Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1978, Page 31

Sniolvs kvæði
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from 1819 and 1821 bear the mark of being newly composed
elaborations of the Sniolv cycle. These new compositions each
reflect the intermixing of champions from originally separate
heroic cycles, a feature not found in any of the four tattir in
Svabo’s text. For example, in Hildibrands táttur and Virgars
táttur, both of which first appear in the 1819 text and seem
to be a single story told in two episodes, a new champion,
Virgar Valintsson, is introduced into the cycle. Ultimately,
Virgar’s presence in Faroese ballad tradition can be traced
back to northern German narrative tradition, some of which
is reflected in the late compositum Piðriks saga af Bern. He is
known to Faroese ballads chiefly as the valiant sidekick of
Sjúrð Sigmundarson during the latter’s youthful adventures
with giants and dwarves. However, Virgar seems to have at-
tained a special stature in local Sandoy tradition, which has
named after him a ballad in which he, rather than SjúrS, plays
the chief role. This ballad was also sung in other ballad commu-
nities, where it was known as Risin í Hólmgørðum (FK 10),
the difference in the title indicating a less keen interest in the
figure of Virgar. The chief motive for introducing the well-
known hero Virgar into the Sniolv cycle appears to have been
further to characterize Ásmund’s wickedness by providing a
popular adversary of established caliber for him to defeat by
his villainous use of magic.
Both the 1819 and the 1821 texts of the Sandoy version of
the Sniolv cycle begin with Rana táttur rather than Golmars
táttur, which opens the Svabo text. Although Rana táttur,
unlike the other examples discussed, introduces no heroes from
the Sjúrð cycle, it does show itself to be a later elaboration
of the Sniolv cycle because it has united in a single episode
characters from the two once-separate stories of the cycle —
Hildibrand, of the father-kills-son story, fights for the hand
of Sniolv’s sister. In the Svabo text Hildibrand and Sniolv
only interact with Ásmund and never with each other. This
combining of Hildibrand and Sniolv in one episode shows how
the Sandoy texts of the cycle have gone one step farther than