THE SEVENTEENTH OF MAY IN MID-ATLANTIC: OLE RYNNING'S EMIGRANT SONG Translated and edited by Theodore C. Blegen and Martin B. Ruud One of the best known names in the early history of Norwegian emigration to the United States is that of Ole Rynning . In the spring of 1837 Rynning, who was the son of a clergyman and well educated, joined a party of emigrants who crossed the Atlantic on the bark "ASgir " and made their way to Illinois, where they established the ill-fated Beaver Creek settlement. There on a sickbed in a log hut Rynning wrote his Sandfcerdig Beretning om Amerika, the manuscript of which was brought to Norway in 1838 by one of his comrades , was there published, and became the most influential of the many "America books." Rynning himself never saw a copy of his published book, for in the fall of 1838 he died, a victim of the fevers that scourged the settlement, and somewhere on the Illinois prairies his body was laid in a nameless grave. Meanwhile his little book and the story of his short career have made him an historical figure, and he ranks justly among the important American immigrant leaders of the nineteenth century. It has long been known that Rynning wrote a song that was sung by the emigrants on board the "iEgir " in midAtlantic on the Seventeenth of May, 1837. This song has even been described as the first venture into the realm of poetry by a Norwegian-American. It is not infrequently hazardous in historical matters to say that this or that is the first of its kind; and there may possibly be some question as to whether a Norwegian emigrant in mid-ocean can yet be 18 rynning's emigrant song 19 designated as a Norwegian-American. It may safely be asserted , however, that Rynning's song is one of the earliest known Norwegian emigrant songs. It has been generally supposed hitherto that Rynning's song consisted of only two stanzas. These have often been printed in Norwegian and several times translated into English. Actually, however, the song had five stanzas, only the second and fifth of which have been known. The full text is drawn from a detailed report of the crossing of the "ASgir" published in a newspaper in Norway in 1837 and based upon an interview with Captain Behrens, who brought the ship to America. This newspaper account not only gives us the text of the song; it also enables us to picture the scene of its singing. The "A2gir " with its eighty-four passengers had sailed from Bergen on April 7, 1837. Though a tragic fate awaited these emigrants in America, the crossing was not one of those dismal experiences so common in the first half of the nineteenth century. These Norwegians in fact had a merry time on the voyage, once the first attack of seasickness had passed. "With its passing, all anxiety seemed to disappear," the newspaper tells us. "Peasants who never before had seen the ocean saw that it was calm, lost all fear of its terrors, and saw the ship sailing on toward milder regions. The fiddle was brought out, and every evening sailors and young people danced to it with lusty abandon till the captain was forced to beg them to desist, since the ball-room floor (the deck) was being seriously injured by the huge nails in the soles of the dancing slippers of the young gallants and their ladies; unless, indeed, they were willing to dance in their stocking feet." On May 8 the "A5gir" narrowly escaped shipwreck when an English ship crashed into it broadside. "The rigging of the two ships got inextricably tangled; sails were torn to tatters; the outer planking was damaged; the seams were opened; the stern and the upper part of the ship more or 20 STUDIES AND RECORDS less battered. The mizzenmast was stripped clean, bolts and spikes ripped loose; in short, destruction seemed imminent ." But the ships were cleared after a time without disaster , and the "iEgir " continued on its way, its passengers naturally much shaken by the experience. The newspaper account continues: " But despite all the terrors...