Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2005, Blaðsíða 421
Bevussrfmur and Bevusar tættir
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of its alliteration and by being composed in the stanza form known as
samhent (metrical pattern 4aaaa) fluctuating with stafhent (4aabb).
Though noting parallels to four or five other Faroese ballads among the
Icelandic rimur, Bjorn K. Porolfsson did not in these cases postulate
Icelandic poems as the direct medium of textual transmission;38 but
hard on the heels of his book Chr. Matras, in a frustratingly cryptic sen-
tence in his short history of Faroese literature, mentioned FK 21 Gunn-
ars kvædi as a second possible nmur derivative. Ten years later Joannes
Patursson, inspired by the comments of a correspondent on Sandoy,
proposed to treat FK 112 Bevusar tættir as another example of transla-
tion from Icelandic verse into Faroese rather than Faroese versification
of Icelandic prose.39 That proposal was endorsed by Mortan Nolsøe in
1972, and in 1975 Olafur Halldorsson extended the list by suggesting
that FK 47 Finnboga rima might have similar origins.40
It need not be doubted that parallels between Icelandic rimur and
Faroese kvædi are often, indeed most often, due to independent recep-
tion of identical or at least closely related prose materials. Serious con-
sideration should nevertheless be given to the idea, already mentioned,
that the adaptation of Icelandic rimur poetry into Faroese inspired bal-
38 Bjorn K. Porolfsson, Rimur fyrir 1600, Safn FræSafjelagsins um Island og Islendinga 9
(Copenhagen 1934), 322, 392-93, 397-98, 410, 450, 506-07; Olafur Marteinsson,
“Rannsokn å l'slenzkum danskvæSum,” M.A. dissertation (Reykjavlk [Håskoli Islands]
1928). The extant Icelandic Konrdås rimur are printed in Theodor Wisén (ed.), Riddara-
rtmur, Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur 4 (Copenhagen 1881 [-82]), 89-
171, with a comparative analysis of the Faroese ballad versions in the introduction, xxxi-
xxxiii; at the end of these remarks Wisén anticipates Hammershaimb by writing: “Att
med full visshet afgora om Faroqvadet stammar narmast från sagoma eller rimoma, låter
sig val icke gora; det senare torde dock vara det sannolikaste.” - That Koraids kvædi is
not a ballad in the strict sense but a “Faroese, or Icelandic-Faroese,” rima was already ap-
parent to Jakob Jakobsen: see his “Remarks upon Faroese Literature and Flistory,” Saga-
Book of the Viking Club 4 (1905-06), 38-54, here 48 n. 2. This out-of-the-way essay is un-
likely to have been known to Olafur Marteinsson or Bjorn K. Porolfsson.
39 Matras (as n. 14) 21; Joannes Patursson (as n. 8) 226, cf. Nolsøe (as n. 51 below) 66. -
A statement by Jakob Jakobsen (as previous note, 46) might imply that the same thought
had occurred to him: “British influence can be traced in the lays about ‘Bevus’ [i.e. Bev-
usar tættir], corresponding to the English lay [i.e. the Middle English romance], ‘Sir Be-
vis of Hampton’, and also to the [lost] Icelandic ‘Béfus rimur’.” The opaqueness of this
sentence can perhaps be ascribed to its having been translated from Danish. The (non-ex-
tant) rimur could only have been known to Jakobsen from the published work of Ceder-
schiold (as n. 54 below, ccxlvi).
40 Nolsøe (as n. 36) 90; Olafur Halldorsson, “Rimur af Finnboga ramma,” Gripla I, Rit
Stofnunar Ama Magnussonar a Islandi 7 (Reykjavik 1975), 182-87. On the relocalisation
of Finnboga rima in the Faroes see Jakobsen (as n. 38) 47.