Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2005, Page 425
Bevussrfmur and Bevusar tættir
415
The earlier Icelandic rimur poets were for their part quite fond of men-
tioning the title of a cycle at its conclusion, see e.g. Lokrur (IV, st. 21,3)
and Geiplar (IV, st. 58,4), but usually not communicative in a direct
way about their own identities, which they would conceal far below the
surface of the text in riddling stanzas - a form of medieval obscuran-
tism that mercifully had no appeal to the Faroese. Later a poet like the
Rev. Eirlkur Hallsson (1614-1698) would be less shy of announcing his
name to the public.49
Often absent from the oldest rimur and wholly absent from the
Faroese ballads is the characteristic (and, like the name-riddles, artifi-
cial) mansQngr, though the refrains in Faroese do have a little of its lyri-
cal-erotic flavour. This and the other congruities of form just noted do
not, however, offer us unequivocal dating criteria. In our present State
of knowledge it is only possible to say that there are no historical obsta-
cles to, but some tangible evidence in favour of, the export to the Faroes
of Icelandic manuscripts not just of sagas but also of rimur in the peri-
od already defined (above, p. 409). That the kind of manuscripts in-
volved resembled the library of legendary and romantic sagas in AM
152 fol. or that of rimur in AM 604 4to - both early sixteenth-century
volumes - can be no more than an educated guess.50
4.
The most visible criterion of dependence on rimur is the stanza form. It
was mentioned earlier that the occurrence of the samhent and stafhent
metres in FK 111 Koraids krædi made it possible for this poem to be
49 For these examples see Finnur Jonsson (ed.), Rtmnasafn, Samfund til udgivelse af gam-
mel nordisk litteratur 35 (Copenhagen 1905-22), I 309, II 390, and Finnur Sigmundsson
(ed.), Rtnmatal (Reykjavtk 1966), I 8. The practice of concealing names is most fully dis-
cussed in Påll Eggert Olason, “Folgin nofn t rfmum,” Sktrnir 89 (1915), 118-32. Just a few
names of early rimur poets can be identified with historical persons: in addition to Einarr
Gilsson may be mentioned Kalfr skdld (? Hallsson, ca. 1400), probably a cleric since he
calls himselffrater and latinises his name as Vitulus vates. Kalfr wrote Vplsungsrimur and
perhaps also a hagiographical poem about St Catherine; cf. Jon borkclsson, Om digtningen
på Island i det 15. og 16. århundrede (Copenhagen 1888), 235-37.
50 It may be noted that Einar Ol. Sveinsson (as n. 32, 59) wrote that the partiality of
Faroese poets for themes borrowed from the late Icelandic romantic sagas might be of
service in dating the ballads. This is a gentie hint that he too would place the flowering of
Faroese balladry based on Icelandic manuscripts at the end of the Middle Ages.