eson (1780-1844) had published a volume of
_Popular Ballads_, in which he had translated several of the
_kjaempeviser_ and had pointed out their value in relation to the ancient
Scottish poems of a similar kind. Sir Walter Scott paid much flattering
attention to Jamieson's work, which also attracted a good deal of notice
in Denmark and Germany, and inspired the _Drei altschottische Lieder_ of
G. D. Grater (1813). It is scarcely possible that Borrow was not aware
of all this, yet he never mentions the name of Jamieson, and in 1826 he
spoke boldly of himself as breaking into "unknown and untrodden paths."
It is not impossible that Sir Walter Scott's patronage of Jamieson had
something to do with the ungenerous petulance of Borrow's references to
the great novelist in _Lavengro_.

But Borrow's attitude to the contemporary scholars of Denmark is still
more surprising. Without saying so in exact words, he gives us to
understand that he translated all the _kjaempeviser_ from the original
edition of Vedel. It would be rash to say that Borrow was not acquainted
with the _Danske Viser_ of 1591, for he does, in one place, quote,
whether at first-hand or not, from Vedel's preface. But it requires
great faith to accept his own account of his approach to the poems. In
_Lavengro_, at a point which Knapp has dated 1820, Borrow tells with
brilliant picturesqueness how he purchased, by permitting the wife of an
elderly yeoman to kiss his cheek, "a strange and uncouth-looking volume"
which had formed part of the kit of some red-haired fishermen who were
wrecked on the Norfolk coast:--

It was not very large, but instead of the usual covering was bound in
wood, and was compassed with strong iron clasps. It was a printed
book, but the pages were not of paper, but vellum, and the characters
were black, and resembled those generally termed Gothic. . . . And
now I had in my possession a Danish book, which, from its appearance,
might be supposed to have belonged to the very old Danes indeed: but
how was I to turn it to any account? I had the book it is true, but
I did not understand the language, and how was I to overcome that
difficulty? Hardly by poring over the book; yet I did pore over the
book again, but with all my poring I could not understand it; and
then I became angry, and I bit my lips till the blood came; and I
occasionally tore a handful from my hair and flung it upon the f