Note Footnote 6: — PART II

Svend Grundtvig and his colleague J. Bloch, of the Royal Library staff, completed in 1876 their great fifteen vol. ms. collection of Faroese ballads with all their known variants, Føroyja Kvæði—Corpus Carminum Faeroensium—Færøernes Gamle Folkeviser. This was afterwards increased by Bloch to sixteen volumes by the addition of much new material, some of which was collected by Jakobsen in his journey to the Faroes in 18876. Before beginning the work Grundtvig had every available version, whether in public or private hands, at his disposal, so that he had a magnificent apparatus criticus. Unfortunately the work has never been published, so that owing to the difficulties of communication with Denmark (which have proved to be insuperable) it has been impossible for me to consult it. The first three volumes, however, which include all the Faroese ballads translated below, are based on Hammershaimb's collections of 1851-1855. Hammershaimb was himself a genuine scholar with a sensitive literary conscience and a thorough knowledge of all the Faroese dialects, and his work is spoken of in the highest terms by Grundtvig in his article on the Corpus Carminum Faroensium7. Moreover Hammershaimb had consulted all the other available versions of these ballads before printing; so that it is improbable that when a comparison of the texts can be made much alteration will be required.