Note Footnote 4: — PART I

In the Shetlands the story survived down to modern times in the form of a ballad known as Hildina, which was taken down by George Low4 from the recitation of an old man on the Isle of Foula in 1774. The Norwegian dialect (Norn) in which it is composed is so obscure as we have it in Low's script as to be almost untranslatable, though a serious attempt at its interpretation has been made by Dr M. Hægstad in Skrifter udgivne af Videnskabsselskabet i Christiania, 1900 (Historisk-Filosofisk Klasse, ii), with a very full discussion of all the linguistic difficulties involved5. According to Low "The subject is a strife between a King of Norway and an Earl of Orkney, on account of the hasty marriage of the Earl with the King's daughter in her father's absence." Further on6 he gives the substance of the ballad at greater length: