Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 347
345RÆ NINGJARÍ MUR SÉ RA GUÐMUNDAR ERLENDSSONAR
S U M M A R Y
The Rovers’ Rhymes by Reverend Guðmundur Erlendsson in Fell and European
News Ballads
Keywords: Guðmundur Erlendsson, Rovers’ rhymes, rhyme cycles, news ballads,
genre, literary influence
News ballads are poems about recent events or the poets’ contemporaries that
were printed on cheap paper and sold by street vendors or performed/sung in
the squares and streets of towns and cities in Europe in the early modern period.
This genre has not been studied in Icelandic literary history hitherto, since poems
belonging to news ballads (or disaster ballads) have not been printed but only
preserved in little-known manuscripts. We can see, however, from the book of
poems by pastor Guðmundur Erlendsson (primarily in the manuscripts JS 232 4to
and Lbs 1055 4to, preserved in the National Library of Iceland, Reykjavík) that
seventeenth-century Icelandic poets knew of news ballads. Here I examine four of
his poems belonging to this genre. One deals with an earthquake in Italy in 1627;
the second describes the fall of the German city Magdeburg in 1631; the third
describes the execution of King Charles I of England in grotesque and horrendous
detail; and the fourth portrays the king himself, bidding farewell to his wife and
children and to the crown. One may infer from the texts of Guðmundur’s poems
that they were intended for performance and entertainment. They feature dramatic
staging, an exciting plot, and a clear moral message addressed to the audience at the
end. All the poems are based on real events that happened in the poet’s time; that
is, natural disasters, disasters of war, and political execution. They are presumably
translations of European ballads, but the poet places the events in the context of
the reality of his audience in Iceland. The poems demonstrate that the genre of
news ballads reached Iceland no later than the early seventeenth century, thus
expanding the repertoire of early modern Icelandic poetry.
Also of note is the fact that Guðmundur Erlendsson’s Rover rhymes do not
deal with ancient heroes or fictional characters from the distant past, as was the
general rule for seventeenth-century rhyme cycles, but with tragic events from the
poet’s own time, the so-called “Turkish Raid” of 1627. In the rhymes, the trail of
the raiders is traced around the country; place names are mentioned to support the
veracity of the narrative, as are the names of people assaulted or captured by the
raiders. The narrative is dramatic and suspenseful, and descriptions of the pirates’
actions are presented in grotesque detail. The last rhyme contains a warning to
the audience and a moral message. The terrible events happened because of the
disobedience and immorality of Icelanders, and the poet urges his compatriots to
obey the Lord and pray for peace in the country, just as he did in the ballads. Thus,