Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1970, Page 59

The oral-formulaic structure of the Faroese kvæði
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present in large numbers are formulaic stanzas and runs of
stanzas.3 Some of what Boor referred to is merely the grand
kind of incremental repetition discussed above; the simpler
kind, characteristic of the Danish and English ballad, is present
too. But important and significant are the single stanzas that
appear again when the story calls for them; for example:
II. A. The death of Fáfnir and the death of Guðrun’s son:
1.108 Tað var Sjúrður Sigmundarson, sínum svørði brá,
hann kleyv henda frænarorm sundur í lutir tvá.
3.32 Tað var Hegnir Júkason, sínum svørði brá,
hann kleyv Guðrunar unga son sundur í lutir tvá.
B. Sjúrður and Hegnir (unga) are born and grow up:
1.28 & 30 Sveipar hon hann í klæði rein, tá hann kom í heim,
Sjúrða bað hon nevna tann gævilega svein....
Hann veks upp hjá síni móður, Gud gav honum vekst,
meiri veks hann í ein mánað enn onnur børn í seks.
3.101 & 108 Sveipar hon hann í klæði rein, tá hann kom í
heim,
Hegnir bað hon kalla tann gæviliga svein....
Hann veks upp í ríkinum, Gud gav honum vekst,
meira veks hann í ein mánað enn onnur børn í seks.
Certainly such stanzas fit at least Whitman’s definition of
the formula: semantic units identified with a metric demand.
For clearly the metric unit of ballad is the stanza — perhaps
this is where we should look to define its formulaic unit. Im-
portantly, also, the stanza is the significant structural differ-
ence between Old English poetry, Serbocroatian, and Homeric
narrative, on the one hand, and Faroese kvæði and Icelandic
5) Helmut de Boor, Die faroischen Lieder des Nibeltmgenzyklus (Heidel-
berg, 1918), pp. 8—9, cited but misinterpreted by F. P. Magoun, Jr,
»Bede’s story of Caedman«, Speculum 30.52 (1955).