Ormurin Langi

Even before 1800, Jens Christian Svabo had recorded ballads, but serious effort to collect them got under way after 1800, by names like Johan Henrik Schrøter, Jóannes í Króki and later on, V. U. Hammershaimb.

His most individual work, however, is perhaps Púkaljómur (‘The Devils Ballad’), a religious epic based on a Danish translation of ‘Paradise Lost’ by the 17th-century English poet John Milton.

In an account of a journey written in 1847-48 the ballad collector and clergyman V. U. Hammershaimb writes: Ormurin Langi takes its subject matter from the account well given in Heimskringla of the famous sea battle off the island of Svolder in 1000, when the Swedish and Danish kings, together with the Norwegian Eiríkr Hákonarson, attacked the Norwegian king, Olaf Tryggvason, while he was on his way home from Wendland to Norway on his ship, the Long Serpent, accompanied by his fleet.

Various scenes from the drama described in the ballad appear on ten stamps, issued in 2006 by Postverk Føroya and designed by the artist Vigdis Sigmundsdóttir.

[1] They show shipbuilding and a launch, with the king sitting on the throne while giving an audience to Einarr Thambarskelfir.

In the Long Serpent's bow there is Ulf the Red, Olaf's forecastle man, while the king and Einar the Archer are seen up on the quarterdeck.

There are dead bodies tumbling into the sea during the battle, which ends with Eiríkr Hákonarson capturing the Long Serpent and so taking command of the vessel.

When Svend Grundtvig and Jørgen Bloch edited Føroya kvæði, an anthology of Faroese folksongs, around 1880, they knew of six recordings of the ballad.