Chapter X: Part II: Ballads

BALLADS

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

I. The ballads of the Faroe Islands aroused the interest of Ole Worm as early as 1639; but the five ballads which he took down are no longer extant, and we know of them only from a reference by Peder Syv[1] towards the close of the seventeenth century. In 1673 Lucas Debes[2] wrote a description of the islands which contained an account of their dances and songs; but unfortunately he did not transcribe any of the ballads. Indeed the balladry and songs attracted little general attention till the close of the eighteenth century, when Jens Kristjan Svabo devoted himself to a careful study of the language and a collection of the ballads of his native Islands.

In 1781-2, during a visit to the Faroes, Svabo turned his attention especially to Faroese folk-songs and made a ms. collection of fifty-two ballads, which were purchased by the Crown Prince and presented to the Royal Library at Copenhagen. It is interesting to note that Svabo, like his contemporary Bishop Percy[3], thought it necessary to apologise in his preface for making the collection, and humbly claims for it an interest merely antiquarian. It is clear, however from his tone throughout the Preface, that Svabo had a far more scholarly appreciation of the value of his material than had Percy. Indeed it would be difficult to overestimate the debt which all succeeding students of Faroese ballads owe to him. Disappointed in his hopes of public recognition of his work done for the Civil Service, he retired to the Islands, where, in solitude and poverty, he devoted himself, till his death in 1829, to the collection and transcription of ballad material. His personal help and example inspired other Faroe-islanders to make collections for themselves, some of which, notably Klemmentsen's _SandoyjarbÛk_, are among our best authorities for the ballads today. His own ballad collection, still in ms. in the Royal Library at Copenhagen, has never been published; but Schr¯ter, Lyngbye and Hammershaimb all owed their incentive and inspiration to his work. To study the history of Faroese ballad collections without realising the force of Svabo's personality is to leave Hamlet out of the play.

In 1817 the Danish botanist, Hans Kristjan Lyngbye visited the Faroes, where he became acquainted with "the learned Svabo" as he calls him, and also with Johan Henrik Schr¯ter, a clergyman on Suder¯, himself a keenly interested ballad collector, and, incidentally, the first to make a collection of Faroese folk-tales in prose. Partly from these men, and partly from oral recitations and material supplied by Provost Hentze, Lyngbye was able to gather together a considerable body of Faroese ballads which, with the support and encouragement of Bishop P. E. M¸ller, he published at Copenhagen in 1822, under the title of _FÊrˆiske KvÊder om Sigurd Fofnersbane og hans ∆t_.

Unfortunately Lyngbye knew no Icelandic and very little Faroese, and his work necessarily suffers in consequence. Still more unfortunate was his unscientific handling of material and lack of literary conscience, which permitted his cutting out, adding and transposing stanzas--and again we are reminded of the _Reliques_--till the original form of a ballad is sometimes entirely lost. Fortunately, however, most of the material that he had at his command is still preserved. It is to be noted that the qualities which go to make an ideal _collector_ of ballads do not always imply an ideal editor of the material collected. The great collector of Jutland ballads and folk-lore, Evald Tang Kristensen, has started a new and sounder tradition by a reverent in-gathering of all that formed part of the common stock of peasant lore in his day[4]. The sifting of material is wisely left to the trained scholar, and, one hopes, to a later and less intrepid generation[5].

The tradition started by Svabo and Lyngbye was carried on by V. U. Hammershaimb, himself a native of the Islands and a great lover of Faroese folk-lore. During the years 1847-8, and again in 1853, he visited the Faroes expressly to study the dialects, and to collect the native ballads and folklore, which he published under the title of _FÊrˆiske_ _KvÊder_ in the _Nordiske Literatur-Samfund_, the _Antiquarisk Tidsskrift_, etc.

Like Svabo, Hammershaimb eventually returned and settled on the Faroes; but unfortunately, owing to the pressure of his administrative duties, he was never able to spare time for a final revision of his collection, though urged repeatedly to the work by his friend Svend Grundtvig. Ultimately, however, when Grundtvig himself undertook to make an exhaustive critical edition of the Faroese ballads in all their variant forms, Hammershaimb placed all his material in his hands.

Svend Grundtvig and his colleague J. Bloch, of the Royal Library staff, completed in 1876 their great fifteen vol. MS. collection of Faroese ballads with all their known variants, _F¯royja KvÊi_--_Corpus Carminum Faeroensium_--_FÊr¯ernes Gamle Folkeviser_. This was afterwards increased by Bloch to sixteen volumes by the addition of much new material, some of which was collected by Jakobsen in his journey to the Faroes in 1887[6]. Before beginning the work Grundtvig had every available version, whether in public or private hands, at his disposal, so that he had a magnificent apparatus criticus. Unfortunately the work has never been published, so that owing to the difficulties of communication with Denmark (which have proved to be insuperable) it has been impossible for me to consult it. The first three volumes, however, which include all the Faroese ballads translated below, are based on Hammershaimb's collections of 1851-1855. Hammershaimb was himself a genuine scholar with a sensitive literary conscience and a thorough knowledge of all the Faroese dialects, and his work is spoken of in the highest terms by Grundtvig in his article on the _Corpus Carminum Faroensium_[7]. Moreover Hammershaimb had consulted all the other available versions of these ballads before printing; so that it is improbable that when a comparison of the texts can be made much alteration will be required.

II. The Faroe Islands are probably the only place to be found in Western Europe where ballads are still sung to the accompaniment of the dance. The dance and song, it must be confessed, are gradually losing their original character, while the ballads are often long and unwieldy, sometimes, as in the Ballad of Õvint Herintsson, running to five divisions (_TÊttir_) and over three hundred and fifty verses. The verses are frequently chanted in a solemn recitative, while the ballad tunes tend to be confined chiefly to the refrains. The method of supplying the melody, however, is subject to almost endless variation. Sometimes old native folk tunes are attached to special ballads, e.g. in the case of _Vi hugged mid kaarde_; sometimes native ballads are sung to Danish folk melodies and refrains as, e.g. _Grindevisen_, sung to the tune of the Danish _Burmand holder i FjÊldet ut_. Sometimes in the Faroese repertoire, Norse ballads are found complete with their own melodies, e.g. _S¯mandsviserne_, or sung to Danish folk-tunes, e.g. _Zinklars Vise_. Most curious of all is the method not infrequently resorted to in modern times of singing native ballads, often of modern origin, to the tunes of the Protestant Psalmody--a custom which may have had its origin in the common practice of singing both ballads and psalms on all momentous occasions, such as on the night of a wedding, or before starting on a big fishing expedition. The Islanders have little idea of tone or melody and do not sing well; and eye-witnesses of some of the ballad dances at Thorshaven aver that the tunes sound less like dance music than melancholy dirges. In _Folkesangen paa FÊr¯erne_ (_FÊr¯ske Kvadmelodier_), pp. 85-140, Thuren has published a large number of original ballad tunes. The characteristic motifs of folk tunes are traceable throughout, as well as their elusive qualities. Thus we find, side by side with airs based on the ordinary major and minor scales, others which, like mediaeval church music, are based on a 'modal' or 'gapped' tonal system. Indeed traces of the pentatonic scale are not infrequently met with, especially in the tunes attached to the earlier ballads. The majority of Faroese melodies, however, have only one gap and have more in common with the system of notation found in Gregorian music than with the pentatonic scale of many Hebridean lays. A further characteristic of folk music which appears in most Faroese airs is the curious form of close which rarely occurs on the tonic. Not infrequently the theme ends on the leading note or supertonic which strikes the ear with a perpetual surprise, the cadence leading one to anticipate a repetition rather than a conclusion of the air. The reason is that these tunes, like many folk songs from Somerset, the Appalachians and the Hebrides, were 'circular,' that is, formed for continuous repetition to suit the lengthy nature of the songs and ballads.

The ballad however is not a mere historical relic on the Faroes, but a living literary form. The simplicity of the life, and the absence of class distinction[8], still constitute an atmosphere in some respects not unlike that of Mediaeval Denmark, and the ballad is the favourite form of artistic expression. A whale-hunt, a shipwreck, or the adventures of fishermen in the far north are still made the subject of a new ballad, composed by one or more of the community; and if the result finds general favour it is added to the ballad repertoire along with the ballads of Sir Tristram or Childe Sigurth[9].

In his description of his travels on the Faroes 1847-8, V. U. Hammershaimb[10] says that he took down the greater number of his ballads at Sumb¯ on Suder¯, the most southerly village in the Islands. He describes the ballad dance as follows:

It is the custom here that the same ballad should not be sung
more than once a year[11] in the 'dancing-chamber,' so that
the repertoire is obviously extensive, seeing that they dance
at wedding feasts, generally for three days and nights without
cessation. In the special dancing season from Yule till Lent,
the ballads are danced not only on Sundays but also on the
so-called 'Feast Days.' (They do not dance again from the
beginning of Lent till the day after Christmas.) The dance at
Sumb¯ has characteristics of its own which differ from those
of the rest of the Faroes. The people here generally sing
well and know how to put expression into the actual dance.
Elsewhere on the Islands this is now for the most part reduced
to a uniform stamp with the feet, marking the melody of the
ballad. Moreover they still continue here in common use both
the 'Walking Verse' (_stigingar stev_) and the more rapid
measure 'Tripping Verse' (_trÛkingar stev_) of the Round
Dance, in which, as a rule, the dancers hold one another by
the hand, forming a circle, dancing backwards while the
verse (_ˆrindi_) is sung, and reversing the movement with
considerable energy during the singing of the refrain
(_vigangur, niurl·g, stev_). This round dance is
characteristic of Sumb¯[12].

For the most part the dance is now performed with the same speed in both verse and refrain[13], and though little changed since Hammershaimb wrote, it tends more and more to become a solemn and joyless function; and there is a curious unanimity today among eyewitnesses as to the depressing effect it has on them. Hjalmar Thuren, writing in later times (1908), furnishes some additional information as to the manner of the ballad dance[14]. The ballads are danced with special zest on the 29th of July, the day of the anniversary of the death of Saint Olaf, when all the islanders who can leave their homes flock to Thorshaven and dance from sunset till sunrise. Sometimes the ballads are danced in the open air, and it has been the custom in certain districts from ancient times to hold assemblies for dancing out in the fields on certain fixed days. On the 12th Sunday after Trinity people meet in definite places on the Northern Islands. On the other hand the dance is often the spontaneous outcome of the desire of the moment, "as much to keep themselves warm as for the sake of entertainment." Thus after a whale-hunt the men sometimes dance in their wet, bloody clothes, singing the popular ballad of the ca'ing whale with the refrain:

To us bold men great joy it is
To slay a whale!

The dance is always accompanied by song, but instrumental music has never been in use on the Faroes. The time and character of the dance are indicated at the beginning of the ballad by the precentor. This post of honour was originally much sought after and some precentors were famous over the islands for their special rendering of certain ballads, some of which were family possessions in the old days.

When a ballad is concluded, one of those who are taking part straightway begins on a new one, the dance frequently continuing uninterrupted, even when the song is ended. The precentor must have a strong voice and great powers of endurance as the ballads are often very long. He is generally of a lively disposition with some dramatic power, so that by imitating his gesticulations the dancers give character and individuality to the ballad. Thus in the refrain to the _Death-Song of Ragnar LobrÛk_:

_We struck with the sword_

the dancers stamp on the floor and clap hands together; but they are solemn and silent during the singing of a sorrowful ballad such as

Queen Dagmar lies sick, etc.

With the ballad dances of the Faroes it is interesting to compare the ballad dances of the Ukraine and also the choral dances of a community so far removed as the Torres Straits. Of these latter Dr Haddon writes[15]:

The dancing-ground was an oblong space.... The drummer with
the singers generally struck up a song, but sometimes the
dancers sang a refrain or called for a song by name. Each song
seemed to be associated with its own particular dance and
to be _accompanied by some story or incident_ which was
illustrated by the movements of the dancers.

A much closer parallel, however, is furnished by the [Cyrillic: Khorovod] or choral dance of Little Russia. The [Cyrillic: Khorovod], according to the account of an eye witness[16], is not only a song sung to the accompaniment of a dance; but the song is narrative in form and answers in all respects to the ballad of North Western Europe. The dancers join hands and dance in a circle from west to east, in a contrary direction to the sun's movements--_withershins_ as the Scots peasants have it. Then, because it is considered unlucky to do anything _withershins_, in the refrain the motion is reversed and the dancers pass from east to west, to counteract the baleful effects of the first direction. Here too, however, it is interesting to note, the dance is sometimes stationary.

III. Into the rise of the ballads on the Faroes and their exact relation of form and content to the Icelandic _FornkvÊi_[17], and to the _Viser_ of Norway[18], Sweden[19], and above all of Denmark[20], it is impossible to enter here. Perhaps the relationship between the ballads of the various countries of the North will never be fully understood. The ramifications are too many and too complex, while too many links in the chain have already been lost in the "scrubby paper books" such as that with which Bishop Percy found the housemaid lighting the parlour fire. And those who would too hastily dogmatise on the 'conveyance', translation, and borrowing of the various versions receive a wholesome warning from Dr Axel Olrik's analysis[21] of the ancestry and parallel versions of the Scots, Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish forms of the ballads of Earl Brand (Dan. _Riboldsvisen_). Moreover it is no easier to generalise about the sources of the Faroese ballad material than about the Danish. The motif of the Faroese _Tristrams T·ttur_, also found in the Icelandic ballad of _Tristram_ comes ultimately (through the Tristram's Saga one would suppose) from a French romance; that of Nornagest, changed though it is in form, is surely founded on the Icelandic Saga; _Olufu KvÊi_ comes no doubt from a Spanish story; and the motif of the Scots ballad of _Binnorie_ is "found also among the people of Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Faroes[22]."

It would be pleasant to develop a theory that the purveyors of ballad material were the sailors and merchants who plied up and down the great trade routes in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, or even earlier. It has been suggested by Professor Ker[23] and others that Shetland _may_ have been "the chief meeting-place or trading station between the ballads of Scotland and Norway." The Shetland ballad of _Sir Orfeo_ actually has a refrain in Norn, the Norse dialect spoken in Shetland and the small neighbouring islands till the eighteenth century; while the ballad of _Hildina_ taken down by Low[24] on the Island of Foula off Shetland (cf. p. 217 below) is entirely composed in Norn. Indeed we know from Low's account[25] that many ballads and songs must have perished with the language:

Nothing remains but a few names of things and two or three
remnants of songs which one old man can repeat;

and further on he continues:

Most of the fragments they have are _old historical ballads
and romances_.... William Henry, a farmer in Guttorm in Foula
has the most knowledge of any I found; he spoke of three kinds
of poetry used in Norn, and repeated or sung by the old men;
the Ballad (or Romance, I suppose); _the Vysie or vyse, now
commonly sung to dancers_[26]; and the simple song.... Most
of all their tales are relative to the history of Norway;
they seem to know little of the rest of Europe but by names;
Norwegian transactions they have at their fingers' ends.

One would like to have known more about Norn and its 'Vysies,' which might have formed an interesting and instructive link between some of the Northern ballads. On the other hand, the Scandinavian colonies in Ireland, and settlers in English ports such as Bristol, may have done not a little, through their trade with France and the Mediterranean countries, to spread the new rhyming four line verse and the romantic stories of southern and eastern Europe[27].

While this obscurity remains as to the connection between the Faroese ballads and those of neighbouring countries, notably Denmark, the questions of the age and origin of many of the Faroese ballads in their present form are also frought with difficulty. Of the Danish ballads, which sometimes offer parallels so close as to suggest translation from one language to the other, the first MS. collection that can be dated with certainty was written down in 1550. But there is much evidence, both internal and external, for assigning a much earlier date to the historical ballads at least. It has been suggested by Olrik[28], who supports his view by arguments which it would be extremely difficult to contest, that many of the historical ballads are practically contemporaneous with the events which they describe, and some of these took place in the thirteenth century, while others, e.g. _Riboldsvisen_, are possibly of the twelfth century.

Unfortunately we have fewer data, whether philological or historical, for assigning dates to the Faroese ballads than we have for the Danish. There can be little doubt, however, that the ballads translated below had their origin in the _Fornaldar Sˆgur_ composed in Iceland during the thirteenth century or in some fourteenth century _RÌmur_ derived from the sagas. That many of the Faroese ballads were literary in origin[29], and were based on either Sagas or RÌmur, is conclusively established by the opening lines of many of the ballads themselves, notably that of the _Olufu RÌma_:

Ein er rÌman ur Õslandi komin,
SkrÌva Ì bÛk so breia.

("This story is come from Iceland, written in a book so
broad.")

And _Trˆllini Ì Hornalandum_:

Verse 1. Fr¯Ì er komi fr· ÕslandÌ
SkrÌva Ì bÛk so vÌa _etc._

Verse 2. Fr¯i er komi fr· Õslandi
SkrÌva Ì bÛk so breia _etc._

Verse 3. Fr¯i er komi fr· Õslandi
Higar i skald ta tÛk,
Havi tÊr hoyrt um kongin tann,
Õ skrÌvaur stendur Ì bÛk?

("This poem has come from Iceland, brought hither by a
_skald_. Have you heard of the king about whom this book is
written?")

The passages quoted above would seem to point to RÌmur rather than Sagas as the sources of the ballads. Or had more than one "Book so broad" come from Iceland? One wonders. Heusler notices[30] the tendency to divide up the longer ballads into sections or _TÊttir_, each whole in itself and yet forming a part of the ballad, and suggests the Icelandic _RÌmur_ as the models for this particular form. It is even possible that the word _RÌma_ is used advisedly in the first strophe of _Olufu KvÊi_, instead of the somewhat commoner _KvÊi_, with some reminiscence of its origin. One of the _Sjurar KvÊi_ (_Dvˆrgamoy_ III) begins:

Eina veit eg rÌmuna,
Õ inni hevir ligi leingi.

(I know a rhyme (or _RÌma_?) etc.)

and _RÌsin Ì Holmgar_ also begins:

Eg veit eina rÌmuna,
Õ gjˆrd er um Virgar sterka.

Many other instances might be quoted.

But it would be perilous to press too far what may, after all, be a mere verbal coincidence. And whatever gave rise to our poems as they now stand, it cannot be too strongly emphasised that they, like the rest of the _F¯royja KvÊi_, are first and last _Ballads_--rightly ballads. They have a form of their own, like other ballads, and are not a degenerate form of _RÌmur_ or a mere versification of some old Icelandic legends. Indeed what Professor Ker says of the Danish ballads[31] may with equal truth be applied to the ballads of the Faroes:

The ballads are not rude, rustic travesties of older more
dignified stories; though some, perhaps many, of the older
stories may survive among the ballads. They are for Denmark in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries what the older heroic
lays of the Poetic Edda had been before them in the Northern
lands. They take the place of earlier heroic poetry.

Whatever the nature of their connection with the ballads of the surrounding lands, the Faroese ballads are no isolated growth. They exhibit all the main characteristics of the ballad type, especially of the Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic ballads. Crude and inartistic they often are compared with the best of the Danish and even the Scottish ballads. The _Ballad of Hjalmar and Angantyr_ has little to recommend it beyond its simplicity and naÔvetÈ, the 'quaintness' of primitive literature; the _Ballad of Arngrim's Sons_ exhibits a curious lack of skill in the manipulation of the theme, and perhaps we are justified in assuming that two earlier ballads or perhaps _tÊttir_ have been imperfectly welded. The _Ballad of Nornagest_ is bald to a fault and lacks inspiration; and all alike show an imperfect artistry in diction.

Yet despite all these blemishes they are ballads as surely as _Sir Patrick Spens_ or _Ungen Sveidal_ are ballads. Nor is Professor Ker quite just to the ballads of the Faroes in saying[32] that because of their length, and "because they were made out of books, nothing but the lyrical form and the dancing custom kept them from turning into ordinary romances." Surely no material could be less promising than King Heithrek's Riddles; yet in virtue of what has been forgotten and what has been selected--the telescoping of the riddles and the elaboration of the setting--the ballad spirit has entered in and shaped from the unwieldy mass an artistic whole.

Indeed whatever their faults one realises in all these ballads the truth of Sidgwick's epigram[33]: "You never know what a ballad will say next, though you _do_ know how it is going to say it!" For it is even less similarity of theme than similarity of form that links the ballads of the Faroes with those of Denmark and the North. The invariable accompaniment of the refrain; the fluctuation between assonance and rhyme, the disregard of alliteration, and the general verse form; the love of repetition and ballad formulae,--especially of repetition of whole phrases or verses with the alteration of merely the words that rhyme, or of repetition with inversion of word order; the balladist's love of colour, of the material and the concrete, of glitter and shine; the large element of dialogue; the abrupt dramatic openings; the condensation and concentration of narrative and the strict exclusion of the irrelevant or superfluous; the infallible feeling for a 'situation'; the atmosphere of the tragic or the critical; the "echo, without comment, of the clash of man and fate[34]." All these are the elements that make the ballad a form of literature distinct from other lyric or epic forms; all these are the elements that go to make the Faroese ballads what they are--part of what Ker calls the "Platonic Idea, a Ballad in itself, unchangeable and one, of which the phenomenal multitude of ballads are 'partakers[35].'"

[Footnote 1: Cf. S. Grundtvig, _Meddelelse AngÂende FÊr¯ernes
Litteratur og sprog_, in _Aarb¯ger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed_,
published by the Royal Norse Early Text Society (Copenhagen),
1882, p. 358.]

[Footnote 2: _FÊroa Reserata_ (Copenhagen, 1673), pp. 251 and
308 (tr. John Sterpin, London, 1676).]

[Footnote 3: _Reliques_, Vol. I, _Epistle to the Countess of
Northumberland_.]

[Footnote 4: Cf. W. A. Craigie, _Evald Tang Kristensen,
A Danish Folk-lorist_, in _Folklore_, Vol. IX, 1898, pp.
194-220.]

[Footnote 5: Cf. C. J. Sharp, _English Folk Songs from the
Southern Appalachians_ (London, 1917), p. xxii.]

[Footnote 6: Axel Olrik, _Om Svend Grundtvigs og Jˆrgen
Blochs F¯royjakvÊi og fÊr¯ske ordbog_, in _Arkiv fˆr Nordisk
Filologi_ (Lund, 1890), p. 249.]

[Footnote 7: Sv. Grundtvig, _FÊr¯ernes Litteratur og Sprog_,
in _Aarb¯g for Nord. Oldk._, 1882, p. 364.]

[Footnote 8: Cf. N. Annandale, _The Faroes and Iceland_
(Oxford, 1905), p. 42.]

[Footnote 9: For interesting accounts of the composition
of new ballads, cf. Lyngbye's article in the _Skandinavske
Litteraturselskabs Skrifter_, 12th and 13th Annual, p. 234
ff.; also P. E. M¸ller, Introduction to Lyngbye's _FÊr. Kv._,
pp. 14, 15. The _TrawlaravÌsur_ and other ballads, besides
the dances and tunes of the Faroe Islands of today, have been
investigated by Thuren who published several studies on this
most interesting subject, e.g. _Dans og Kvaddigtning
paa FÊr¯erne, med et Musikbilag_, 1901. _Folkesangen paa
FÊr¯erne_, 1908, etc., (cf. especially _Nyere Danseviser_, pp.
273-282), etc.]

[Footnote 10: _Antiq. Tidsk._, 1846-1848, pp. 258-267.]

[Footnote 11: According to H. Thuren, _Dansen paa FÊr¯erne_
(Copenhagen, 1908), p. 9, a certain fixed number of songs are
now sung on Suder¯; a great many have been quite forgotten
since Hammershaimb wrote.]

[Footnote 12: It is also occasionally danced in Andefjord,
but only very rarely nowadays (cf. H. Thuren, _Dansen paa
FÊr¯erne_, p. 8).]

[Footnote 13: _Ib._ p. 8.]

[Footnote 14: _Ib._, pp. 4-10.]

[Footnote 15: _Dances and Dance Paraphernalia_, in _Expedition
to the Torres Straits_ (Cambridge, 1904), Vol. IV, p. 292.]

[Footnote 16: Miss Aline Brylinska, who has kindly supplied me
with this information.]

[Footnote 17: S. Grundtvig and JÛn Sigursson, _Islenzk
FornkvÊi_, in _Nordiske Oldskrifter_ (Copenhagen, 1854-85).]

[Footnote 18: Landstad, _Norske Folkeviser_ (Christiania,
1853); S. Bugge, 1858.]

[Footnote 19: Geijer and Afzelius, 1814-1816, 1880; Arwidsson,
1834-1842.]

[Footnote 20: S. Grundtvig, _Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser_,
1853-1890. S. Grundtvig and A. Olrik, _Danske Ridderviser_,
1895-1919.]

[Footnote 21: _Riboldsvisen_ (a review of von der Recke's
_Nogle Folkeviseredaktioner_) in _Danske Studier_, 1906, p.
175 ff.]

[Footnote 22: Landstad, _Norske Folkeviser_, note to _Dei Tvo
Systar_, p. 867.]

[Footnote 23: _On the Danish Ballads_ (_Scottish Historical
Review_, Vol. I, No. 4, July, 1904), p. 362.]

[Footnote 24: _A Tour through Orkney and Schetland in 1774_,
Kirkwall, 1879. Cf. also Preface to _Sˆrla Th·ttr_, p. 39 ff.
above.]

[Footnote 25: _Ib._, p. 105 ff.]

[Footnote 26: The _Vyse_, be it observed, is the Danish
word most commonly used to denote a ballad. The Faroese use
_KvÊi_, and less frequently _RÌma_.]

[Footnote 27: For an account of the Scandinavian settlements
on the Bristol Channel, cf. A. Bugge, _Contributions to the
History of the Norsemen in Ireland_, No. III, published in
_Videnskabsselskabet i Christiania, Historisk-filosofisk
Klasse_, 11, 1900.]

[Footnote 28: Axel Olrik, Introduction to _Danske Folkeviser Ì
Udvalg_, 3rd ed. (Copenhagen and Christiania, 1913), p. 40 ff.
Cf. also Steenstrup, _Vore Folkeviser_ (Copenhagen, 1891), ch.
VII.]

[Footnote 29: On the literary sources of the Faroese ballads,
cf. Steenstrup, _op. cit._ Introduction.]

[Footnote 30: _Lied und Epos_ (Dortmund, 1915), p. 19.]

[Footnote 31: _On the History of the Ballads, 1100-1500_,
published in _Proceedings of the British Academy_ for
1902-1910, p. 202.]

[Footnote 32: _On the History of the Ballads_, etc., p. 202.]

[Footnote 33: Frank Sidgwick, _The Ballad_, London (Arts and
Crafts of Letters Series), p. 61.]

[Footnote 34: Gummere, _The Popular Ballad_ (London, 1907), p.
340.]

[Footnote 35: _On the History of the Ballads_, etc., p. 204.]