Svend Grundtvig

His father arranged his education, employing a series of home tutors to teach him Icelandic, Latin, Danish and Anglo-Saxon while personally instructing him in Nordic mythology, Saxo Grammaticus and folkloric ballads.

When he was 14, his father bought him a 1656 manuscript of an old ballad, triggering his interest in further exploring the history of Danish folk music which was to be his life's work.

In a manifesto in 1844, he encouraged Danish men and women to record national ballads still in popular usage.

[2] Gruntvig also encouraged the Faroese V. U. Hammershaimb to gather ballads of his native land; Hammershaimb after making several publications eventually turned over the collection to Grundtvig, who with Jørgen Bloch co-edited the Føroya kvæði: Corpus Carminum Færoensium (1876).

[2] In 1854, he extended this call to all types of folklore, building up a nationwide network of collaborators, soon resulting in his three-volume work Danske Minder (1854–61).