Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1987, Page 20

24
SANDOY ARBÓK
individual singers, but with the use of the
1801 and 1834 census reports, along with
land and parish records, we can also deter-
mine the place of birth of given informants,
their place of residence as adults, their eco-
nomic and social status, and the ties of
blood and matrimony linking the inform-
ants to each other and to the collector. This
information about the ballad community
and the collector has much to tell us about
the process of collecting; and the process of
collecting, in turn, has much to tell us
about the collection
»Sandoyarbók« and Its Collector
In his postscript to »Sandoyarbók«, Clem-
ensen has traced briefly for us the cir-
cumstances that led to his interest in ballad
collecting:
At jeg haver sammensamlet alle disse qvæder og
indskrevet dem i denne bog, er skeedt af følgende
Aarsager. (a) I aaret 1821 blev jeg anmodet af Hr.
Amtsprovst Hentze at ipdsamle nogle Qvæder samt
at afskrive dem for at udsendes til Kjøbenhavn. Li-
geledes i Aaret 1822 blev jeg anmodet af Hr. J. Nol-
søe om at indsamle saa mange qvæder som jeg kun-
de afstæd komme. Samt i aaret 1823 blev jeg anmo-
det af Jens Davidsen om alle de qvæder der var an-
gaaende Siururs bedrifter og Ole Trigvesens og da
jeg ved denne lejlighed havde de fleste i hænder,
søgte jeg efter alle, man her omkring vidste at give
navn, holdt jeg det ikke uanstændigt at jeg beholdt
som en Copie igien, hvilke jeg i Hast udjagede som
jeg beholdt igien og reenskrev det afsendte. (b)
Samt mig og efterkommerne til fornojelse da nu
omstunder qvæderne ere næsten gange af brug, og
nye viiser istæden for ungdommen brugelige, saa
kunne di tilkommende unge see, hvad de forhen
værende unge havde til deres Jule Danses fornójel-
se3.
That I have gathered all of these ballads together
and written them down in this book was brought
about by the following circumstances. (a) In the
year 1821 I was requested by the Reverend Dean
Hentze to collect some ballads and to make a fair
copy of them to be sent to Copenhagen. Likewise,
in the year 1822 I was requested by Mr. J. Nolsøe
to collect as many ballads as I could manage; and
again in the year 1823 I was asked by Jens Davidsen
for all the ballads that had to do with the deeds of
Sigurd and of Olaf Tryggvason; and since I at that
time had most of them in my possession, I tried to
get all of what people hereabouts knew the names
of. I did not consider it improper if I forwarded a
fair copy and kept what I had hurriedly hunted up
as a duplicate copy. (b) For my own pleasure and
that of posterity, since ballads nowadays have fal-
len into disuse and new songs have been picked up
by young people, so that future youth might see
what their predecessors had by way of entertain-
ment at their Christmas dances. (my translation)
Clemensen’s postscript shows that the
years intervening between his earliest
collecting efforts and the completion of the
fair copy of »Sandoyarbók« in 1831 must
have blurred his memory of events: be-
cause of the simple fact that the fair copy of
Clemensen’s »Hentze Manuscript« bears
the date of 1819, we know with certainty
that Hentze did not make his request to
Clemensen in 1821, but in 1818 or in the
early part of 1819 at the very latest.
Unfortunately, Clemensen’s faulty
memory of the date of Hentze’s initial
request calls into question the dates he has
given us for Nolsøe’s and Davidsen’s
subsequent ones, thus frustrating our
efforts better to understand the circum-
stances that led in February of 1821 to the
revival of his interest in ballad collecting. If
Clemensen’s memory is accurate and
Nolsøe and Davidsen first approached him
in 1822 and 1823 respectively, then they
could have had nothing to do with his re-
newed efforts - indeed, the »Sandoyarbók«
collection must be seen primarily as the
result of Clemensen’s own initiative. On