Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2005, Page 416
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Michael Chesnutt
seems to have perished in the great Copenhagen fire of 1728); in 1669
Thomas Tamovius, who had spent his early teenage years in the islands,
wrote a description of them in which he emphasises the facility of the
Faroese in producing what he calls ‘long rhymes and ballads’ (lange
rim oc vyser)\ and in 1673 Lucas Debes, the Danish-bom clergyman
who had been Tamovius’s schoolteacher in Torshavn, published his
apologetic treatise Færoæ et Færoa reserata where he makes passing
reference to the ballad dance and alludes specifically, though briefly, to
FK 22 Sigmundar kvædi and FK 220 Ljomurnar.20
The sources are silent about traffic between Iceland and the Faroes
for the greater part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, no
doubt because of the economic recession caused by the Danish trade
monopoly in both colonies and - at all events in the earlier half of the
period - the insecurity caused by the numerous buccaneers and enemy
men-of-war cruising in the North Atlantic.21 The first evidence I know
of renewed cultural contact is the presence of an Icelander named
PorSur Porsteinsson as itinerant schoolteacher on SuSuroy in the early
nineteenth century. This man translated Icelandic saga material into
Danish in a manuscript still in private possession, the so-called “Parta-
loppubok,” and his hånd recurs in a section of J. H. Schrøter’s manu-
script of Sjurdar kvædi, now MS NKS 345 8vo in the Royal Library,
Copenhagen.22 His arrival in the Faroes antedated by only a few years
that of his fellow-countryman Jon GuSmundsson,23 who had been
20 Jon Helgason, “Færøiske studier I. Den eldste optegnelse af færøiske kvad,” Maal og
minne 1924, 29-37; Håkon Hamre (ed.), Ferøers Beskrifvelser av Thomas Tamovius,
Færoensia 2 (Copenhagen 1950), 76; Jørgen Rischel (ed.), Lucas Debes: Færøernes
Beskrivelse (Copenhagen 1963), 1210, 251-52, 307-08 (cf. commentary II 37).
21 See N. Andersen, Færøerne 1600-1709 (Copenhagen 1895), 223-54.
22 FK VII 104-05 (with references); see also ibid. 65 for PorSur’s copy of FK 42 Berrings
visa among the papers of V. U. Hammershaimb in AM Accessoria 4c I [2], PorSur
Porsteinsson settled in the Faroes after being shipwrecked, like so many before him, dur-
ing a voyage from Iceland to Denmark. According to information overlooked in FK VII
but reported in diafur Halldorsson (ed.), Vilmundar nmur vidutan, Islenzkar mi5alda-
rfmur 4 = Rit Stofnunar Åma Magnussonar å Islandi 6 (Reykjavik 1975), 28 with n. 23,
“Partaloppubok” was the source drawn upon by the known poet of FK 104 Vilmunds
kvædi (further in n. 47 below). In a postscript Olafur Halldorsson clarifies that the “Parta-
loppubok” extant in the Faroes is actually a copy of the original manuscript now in Den-
mark (“Eftirhreytur um rimur,” Gripla II, Rit Stofnunar Åma Magnussonar å Islandi 16
[Reykjavik 1977], 183-87, here 187).
23 See the excellent biographical sketch by Henning Heilesen, “John Gudmundsen Effers-
øe,” Fra Færøerne : Ur Føroyum 6 (1971), 38-48, on which I rely in what follows.