Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2005, Page 435
Bevussrfmur and Bevusar tættir
425
Clemen Laugesøn Follerup on Sandoy (“Harra Klæmint,” d. 1686).65
Another daughter of Clemen Follerup was Sunneva, wife of Jesper
Danielsen on SuSuroy. This Jesper was appointed syslumadur after his
swashbuckling brother-in-law Daniel demensen (Follerup), who died
without issue in 1707;66 the daughter of Jesper and Sunneva, Maren Jes-
persdatter (b. 1696), was the great-grandmother of Peder Poulsen in
Øravfk. The genealogies of Maren Danielsdatter and Peder Poulsen
thus intersect in the Follerup household on Sandoy in the second half of
the seventeenth century. Presupposing that the text of Bevusar tættir
descended through the family lines of the two sisters, the hyparchetype
of A and B would have existed in Sandoy tradition before Rebekka and
Sunneva emigrated to Streymoy and Suduroy respectively.
Could this postulated hyparchetype have been a written text? The
faet that both A and B break off at the same arbitrary point in the story
(st. 54) might imply as much. On the other hånd, the level of literacy in
Clemen Follerup’s household was anything but high. Andersen points
out that this unconventional custodian of the Word of God neglected to
educate any of his offspring except the two sons who were themselves
ordained: most of the children could not even sign their full names
when required to approve their parents’ executry, and on his death
Clemen Follerup left behind the poorest library of any member of his
profession in the islands.67 Instead of reading and writing, his flock of
children were forced to participate in the practical work connected with
the maintenance and exploitation of the glebe. Though their father was
Danish, his successive wives - both daughters of his predecessor - had
grown up on Sandoy, and the acculturation process in the family must
have been rapid. I therefore find it quite plausible that the daughters
could have become bearers of oral ballad tradition in Faroese, and the
source from which they leamed Bevusar tættir could have been any of
their father’s parishioners. Just how close that man or woman was to a
written source for the poem is impossible to say, but the chaotic State of
the conclusion in A and B is at all events not likely to have prevailed in
65 The fullest account of this man and his family is in Andersen (as n. 21) 407-13, cf. 442-
43 and reference in next note. For additional genealogical information I have to thank Ole
Clementsen, Hoyvik.
66 See Andersen 250-52 and John E. West, The History of the Faroe Islands [...] 1709-
1723, Færoensia 13 (Copenhagen 1985), 57.
67 Andersen 410 and 408; the library contained a mere 29 books.