Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Blaðsíða 149

Jófreys kvæði
157
SUMMARY
A ballad about Jófrey has been recorded in three Faroese versions
from the first half of the 19th century, as well as in two Icelandic from
ca. 1700. Two of the Faroese texts have been published, while the Ice-
landic ones have not been until now. The principal aim of the present
article is to publish them.
In reproducing the content of the ballad, all texts have been used.
A young man named Jófrey (Jófrí, Jósvein) is being brought up by a
king who shows him great favor. Jófrey and the king’s daughter, Ólóf
(Óluva), fall in love with each other. During a ride through a forest,
two of the king’s men, Sveinn and Álfur, tell the king that Jófrey has
been sleeping with Ólóf, and remind him that Jófrey is not worthy of
her. The king decides to give a big feast at which Ólóf is also to be
present and Jófrey is to be punished with death. During the feast
the king gives his daughter orders to choose a husband, and she openly
declares her love for Jófrey. When the king commands that Jófrey is
to be bound, the latter seizes his weapons and slays Sveinn and Álfur
(as well as the king's other men, according to the Icelandic texts). The
king pleads for mercy and gives his daughter to Jófrey.
All the texts, both the Icelandic and the Faroese, clearly have been
written down from oral tradition with many corruptions. In the title
in one of the Icelandic texts it is stated that the ballad was translated
from Danish. No Danish text has, however, been preserved, but it is
probable that the ballad was imported. This is indicated by the verse
form which stems from Latin sequences and is well-known from Danish
and Swedish poetry from the 15th and 16th centuries but was not used
in Iceland or the Faroes (a single Icelandic poem about the holy Cross
is, however, written in a related verse form). It is pointed out that
both the Icelandic and the Faroese texts seem to presuppose the old
syllabic quantity which in Icelandic began to break down in the 16th
century, while it is not known when this took place in Faroese.