Note Footnote 16: — PART I

The ballads, both Faroese and Danish16, belong to a fifth stage in the life of heroic legend in the North; but their origin and history is by no means so clear as that of the Rímur, and it is at present impossible to assign even approximate dates to more than a few of them with any degree of certainty. I have touched on this question at somewhat greater length below17; and I would only add here that some Danish and Swedish ballads, e.g. Ung Sveidal18, Thord af Haffsgaard19 and perhaps Her Aage20, appear to be derived more or less directly from poems of the Viking Age, such as Fjölsvinsmál, Thrymskvitha and Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I—without any intermediate prose stage.