Through the night of doubt and sorrow

Through the night of doubt and sorrow. Bernhard Severin Ingemann* (1789-1862), translated by Sabine Baring-Gould* (1834-1924). This Danish hymn, beginning ‘Igjennem Nat og Traengsel’, was written in 1825 and first published in Nyt Tillaeg til Evangelisk-christelig Psalmebog (1859). Baring-Gould, who had learned Icelandic and other Scandinavian languages in order to read the sagas during his years as a schoolmaster, was asked to look through the Danish book by his friend Richard Frederick Littledale* to see if any merited translation. Baring-Gould translated several, of which this is the best known: it was published in Littledale’s The People’s Hymnal (1867), and then (somewhat altered, see...