Journal articles on the topic 'Scandinavian Ballads'

This article analyses the universe of the traditional ballad from a perspective that problematizes gender power relations and masculinity. This universe is generally characterised by masculine domination, separation of male and female spheres, and manifest structures of power. Masculine violence, not least sexual violence, tends to be normative, especially in heroic ballads and ballads of chivalry, although other masculinities also exist. Feminine power is usually circumscribed, and feminine violence is accepted only under certain conditions. Several narrative motifs concerning masculinity, femininity, violence and power structures can be traced across different ballad types. The author analyses some of these motifs, and clusters of motifs, using the methods of re-reading, close reading and cross-reading. Examples are taken from the Scandinavian and English-Scottish ballad corpora.

"Mermaids and Other Undines: Medieval Representations of Scandinavian Aquatic Figures. Without claiming to be exhaustive, this article compares the different aquatic figures of Scandinavian imagination, and the representations relating to Scandinavia, taking into account their cosmic aspect. This paper highlights the close connection of these creatures with time, weather and music, and the evolution of the representation of sea creatures that embody geography and climate, real or fantasized. These representations evolve, especially because of the important Christianization process that they undergo. With Christianization, these sea creatures tend towards demonization, and they’re influenced by Occidental representations, especially with those of the sirens of the Nibelungenlied. Scandinavian aquatic figures represent different dangers according to the type of water in which they live: salty, soft or marshy. According to their gender, the marine creatures which embody different risks are put in perspective in a comparative approach that links the Eddas and the stories reported by Xavier Marmier, especially Danish and Swedish. Thanks to the privileged bond these figures, emerging from the Edda, sagas and ballads, maintain with speech and music, their evolutions and their representations survive in the collective imagination related to Scandinavia. Keywords: Middle Age, Scandinavian literature, hybrid representations, mermaid, imaginary of the sea."

Abstract The first Scandinavian mentions of magic folk tales and ballads are by two clergymen-cum-historians, Olavus Petri (the Swedish reformer, 1493–1552), in a generic discussion in the lengthy Introduction to his unpublished Swedish Chronicle), and Anders Foss (1543–1607, Danish-born bishop of Bergen in Norway), who cites ATU 327B & 853 in a discussion of the reliability of Saxo’s late twelfth-century Gesta Danorum). Both discuss the value of traditional oral tales (and ballads) as historical sources: Anders Foss rejects them, whereas Olavus Petri emphasizes their value as expressions of demotic attitudes towards the rich and mighty. This was heavily censured by King Gustaf I Vasa, who forbade the publication of Olavus’ Chronicle. Note on terminology: Olavus Petri’s preface, a large part of which is here translated for the first time, seems to be the first evidence of the Swedish word “sagor” (plural of “saga”) being used to denote a specific narrative genre (= wonder tales?). Similarly, Anders Foss’s “euentyrer” (archaic plural form of “eventyr” = Märchen, sg. & pl.) is probably the first example of the word being used in this sense in Danish (other than in the still current meaning “adventure” or “quest”).

In this article, the Old Icelandic poem Þrymskviða, which depicts an ancient myth about the theft and retrieval of Thor’s hammer, is compared with a number of later texts describing the same story – a late medieval Icelandic rhyme Þrymlur and a number of ballads from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, – in order to find out if it is possible to reconstruct an earlier, common Scandinavian version of this myth. While such a reconstruction appears to be plausible, none of the extant sources reflects the proto-myth in its complete form: although the oldest source Þrymskviða generally appears to be the most conservative among the different versions of this story, some of the scenes from the proto-myth have been preserved better in the later sources.

This article discusses skilling ballads as a news medium in the early modern period, and it suggests that in Scandinavia the news ballad was the most important journalistic genre for a broad public. Through a reading of ballads conveying news of fantastical creatures, the article considers how skilling ballads negotiated the borders between the true and the false, and how some of our contemporary mechanisms for revealing fake news can be detected in the early modern news ballads.

The Lay of the Nibelungs is a prominent literature work dating back to the early 13th century. It is a result of almost 10 century evolution of the material going back into the early Middle Ages. The material was also used by other Germanic peoples for development of Scandinavian sagas, Faroese and Danish ballads. The texts representing the story of the Nibelungs mark different stages of social and cultural development of the relevant Germanic peoples and are of a special interest for the historians dealing with the social history of Europe. The Lay of the Nibelungs, however, content not only contemporary features, like courteous rituals, but also archaic ones deriving from ancient lays and tales which are left unknown to us. The 19th century saw growing influence of the myth of the Nibelungs on German society with de La Mott Fouquet and Wagner creating the most eminent works updating the ancient lay. In the 20th century the Nibelungs-mentality shaped some aspects of Nazi ideology and was widely discussed by the leaders of the Third Reich.

Hygiene as Ideal and Practice, Johanna Annola, Annelie Drakman & Marie Ulväng (eds.), Med tvål, vatten och flit. Hälsofrämjande renlighet som ideal och praktik ca 1870‒1930, Nordic Academic Press, Lund 2021 Collecting Scrap Cars, Anders Björklund, Skrotbilar – om hängivna samlare och deras fordon, Carlsson Bokförlag, Stockholm2021 Norwegian Studies of Broadside Ballads, Siv Gøril Brandtzæg & Karin Strand (eds.), Skillingsvisene i Norge 1550–1950. Studier i en forsømt kulturarv, Scandinavian Academic Press, Oslo 2021 Robots and Future Working Life, Daniel Bodén & Michael Godhe (eds.), AI, robotar och föreställningar om morgondagens arbetsliv,Nordic Academic Press, Lund 2020 The History of the Future? Henrik Brissman, Framtidens historia, Natur & Kultur, Stockholm 2021 Fashion’s Photographic Market, Anna Dahlgren, (ed.), Fashioned in the North. Nordic Histories, Agents, and Images of Fashion Photography, Nordic Academic Press, Lund 2020 Exhibiting Death at Sea, Simon Ekström, Sjödränkt. Spektakulär materialitet från havet, Makadam förlag, Göteborg/Stockholm 2021 Animals: Touching Encounters and Cultural Pain Points, Simon Ekström & Lars Kaijser (eds.), Djur. Berörande möten och kulturella smärtpunkter, Makadam, Göteborg/Stockholm 2018 Viewpoints on the Use of Alcohol, Anders Gustavsson, Improper Use, Moderation or Total Abstinence of Alcohol. Use of and Opinionon Alcohol Especially in the Western Swedish Countryside and Coastal Regions during the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Strömstad Academy. Nordic Institute of Advanced Studies 2021 Ambulatory Schoolteachers and Literacy in Norway, Gry Heggli, Omgangsskolelæreren i allmueskolen. Leseopplæring mellom tekster og talemål, Scandinavian Academic Press, Oslo 2021 With Camera and Suitcase, Sanna Jylhä & Marika Rosenström (eds.), Med kamera och koffert. Resefotografier före massturismen, SLS Varia nr 7. SLS, Helsingfors/Appell förlag, Stockholm 2021 Mournable Lives, Kim Silow Kallenberg, Sörjbara liv, Universus Academic Press, Malmö 2021 Analysing Father’s Tomfooleries, Barbro Klein, I tosaforornas värld. Gustav berättar, Carlssons Bokförlag, Stockholm 2021 History as a Tourist Attraction, Wiebke Kolbe, Geschichtstourismus. Theorie – Praxis – Berufsfelder, Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, Tübingen 2021 Predators and Humans in Historical- Ethnological Light, Teppo Korhonen, Karhuverkosta susipantaan. Karhunja suden pyynti keskiajalta 2000-luvulle, Suomen Muinaismuistoyhdistys, Helsinki 2020 Cultural Heritage Management in Wartime, Mattias Legnér, Värden att värna. Kulturminnesvård som statsintresse i Norden vid tiden för andra världskriget, Makadam förlag, Göteborg/Stockholm 2021 Fifty Shades of Class, Britta Lundgren, Hildur Kalman, Ann Öhman & Annelie Bränström-Öhman, Möjligheter och mellanrum. Berättelser om genus och akademiska livslopp, Makadam förlag, Göteborg/Stockholm 2020 A Hundred Years of Nordic Ethnology at Åbo Akademi, Finland, Fredrik Nilsson & Anna-Maria Åström (eds.), Nordisk etnologi 1921‒2021. Ett ämne i rörelse, Åbo Akademi Förlag, Åbo 2021 Interior Decoration Culture in Hälsingland, Ingalill Nyström, Anneli Palmsköld & Johan Knutsson (eds.), Hälsinglands inredningskultur, Kriterium vol. 23. Makadam förlag, Göteborg/Stockholm 2021 Collaboration in Arctic Research, Anne Merrild Hansen and Carina Ren (eds.), Collaborative Research Methods in the Arctic. Experiences from Greenland, Routledge Research in Polar Regions, Routledge, Abingdon 2021 Settlers of the Swedish Wilderness, Eero Sappinen, Värmlannin metsäsuomalaiset. Asutushistoriasta, agraarista kulttuurista ja muutoksesta, Siirtolaisinstituutti, Turku 2019 Perspectives on Fashion, Emma Severinsson & Philip Warkander (eds.), Modevetenskap. Perspektiv på mode, stil och estetik, Appell Förlag, Stockholm 2020 The Legacy of Ernst Manker, Eva Silvén, Friktion. Ernst Manker, Nordiska museet och det samiska kulturarvet, Nordic Academic Press,Lund 2021 Everyday Superstition, Fredrik Skott, Vardagsskrock. Från abrakadabra till önskebrunn. Polaris Fakta, Malmö 2021 Animals in the City, Liv Emma Thorsen, Dyrenes by: Hover, klover og klør i Kristiania 1859–1925. Forlaget Press, Oslo 2020 When the Tide Turns, Charlotte Ulmert, När vinden vänder. Adéle Sylvan och Charlotte Rosenkrantz – adelskvinnorna som gick sin egen väg. Ekström & Garay, Lund 2021

On Danishness and the Mother Tongue. A Speech by Grundtvig November 5th, 1839By Flemming Lundgreen-NielsenIn the last half of 1838 Grundtvig delivered a series of lectures on European history from 1788 to the present which gained him the wider public acceptance he for many years had been striving for. In early 1839 some former members of his audience set up a regular society for common citizens dedicated to the promotion of Danishness, Danske Samfund (the Danish Society), with Grundtvig as chairman. The idea was to have conversations and discussions after a short introduction from one of the elected leaders of the club - often Grundtvig himself. Singing songs by Grundtvig and other nationally inclined poets as well as old heroic ballads also helped to create an atmosphere of solidarity and popular and national community.The history of Danske Samfund can be pieced together from the texts of more than 100 introductions which Grundtvig gave, statements by individual members and anonymous police reports on some of the actual sessions. A detailed examination of Danske Samfund has recently been published by the present editor in Dansk Identitetshistorie, III, Copenhagen 1992, p. 31-79.On Tuesday evening of November 5, 1839, Grundtvig in an introduction spoke about his mother tongue.He first claims the historical independence and venerable age of the Danish language, emphasizing its principal difference from Old Norse as well as from a hodge-podge of old Danish and Low German. In his eyes precisely these qualities make the vernacular the only natural means of thinking and feeling for the Danes. Thus the general use of Danish becomes a necessary condition for a thriving culture and national life of the Danish people.Grundtvig continues with an account of his own road to the Danish language. A native Zealander being reared in Jutland, he grew up with the two major Danish dialects, and as a school-boy he on his own read Danish books such as the old chronicle about Holger the Dane. At the university he had to speak Latin and did so (also to evade boredom), but was not permanently tainted by the experience. As a private tutor at the manor house of Egel.kke he resisted the temptation to speak German like the master and the mistress. When at this time he made his d.but as a writer, he clearly favoured Old Norse or Icelandic as the alma mater of Scandinavia and almost considered Danish to be her illegitimate daughter. Following the separation between Denmark and Norway in 1814 he happily realized that he did possess a mother tongue that in fact was nothing but Danish. He recollects this to have occurred in 1816, as he studied the medieval Rhyming Chronicle (printed for the first time in 1495 with several later reprints). Since then he managed to learn to speak and understand spoken English and also became more familiar with the other Scandinavian languages and dialects, and he translated Saxo’s Deeds of the Danes from the Latin, Snorri’s Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings from the Old Norse and the Beowulf epic from the Anglo-Saxon. However, he never doubted that from ancient times Danish is the mother tongue of the Danes. Accordingly he never ceased to regret that those who identify themselves as enlightened and educated persons use the vernacular as if it were a foreign language, not realizing its richness, depth and beauty. It is one of Grundtvig’s declared aims in Danske Samfund to promote the use of the Danish language outside trivial everyday life. In an alternative, but incomplete draught Grundtvig, by way of introduction, mentions a misleading article in a German periodical by a Holstein citizen who claims High German to be an already widespread and ever expanding language in Denmark.Grundtvig’s introduction of Nov. 5, 1839 is another of several retrospective autobiographical interpretations in his works. In this case he concentrates in a deliberately cool and detached manner on his relationship to the Danish language. This was just before the death of Frederik 6. released growing national tensions in the United Monarchy and brought up the burning issue of Danish versus German that finally led to the Schleswig-Holstein war 1848-51.

The Shetland Islands, together with the Orkney Islands, were until the nineteenth century a remarkable reservoir of the so-called Norn language, an extinct insular variety of Old Norse closely related to Icelandic and, specially, Faroese. Norn was preserved in these North-Atlantic British islands in form of single words, proverbs, or prayers. However, the longest and most complete text in Norn is the Shetlandic Hildina Ballad, collected on the small island of Foula in 1774 by George Low and consisting of thirtyfive stanzas. In this article I intend to offer a comparative approach to this Norn oral text refering to its Scandinavian parallels and the attempts at reconstruction and translation carried out by several scholars such as Marius Hægstad, Sophus Bugge, William G. Collinwood, Norah Kershaw, or Eigil Lehmann.

Статья посвящена исследованию сюжета о похищении демоническим персонажем (или «диким человеком») девушки/женщины, ее принудительном браке с ним и бегстве от похитителя после рождения ребенка (~ детей). Этот сюжет является «женской версией» более распространенного типа AaTh 485А* («мужская версия»: похищение мужчины демонической женщиной / самкой «дикого человека»). «Женская версия» бытует в нескольких региональных редакциях: восточно- и центральноазиатских (якутские, монгольские, китайские, тибетские, гималайские, памирские - киргизские, таджикские); славянских (северно- и западнорусские, словенские, серболужицкие); германских (северонемецкие, скандинавские - датские, шведские, норвежские, фарерские); англо-шотландских. В отличие от «мужской версии», «женская версия» разрабатывается не только в мифологическом предании (редакции азиатские и русские), но и в балладе (редакции германские и шотландские). Азиатские и европейские предания можно считать единым сюжетно-жанровым корпусом, основная часть которого локализуется в горных районах Центральной Азии и прилегающих к ним территориях. В северных русских вариантах место похитителя занимает демон, но в брянском предании он еще остается «диким человеком». Наиболее вероятное место встречи этого евроазиатского сюжета с европейской балладной формой - Северная Германия, где раньше жили славяне (или где славяне были соседями). Демон-похититель немецкой баллады - это трансформированный «дикий человек» евроазиатского предания, а изменение типа похитителя (от «дикого человека» к демону) произошло, видимо, в славянском фольклоре, сохранившем обе формы, и завершилось на почве немецких мифов о водяных духах-хозяевах. This article analyzes the folkloric plot that includes the following parts: the abduction of a girl/woman by a demonic figure (or ‘wild man’); forced marriage with him and the flight from the kidnapper after the birth of a child (~ children). This plot is the ‘female version’ of the more common type AaTh 485A*; in the ‘male version’ a man is abducted by a demonic woman / wild female. The ‘female version’ exists in several regional varieties: East and Central Asian (Yakut, Mongolian, Chinese, Tibetan, Himalayan, Pamir - Kyrgyz, Tajik); Slavic (northern and western Russian, Slovenian, Sorbian); Germanic (North German, Scandinavian - Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese); and Anglo-Scottish. Unlike the ‘male version,’ the ‘female version’ is developed not only in the mythological tradition (in the Asian and Russian variants), but also in the ballad (the Germanic and Scottish variants). Asian and European legends can be considered as a single narrative corpus; most of them are located in the mountainous regions of Central Asia and adjacent territories. In the northern Russian versions, the role of the kidnapper is taken by a demon, but in the Bryansk version he remains a ‘wild man.’ The most likely place where this Eurasian plot met the European ballad is northern Germany where Slavs lived. The demon abductor in the German ballad is a transformed ‘wild man’ of Eurasian legend, and the change of the abductor from ‘wild man’ to a demon apparently occurred in Slavic folklore, which retained both forms, and reached final shape under the influence of German myths about water spirit-hosts.