Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1987, Page 35

SANDOYARBÓK
39
tivating forces behind his work, we have
learned that he must also have been affect-
ed by the excitement in his village over the
six weddings celebrated there during the
fall of 1820. To be sure, the first texts he
collected that winter were not from fellow
villagers, but from out-of-towners closely
related to one or another of the wedded
couples and to people close to the collector
as well. In fact, all of Clemensen’s out-of-
town informants had one thing in common
- close ties to the collector or to people
close to him. This was also true of Clem-
ensen’s informants from Sandur who were
women or crofters or freeholders unrelated
to the royal tenant households of the vil-
lage. Only those of Clemensen’s inform-
ants from Sandur who were closely related
to royal tenants were neither Clemensen’s
relatives nor his close neighbors. Interest-
ingly, these men were by far Clemensen’s
best informants, but only two of them were
themselves royal tenants - the majority
were their younger brothers, much less
well placed in village society and interested
in bolstering their status.
Although Clemensen claimed in his
postcript that he had collected all the bal-
lads known to him and his fellow villagers,
it is certain that he did not. Most impor-
tantly, there seems to have been a general
reluctance to make satirical ballads about
village affairs available for inclusion in the
collection. Clemensen also failed to obtain
at least one heroic ballad, possibly because
its owner feared someone else might learn
it and perform it. Further reason to doubt
the completeness of »Sandoyarbók« is the
fact that Clemensen seems only to have
had access to the household kvøldseta tra-
dition of his friends and neighbors. There
were, moreover, two singers known to
have been active in viilage ballad tradition
from whom Clemensen collected nothing.
Notes
1. This article would not have been written were it not
for the expertise of Ólavur Clementsen of the Land
Registry Office, the late Eyðun Winther, and the
late Mortan Nolsøe, of the Faroese Academy.
2. For practical reasons I have chosen to use the
Danicized forms of Faroese names as they are
found in the written sources of eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries.
3. Johannes Clemensen, »Sandoyarbók«, DFS 68,
Dansk Folkemindesamling, Copenhagen, p. 845.
4. Johannes Clemensen,»Visebog«, Føroya Lands-
bókasavn, Tórshavn, pp. 476— 549; M. A. Jacobsen,
»Jóannes Klæmintsson í Króki«, Varðin 9 (1929);
2—19; and Ólavur Clementsen, »Jóannes í Króki«,
in Søga og skemt av Sandi, (Tórshavn,1981), pp.
80-87. Information about Clemensen and Sandur
can also be found in Edward Hjalt, Sands søga
(Tórshavn, 1953).
5. Royal tenant farmers (kongsbøndur) work land
that the crown gained from the church during the
Reformation. These farmers pay a small annual
rent and have the right to pass the lease on to their
eldest sons. Since crown land is impartible, the
royal tenants have traditionally been rich men in the
Faroes.
6. Since both Jakob Nolsøe and Maren Sybille August-
inidatter’s husband were employed in the service of
the government franchise and were furthermore of
the same age, it seems probable that they and their
families knew each other.
7. The »Sydstrómoe Præstegjelds Kaldsbog 1845-
1922« (South Streymoy Parish Recordbook 1845-
1922), Føroya Landsskjalasavn, Tórshavn (p. 98),
mentions as late as 1851 that it was still customary
for village children of the parish to be instructed
only in religion and reading, but not writing. The
corresponding set of records for Sandoy is not in-
formative concerning this matter, but Reverend
Hentze is known to have opposed the introduction
of formal instruction on Sandoy.
8. Of the thirty-seven informants for »Sandoyarbók«,
eighteen of them, or 49%, resided in Sandur (pop.
168); six, or 16%, in Skálavík (pop. 107); three, or