the general
verse form; the love of repetition and ballad formulae,--especially
of repetition of whole phrases or verses with the alteration of merely
the words that rhyme, or of repetition with inversion of word order;
the balladist's love of colour, of the material and the concrete, of
glitter and shine; the large element of dialogue; the abrupt dramatic
openings; the condensation and concentration of narrative and the
strict exclusion of the irrelevant or superfluous; the infallible
feeling for a 'situation'; the atmosphere of the tragic or the
critical; the "echo, without comment, of the clash of man and
fate[34]." All these are the elements that make the ballad a form of
literature distinct from other lyric or epic forms; all these are the
elements that go to make the Faroese ballads what they are--part of
what Ker calls the "Platonic Idea, a Ballad in itself, unchangeable
and one, of which the phenomenal multitude of ballads are
'partakers[35].'"

[Footnote 1: Cf. S. Grundtvig, _Meddelelse Angaende Faeroernes
Litteratur og sprog_, in _Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed_,
published by the Royal Norse Early Text Society (Copenhagen),
1882, p. 358.]

[Footnote 2: _Faeroa Reserata_ (Copenhagen, 1673), pp. 251 and
308 (tr. John Sterpin, London, 1676).]

[Footnote 3: _Reliques_, Vol. I, _Epistle to the Countess of
Northumberland_.]

[Footnote 4: Cf. W. A. Craigie, _Evald Tang Kristensen,
A Danish Folk-lorist_, in _Folklore_, Vol. IX, 1898, pp.
194-220.]

[Footnote 5: Cf. C. J. Sharp, _English Folk Songs from the
Southern Appalachians_ (London, 1917), p. xxii.]

[Footnote 6: Axel Olrik, _Om Svend Grundtvigs og Joergen
Blochs Foroyjakvaeethi og faeroske ordbog_, in _Arkiv foer Nordisk
Filologi_ (Lund, 1890), p. 249.]

[Footnote 7: Sv. Grundtvig, _Faeroernes Litteratur og Sprog_,
in _Aarbog for Nord. Oldk._, 1882, p. 364.]

[Footnote 8: Cf. N. Annandale, _The Faroes and Iceland_
(Oxford, 1905), p. 42.]

[Footnote 9: For interesting accounts of the composition
of new ballads, cf. Lyngbye's article in the _Skandinavske
Litteraturselskabs Skrifter_, 12th and 13th Annual, p. 234
ff.; also P. E. Mueller, Introduction to Lyngbye's _Faer. Kv._,
pp. 14, 15. The _Trawlaravisur_ and other ballads, besides
the dances and tunes of the Faroe Islands of today, have been
investigated by Thuren who published several st