ircle from west to
east, in a contrary direction to the sun's movements--_withershins_ as
the Scots peasants have it. Then, because it is considered unlucky to
do anything _withershins_, in the refrain the motion is reversed and
the dancers pass from east to west, to counteract the baleful effects
of the first direction. Here too, however, it is interesting to note,
the dance is sometimes stationary.

III. Into the rise of the ballads on the Faroes and their exact
relation of form and content to the Icelandic _Fornkvaeethi_[17], and to
the _Viser_ of Norway[18], Sweden[19], and above all of Denmark[20],
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 analysis[21]
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 Tattur_, 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
Kvaeethi_ 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 Faroes[22]."

It would be pleasant to develop a theory that the purveyors of ballad
material were the sailors and merchants who plied up and down the
great trade routes in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, or even
earlier. It has been suggested by Professor Ker[23] and others that
Shetland _may_ have been "the chief meeting-place or trading station
between the ballads of Scotland and Norway." The Shetland ballad of
_Sir Orfeo_ actually has a refrain in Norn, the Norse dialect spoken
in Shetland and the small neighbouring islands till the eighteenth
century; while the ballad of _Hildin