Jófreys kvæði

Abstract

A ballad about Jófrey has been recorded in three Faroese versions from the first half of the 19th century, as well as in two Icelandic from ca. 1700. Two of the Faroese texts have been published, while the lcelandic ones have not been until now. The principal aim of the present article is to publish them.

In reproducing the content of the ballad, all texts have been used. A young man named Jófrey (Jófrí, Jósvein) is being brought up by a king who shows him great favor. Jófrey and the king's daughter, Ólof (Óluva), fall in love with each other. During a ride through a forest, two of the king's men, Sveinn and Álfur, tell the king that Jófrey has been sleeping with Ólof, and remind him that Jófrey is not worthy of her. The king decides to give a big feast at which Ólóf is also to be present and Jófrey is to be punished with death. During the feast the king gives his daughter orders to choose a husband, and she openly declares her love for Jófrey. When the king commands that Jófrey is to be bound, the latter seizes his weapons and slays Sveinn and Álfur
(as well as the king's other men, according to the Icelandic texts). The king pleads for mercy and gives his daughter to Jófrey.
All the texts, both the Icelandic and the Faroese, clearly have been written down from oral tradition with many corruptions. In the title in one of the Icelandic texts it is stated that the ballad was translated from Danish. No Danish text has, however, been preserved, but it is probable that the ballad was imported. This is indicated by the verse form which stems from Latin sequences and is well-known from Danish and Swedish poetry from the 15th and 16th centuries but was not used in Iceland or the Faroes (a single Icelandic poem about the holy Cross is, however, written in a related verse form). It is pointed out that
both the Icelandic and the Faroese texts seem to presuppose the old syllabic quantity which in Icelandic began to break down in the 16th century, while it is not known when this took place in Faroese.