Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1991, Page 147

FAROESE SPADE-CULTIVATION
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Neither do archaeological finds in the
Faroes establish the early history of that
specific form of cultivation.
In the areas with which the Faroese is-
landers have had historical connections,
Norway, the Shetlands, the Orkneys, and
Scotland especially - spade cultivation has
similarly been well known for centuries. It
encompassed the use of both ’straight’ and
’crooked’ spades. Straight-handled ones are
known from most of these areas, more spe-
cifically in connection with a kind of velting
(delving) from the Shetland Islands (the
’delling spade’, A. Fenton 1978). Crooked-
(handled) ones are known from Norway
(’krokspaden’), from northern parts of Scot-
land, from northern Ireland (the
’caschrom*), and from southern Ireland (the
’loy’, A. Gailey 1971). See fig.6.
The specific connection between form of
spade and field form in reinavelta may be ar-
gued from two facts:
- crooked spades were not used anywhere to
produce asymmetrical field forms like the
teigar. The reason may simply be, that
having a crooked spade, the need for mak-
ing sloping seed beds would be non-
existing.
- straight spades were elsewhere only used
for the digging of ’normal’ types of
gardens and fields.(see illustrations, J.
David 1984). The single exception may be
the Faroes.
The difficult question to answer is of course
why the feature has not yet been traced else-
where, or is it truly unique in the Faroes?
There are reasons to support the last sugges-
tion. In most of the Atlantic margin areas, in
an identical ecological niche, another solu-
tion is found instead, namely the Tazy-bed
cultivation’. By this type of cultivation long
strips of turves are cut and turned over to
cover the neighbouring grass strip; only half
of the surface is thus dug before sowing. The
two forms of cultivation may well be of same
ancestry, but separate development
produced two different methods to facilitate
the removal and turning of grass turves.
Either the spade-handle had to be crooked to
allow easy cutting of horisontal turves, or
the turves lifted to a more convenient posi-
tion for cutting with a straight spade.
However, it is debatable, if the two solu-
tions actually are functionally identical. The
reinavelta-ioxm has impressive qualities en-
suring efficient drainage and resistance to
erosion.
Although lacking comparative research,
reinavelta seems much superior to Tazy-bed
cultivation’ regarding this aspect. May be
this explains why reinavelta has been
preferred in the most northerly, humid is-
lands?
An interesting consequence of the rather
distinct distributional pattern of the two
types of spade-tillage is possibly that they
may be considered rather independently de-
veloped. This may indicate an early severing
of communications between the Faroes and
the Shetlands and Orkneys (Scottish in-
fluence?).
Although it is not known when reinavelta
was invented, it has here be surmised, that
inspiration to its introduction may have
originated from the ridged field systems,
which were almost omnipresent in the sur-
rounding countries during medieval times.
Reinavelta can logically be seen as a ana-
logue field form, developed where the terrain
was not too inviting for the use of draught
animals, and/or the available areas per