a_ taken down by Low[24] on the
Island of Foula off Shetland (cf. p. 217 below) is entirely composed
in Norn. Indeed we know from Low's account[25] that many ballads and
songs must have perished with the language:

Nothing remains but a few names of things and two or three
remnants of songs which one old man can repeat;

and further on he continues:

Most of the fragments they have are _old historical ballads
and romances_.... William Henry, a farmer in Guttorm in Foula
has the most knowledge of any I found; he spoke of three kinds
of poetry used in Norn, and repeated or sung by the old men;
the Ballad (or Romance, I suppose); _the Vysie or vyse, now
commonly sung to dancers_[26]; and the simple song.... Most
of all their tales are relative to the history of Norway;
they seem to know little of the rest of Europe but by names;
Norwegian transactions they have at their fingers' ends.

One would like to have known more about Norn and its 'Vysies,' which
might have formed an interesting and instructive link between some of
the Northern ballads. On the other hand, the Scandinavian colonies in
Ireland, and settlers in English ports such as Bristol, may have done
not a little, through their trade with France and the Mediterranean
countries, to spread the new rhyming four line verse and the romantic
stories of southern and eastern Europe[27].

While this obscurity remains as to the connection between the Faroese
ballads and those of neighbouring countries, notably Denmark, the
questions of the age and origin of many of the Faroese ballads in
their present form are also frought with difficulty. Of the Danish
ballads, which sometimes offer parallels so close as to suggest
translation from one language to the other, the first MS. collection
that can be dated with certainty was written down in 1550. But there
is much evidence, both internal and external, for assigning a much
earlier date to the historical ballads at least. It has been suggested
by Olrik[28], who supports his view by arguments which it would be
extremely difficult to contest, that many of the historical ballads
are practically contemporaneous with the events which they describe,
and some of these took place in the thirteenth century, while others,
e.g. _Riboldsvisen_, are possibly of the twelfth century.

Unfortunately we have fewer data, whether philological or historical,
for assigning dates to the Faroese ballads