 169

 

 

"This uncle of Odin has been taken to be Mimir (Rydberg, Undersokningar i
germansk mythologi, I, 468 f., 1886; Gering, Die Edda, 106, 1892; ..."

 

 

 

Recently some online pagan cults have falsely labeled Rydberg an Anti-Semite for using the stock character of Ahasverus the Wandering Jew in one of his most famous poems. The source they commonly cite, a book titled Aryan Idols, says no such thing (see A Century of Scholarship: 2006) . Here, the author identifies the poem as obvious political satire, in which Ahasverus represents British Prime Minister Benjamin Disreali, who was in fact Jewish (as was Rydberg's publisher Albert Bonnier, and several of his closest friends). To make the caricature clear, Rydberg provides his Ahasverus with features from the "life and opinions of Disreali", recognizable to those aware of contemporary international events  Sweden was in a precarious position with its neighbors Turkey and Russia poised for war at the time the poem was composed.

 

1927 Eino Railo

Haunted Castle:

A Study of the Elements of English Romanticism

        "In a poem Prometheus och Ahasverus the Swedish poet Viktor Rydberg conceives the Wandering Jew as the representative of power, egoism and pitiless Imperialism with Prometheus as an emblem of justice, humanity and liberalism. Anton Blanck (Handelstidningen Christmas Number 1924, article “Ahasverus—Disreali”) has shown that Rydberg depicts the struggle between Gladstone and Disreali as to whether England was to obey the dictates of humanity and in spite of all selfish considerations of profit declare war as the ally of Russia on Turkey. The views of Disreali prevailed. Features from his life and opinions of Disreali are apparent in the picture of Ahasverus."
  

 1928

Scandinavian Studies

 Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies

 

"and his conclusion that Svipdag had an appellation Asc, indicates that there is a connection. If we may accept Rydberg's deductions the name Askigurgon would appear to be a form of Oskeladd's burg. From this we may infer that some variant of Oskeladd is as old."

"Rydberg shows that the Svipdag story exists in many forms, in which the hero appears under various names."

"... Rydberg thinks that Svipdag had an appellation Asc, which he guesses to be related to the Swedish aska and the Old English ..

  

The 'Outing' of Viktor Rydberg A favorite pasttime of the internet neo-pagan cults opposed to Rydberg's mythological theories is to smear him as a homosexual pedophile,  as if this false accusation somehow discredits his work on mythology.           Viktor Rydberg and his wife Susen Emilia (née Hasselblad) The suggestion that Rydberg was a closeted homosexual with an interest in young boys was the brainchild of Victor Svanberg, a literary critic noted for his interest in Rydberg's erotic life. [*] Reprinted below, Svanberg's theory is based solely on his interpretation of Rydberg's published works and a few carefully edited  personal letters, addressed to a sickly male student named Rudolph Ström, with whom Rydberg corresponded in the mid-1850s. Since  Rydberg's novels contain no gay characters and none of his letters attest to him having had homosexual desires or engaging in homosexual behavior, the accusations are entirely speculative. Over the years, Svanberg's suggestion has grown into a full-blown declaration. Less careful authors have restated the theory as truth, without exploring the matter in any detail. Rydberg's name has even turned up in a few recent gay histories. But notably, his name is absent from others, particularly the more reputable ones such as The Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer Culture, edited by David A. Gerstner , 2012.  Rydberg was a private person who rarely spoke of his personal life.  He was a deeply spiritual man whose novels and poems have often been described as philosophical in nature, and less kindly as "sexless". If he had homosexual tendencies, there is no evidence he ever acted on them, especially with his young pupil Rudolf Ström! Even Svanberg, who originated the theory, doesn't make that ugly accusation. Those who make this claim today have strayed far from the source material. As novelist and translator, Judith Moffett (2001), writes:  "We can construct a story of backdoor illicit liasons and front door respectability from these fragments and others— Rydberg would hardly be the first, if it were true— but he never spoke openly about his personal life at any time, and so our best guess would still be guesswork." Svanberg, who long remained a bachelor  [*], isolated passages in a series of friendly letters (reprinted below) between the sickly adolescent and his former tutor, citing them as the basis for his theory of a same-sex attraction between Rydberg (then 27) and Rudolf Ström. In the letters, Rydberg expresses great concern for the boy's well-being and health, encouraging him to get outdoors and exercise, as they had once done together. He also requests a picture of the boy, and praises his artistic talent. In response, Rudolf laments that he has no other friends because of his poor health, and longs for Rydberg, now a rising cultural figure, to visit him. Considering Rydberg's own tragic childhood and his repeated bouts of ill-health and depression, it seems more likely that Rydberg saw himself in this young man, feeling the need to befriend and protect the boy in a way that no one had done for him at that age. Rather than a same-sex attraction, Rydberg more likely felt deep sympathy for this young man's plight, having overcome similar experiences in his own life. Viktor Rydberg c. 1850s himself frail and in poor health Notice that in these letters this friendship was encouraged by Ström's parents, demonstrating that nothing inappropriate occurred. To underscore this point, both Ström and Rydberg were later married. Their correspondence ended when Ström reached adulthood. The following passage by Viktor Svanberg is the basis of the rumor. Note the author's suggestive tone and overt innuendos throughout:

1928 Victor Svanberg

Novantiken i Den Siste Atenaren,

["New Antiquity in 'The Last Athenian'"]

Translated from German

 

In 1855, Rydberg came to his position in the Handelstidning from a Captain Ström at Senäte near Kinnekulle, where he was tutor to a son of the house. In the following years, a series of letters were exchanged between him and his former teacher, that overall are the most important documents for Rydberg’s biography of this time. The letter exchange has only been accessible to me in copies, preserved in the great collection of Rydbergiana in the Royal Library.   In the copying, certain omissions have been made and indicated. The letters printed in Haverman’s edition are in the most extremely edited condition.[1]
       
On Sept. 2nd, 1855, Rydberg responds to a letter that has not been preserved (or copied). The older friend requites the boy’s declaration that he often thought of his “Yberg”:
 
“— — as far as I remember, [has] no day gone past that I haven’t thought of you. Perhaps our thoughts have met halfway and embraced one another as heartily as I shall embrace you when next I meet you.“— — wonder, if you exercise much, if you can still swim.”
        
“If you know, how I long to see your small, dear face. Many times have I attempted to draw your portrait on paper from memory without success.”  

He sends Rudolf 2 rdr[2] to photograph himself and send a picture.

“I shall hang it over my bed, look at it every morning when I wake and keep it until you become a grown man in order to show you how you looked as a boy. — — My kind Uda! You may not have been in Stockholm a week, before you fulfilled my prayer! I have reckoned that before September 20th I can have your picture on my wall; if it takes longer than that I shall send a reproachful thought to your room in Stockholm every night that shall haunt you and not give you peace until that happens.”
         
Rydberg sends assurances of his “warm, never dying love.” He says that he enjoys his new work, but not his new city. He speaks of Rudolf’s future and returns from this to his appeal to exercise diligently:

         “Through this, one becomes healthy, strong, and supple in body and mind. When I see you again, I will find you healthy and as prosperous as a young rose…”[3]
       
During the summer of 1856, Rydberg expects to visit the Ströms. For this reason, Rudolf writes on November 11th, 1856:

“for every day that someone came, I imagined, before I received word who it was, that it was Mr. Rydberg.”

         He (Rudolf) has been upbraided for writing so rarely — Rydberg believes himself neglected for new school-comrades — and he declares now that he shall write every month and that he will not neglect his friend:    

“How could my devout friend ever believe that I could forget Yberg, no never, never could I do that; and I have no friends yet and likely will not ever have a real and true friend.”  

          In the response letter dated January 18th 1857 (Rudolf’s letter has been lost), Rydberg takes notice of the promise of more frequent letters:
 
           “I shall hold you to this promise, but will, in order that it may not become heavy and burdensome, gladly be satisfied with a few lines every time. You have no one else to write, so write only how you feel and your dear name there under. I save every letter from you as a memento.”         

“Your portrait, which hangs on the wall by my work-table, I consider most often during free hours and recognize with joy every feature in your face; even the look in your eyes has not changed. You are still my Rudolf.”
 
“ — — your water-color was very nice. I keep it in a box beside two other small pictures you drew, the one a genre-piece, representing how you struggled in the life-jacket, while I stood in the boat with the safety-pole (attached to the life-jacket), the other a landscape— or more correctly a seascape with forest-covered islands and the moon.”

       The following summer Rydberg thought to make a journey on foot in Västergötland with a friend:
 
         “Since I intend to separate from them and continue the journey on my own, in order to meet a certain little friend that I  keep closer than any other.
 
“— — While I now write, I have your [portrait] lying before me. But it is not the same as seeing you in person, and I really long to hug you vigorously in my arms once again. I think of you daily, my best friend Uda! And do with this letter what you said you did with my previous one.”         

The last request refers to the following passage in Rudolf’s letter: “So many times I have given Mr. Rydberg’s letter a devout Spormosa,” which is evidently a paraphrase for kiss, and Rydberg has used a paraphrase of the paraphrase.        

In a P.S., he says that he broods upon a novel. It is “The Freebooter on the Baltic” in which he indicates his infatuation for a “meagerly grown boy”. On August 1st, 1857, when Rudolf Ström receives the book and thanks him for it, he writes that he recognizes  part of its contents:

"In many places, I recognize the stories Rydberg tells me of the witch-trails.”

The relationship between these two friends must have been very intimate.  Alongside a tutor’s ordinary duties, Rydberg has taken time to give his little friend swimming lessons, and also to teach him part of his cultural history studies, hardly suitable for a child.         

 In the same letter, Rydberg is invited to the Ström’s new estate, Bleckenstad in Östergotland. The boy wanted to make the invitation as tempting as possible:
 
“Papa himself (!) builds the residence-house here at home, and there it is so furnished that Yberg can come and stay in the room beside me — — I hope and wish so much to get to see my Yberg at Bleckenstad.”
 
        In an undated letter, responding to one of August 15th 1857, Rudolf explains excitedly:

“I weep with joy to have such a friend, the only one whose friendship I could previously acquire.”
 
One year later on August 8th 1858, Rydberg has experiences from Norway to relate. What he has to say there about the connection between his love and his feelings for nature is confirmed by his contemporary poetry:[4]
  
“From Dovre mountain we climbed down into Romsdale. Oh, my Uda, there you should walk by my side. — — — During the journey, as on others, I often thought of you: a beautiful regions meet the walker’s eyes, leading his thoughts back to a friend with which he should want to try to live in that place.” 

         In the next letter, he renews the association between journeys to beautiful regions and the friend: It is now a question of Greece, where the poet, near the end of the year 1858, tarries in imagination during his work on The Last Athenian, which he mentions in the letter:
 
        “I have big travel-plans for myself and have thought of nothing less than a journey to Italy and Greece. But I may well put off the journey until 1860, if I am alive then. In 1859, instead, I shall travel to Rudolf Ström who competes with Italy and Greece for my favor, and the first thing I shall do is take him in my arms and the second — no the third, to drink a brorskål[5] with him, because now he is no longer the little stripling whose hair I could pull and spank, if I chose, but a young man that unpunished nobody dares to be at loggerheads.”
 
       One takes note that Rydberg has as before evaded to speak about the kiss — but that he covets it, firmly saying to himself that the boy has become a man. The letter concludes: “Now ten thousand hugs and farewells”, and under his signature adds:

“If you do not write immediately, I shall haunt you in your dreams (December 20th 1858)."

Rydberg has no difficulty intertwining  that in his love-explanations in the same manner braided into his subsequent idealistic interest: the sharp-shooter’s movement. The Autumn 1859, when he was occupied with his brochure about a popular-arming, based on sports-exercise in schools, he writes to Rudolf Ström, expecting interest of him for the voluntary marksman-movement:
 
          “Our friendship-connection, so delightful for me and dear also to you, could then also bear a fruit for others.”
 
           In feeling of that the union of minds now approached its conclusion, since its object ceased to be a child, in the same letter he gives a melancholy look back on their old life together:
 
          “I still recall the time at Senäte when I working on an astronomy problem, drew differentials and integrals and constantly looked up my logarithmic tables, scarcely allowing myself a night’s rest, before I solved it. But still gladly taking time with the picture of my little slender dark-haired boy, whose countenance the photograph you sent me, preserved and I often looked at with a feeling of sadness. Why it should be with one such feeling, I will not seek to investigate; I do not want to have the whole time when we were together, again, but an hour of the time I want to relive and have you by my side, precisely as you were then, a little pale, skinny, but in my opinion, a very beautiful boy. It was something in your face that occupied me; I think about it now, moreover with the child-expression with which it was devoutly united, was entirely gone, when I saw you again.” (November 29th, 1859).
 
            The letter concludes with the usual wish about a substitute in the world of dreams for a meeting which could not happen in the real world: “I now go to bed, perhaps to dream of you.”

---

[1] [Svanberg’s footnote] Brev II, s. 3 ff.

[2] “rdr” is short for the former currency in Sweden, riksdaler.

[3] [Svanberg’s footnote] An omission is indicated in the transcript.

[4] [Svanberg’s footnote:] See “Rydberg’s Singoalla, a Study” p. 78.

[5] Brorskål, literally “brothers’ cheers”, a drink to seal a formal bond of friendship with someone.

In "Strindberg and Genre" (1991), Michael Robinson writes: "Victor Svanberg (1896-1985) was a literary critic who became a professor at the provincial university of Uppsala. Some people — he himself at least — considered him daring and radical because he stated openly that the great liberal Swedish nineteenth-century writer Viktor Rydberg (1825-1895) was homosexual and loved boys. The far more brilliant critic and real radical, Erik Blomberg (1894- 1965), who was one of the great Swedish poets this century, replied that he didn't care if it was cats Viktor Rydberg had loved. The only important thing was the words he left." Sadly, from Svanberg's salacious statement, the claim that Rydberg was a homosexual pedophile has spread, being proclaimed as fact in some of the less responsible "Queer Studies" publications: GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture: (*): "Among the important Swedish cultural figures of the period who engaged in same-sex sexual relationships were the poet Erik Sjöberg Vitalis (1794-1828), the historian Wilhelm Erik Svedelius (1816-1889), the philosopher Pontus Wikner (1837-1888), and the author Viktor Rydberg (1828-1895)." "Encyclopedia of Homosexuality" by Wayne R. Dynes, Warren Johansson, William A. Percy, Stephen Donaldson (1999) "The author and national poet Viktor Rydberg (1828-1895), who was a friend of Wikner, at the end of the nineteenth century also published poems and essays, where disguised homoerotic Hellenist ideals were brought to a newly formed mass audience of bourgeois readers (who mostly preferred not to understand his homoerotic hints)."  This book, in particular, was pulled by its publisher for its inaccuracies and has since been re-'published' on the internet. Gay Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia by George Haggerty (2000). "Another writer with a longing for young men was Viktor Rydberg (1828-1895). He was a prominent liberal journalist in Gothenburg for a period of his life." "In his youth Rydberg was a private tutor to and possibly also lover of Rudolf Strom." The same work was expanded and reprinted as "The Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures" by George Haggerty, ‎Bonnie Zimmerman  (2005). As shown above, however, these claims, notable for their lack of sources and verifiable evidence, have no basis in fact.