Terje Vigen

During the Gunboat War, Grimstad is under a British naval blockade, and Vigen decides to travel to Denmark to acquire essential goods for his family in a small rowboat in 1809.

He discovers that the yacht's captain was the commander of the corvette who took him prisoner, but decides against vengeance and rescues the Englishman along with his wife and child.

He became a close friend to one of the oldest and most experienced pilots, who had lived a remarkable life and had exciting stories to tell the young writer.

He made several trips by rowboat to Denmark past the British blockade of Norway between 1807 and 1814 to transport essential goods back to his family and associates in Grimstad.

In his biography of Ibsen, Edmund Gosse indicates: The poem and the character of Terje Vigen has become a core icon of Norwegian coastal culture and a sense of a national identity.

A German remake of 1933, Das Meer ruft aka The Lake Calls, starred Heinrich George and was set on a fictional Baltic island under Russian occupation during the First World War.

In 1994/5, Jon Mostad wrote music for Terje Vigen for recitation, choir (SSA) and symphonic wind band.