Open AccessThe Norn Hildina Ballad from the Shetland Islands: Scandinavian parallels and attempts at reconstruction/translation
Author(s) -
Mariano González Campo
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
selim. sociedad española de lengua y literatura inglesa medieval/selim. sociedad española de lengua y literatura inglesa medieval
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2792-3878
pISSN - 1132-631X
DOI - 10.17811/selim.25.2020.61-119
Subject(s) - shetland , parallels , ballad , george (robot) , history , icelandic , variety (cybernetics) , literature , classics , ancient history , art , poetry , geography , linguistics , art history , philosophy , mechanical engineering , artificial intelligence , computer science , forestry , engineering
The Shetland Islands, together with the Orkney Islands, were until the nineteenth century a remarkable reservoir of the so-called Norn language, an extinct insular variety of Old Norse closely related to Icelandic and, specially, Faroese. Norn was preserved in these North-Atlantic British islands in form of single words, proverbs, or prayers. However, the longest and most complete text in Norn is the Shetlandic Hildina Ballad, collected on the small island of Foula in 1774 by George Low and consisting of thirtyfive stanzas. In this article I intend to offer a comparative approach to this Norn oral text refering to its Scandinavian parallels and the attempts at reconstruction and translation carried out by several scholars such as Marius Hægstad, Sophus Bugge, William G. Collinwood, Norah Kershaw, or Eigil Lehmann.