Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1979, Side 70

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The Case of »Hernilds kvæði«
he or she can but whose efforts »are not directed towards a
desired end.«4 Such widely varying texts would seem to suggest
that the traditional singer is capable of larger creative acts,
such as the radical recasting of a ballad. In this paper I would
like to discuss the case of the Faroese ballad »Hernilds kvæði«
(CCF 67), arguing that it reflects a thoroughgoing reworking
of the popular »Hermundur illi« (CCF 66), in which the ballad
man did not merely tell the same story in a somewhat different
manner, but rather reinterpreted the relationships between his
characters to such an extent that he finished by composing a
new ballad.
In The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad (1978)
»Hermundur illi« and »Hernilds kvæði« have been categorized
as two separate ballad types: »Hermundur illi« is listed as
motif-type E 85 »Bride rescued from unwanted marriage,«
with the heading »Outlaw saves his beloved from an unwanted
marriage,« and »Hernilds kvæði« as E 33 »Rescue of champion
in distress,« with the heading »Champion is released from
prison by reputedly cowardly brother.«5 In the light of these
typifications and headings it would seem unlikely that any
close relationship might exist between them. Nonetheless there
do exist remarkable similarities, which quite naturally have
been obfuscated by a traditional classification according to
motif-type, a system quite successful when applied to the usu-
ally monoepisodic East Scandinavian ballads but less satis-
factory for the customarily multiepisodic West Scandinavian
heroic ballads.6 The typification of »Hermundur illi« as TSB
E85 »Bride rescued from unwanted marriage« is based on only
one of the ballad’s several episodes, one to which there is no
counterpart in »Hernilds kvæði«. Moreover, because the prose
summaries of each ballad type are formulated to reflect the
common elements in type-variants rather than reveal more
abstract similarities between types, they too have disguised
elements that these two ballads have in common. »Hermundur
illi«, which has been collected in both Norway and the Faroe
Islands, is summarized in TSB as follows: