Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Page 69

Faróiska sagoberattare
77
The greater part of Dr. Jakobsens’s tellers have been women, many
of them unmarried servants. To a large extent also later records have
had female informants. The oldest teller of the material collected up til
now, Johanne Joensdatter from Kvívík, Streymoy, was born in 1790 and
died in 1869 at Sórvágur, Vágar. Nevertheless, the greatest number of
folktales has been told by a man, J. H. Matras, born in 1823 at Viðars
eiði, Viðoy, and dead in 1901 at Kirkja, Fugloy.
The tellers inquired for do not seem to have had a very close con-
tact with literature — apart from the Bible, the hymn-book and the book
of homilies.
During the 19th century the school attendance was imperfect. Gene-
rally the children w'ere taught by their parents at least to be able to
read. The written language and the church language of the Faroe Isles
at that time was Danish. Not until the letter part of the 19th century
the Faroese spoken language started to be used as written language and
in 1938 as school language.
The biographical statements show that the persons inpuired for and
their nearest relatives backwards in time have lived rather isolated,
many of them have hardly ever left their native places. Certainly a
change of dwelling place has been made in not a few cases, especially
on the mothers’ side, but that has taken place within a relatively limited
area. Marriages to foreigners do not seem to have been common among
these people for the three generations that have been inquired for.
The article ends with an appeal to people who know Faroese folk-
tales and folktale-tellers from old and recent time to send in comple-
mentary and corrective informations to the author via Føroya Forn-
minnissavn in Tórshavn.