Note Footnote 17: — PART II

III. Into the rise of the ballads on the Faroes and their exact relation of form and content to the Icelandic Fornkvæði17, and to the Viser of Norway18, Sweden19, and above all of Denmark20, it is impossible to enter here. Perhaps the relationship between the ballads of the various countries of the North will never be fully understood. The ramifications are too many and too complex, while too many links in the chain have already been lost in the "scrubby paper books" such as that with which Bishop Percy found the housemaid lighting the parlour fire. And those who would too hastily dogmatise on the 'conveyance', translation, and borrowing of the various versions receive a wholesome warning from Dr Axel Olrik's analysis21 of the ancestry and parallel versions of the Scots, Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish forms of the ballads of Earl Brand (Dan. Riboldsvisen). Moreover it is no easier to generalise about the sources of the Faroese ballad material than about the Danish. The motif of the Faroese Tristrams Táttur, also found in the Icelandic ballad of Tristram comes ultimately (through the Tristram's Saga one would suppose) from a French romance; that of Nornagest, changed though it is in form, is surely founded on the Icelandic Saga; Olufu Kvæði comes no doubt from a Spanish story; and the motif of the Scots ballad of Binnorie is "found also among the people of Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Faroes22."