Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1978, Page 43

Sniolvs kvæði
51
is of responding to the fashions of the time to produce a ballad
in a new style.
The most fertile areas of investigation for studies of the
chronology of Faroese ballad tradition are most certainly the
cycles or groups of related ballads, for here there is hope of at
least establishing a relative chronology for the members of the
group. This study of the Sniolv cycle yielded more than that
— texts of this cycle indicate that it was still growing between
1781—1782 when Svabo first recorded it, calling it even then
the longest of the Faroese ballads, and the 1820s when Clemen-
sen combed Sandoy to find new ballads for his collection.
In the light of this it seems strange that Svabo thought that
Faroese ballad tradition was decaying. Perhaps he, like all
folklorists who have been educated in book culture, was dis-
mayed at the apparent frailty of oral tradition, was afraid
that the old songs would die with the old men that sang them.
He did not see as clearly that there were still young men and
new songs that were winning their way into tradition with
more authority each time they came into the ballad dance.
NOTES
1 J. Christian Svabo, Svabos færøske visehaandskrifter, ed. Christian
Matras, Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur, 59 (Copen-
hagen, 1939), p. 3.
2 See, for example, Axel Olrik, »Om Grundtvigs og Jorgen Blochs
Føroyakvæði og færøske ordbog«, Arkiv for nordisk filologi, NS 2 (1890),
250—255; H. Griiner-Nielsen, De f<erøske kvadmelodiers tonalitet i mid-
delalderen, Færoensia, 1 (Copenhagen, 1945), pp. 16—17; Christian Ma-
tras, Føroya kv<eði, 2:3 (Copenhagen, 1944), endpaper; and Svale Solheim,
»Færøysk-norsk i folkevisediktinga«, Fróðskaparrit, 18 (1970), 297—306.
3 J. Christian Svabo, Indberetninger til en Reise i Færøe 1781 og 1782
(Copenhagen, 1959), p. 121.
4 Jóannes Patursson, Kvæðabók, 5 (Tórshavn, 1945), p. 61.
5 Helmut de Boor claims that the epithet »kellingarson« was original
with Sniolvs kvæði. But insofar as the oldest texts of both Sniolvs kvæði
and Torbjørn Bekil show no association of this epithet with the Ásmund
of the Sniolv cycle, but rather with the Ásmund of Torbjørn Bekil, I prefer