Medieval Scandinavian Ballads

[Germanic Mythology: Fornaldarsögur Nordurlanda]
  Viktor Rydberg, the Swedish poet and scholar, once said, "To the degree that Christianity spread among the Teutons and the ancient myth-structure disintegrated, building-blocks were drawn out of its ruins by degrees for the heroic sagas and for legends as well." The same can be said of medieval Scandinavian ballads, some of which clearly contain material borrowed from Old Norse mythology.

 
Ancient Swedish Ballads
Svenska Fornsånger, Volume I 
Compiled by
Adolf Iwar Arwidsson
Thors Hammar-Hemtning
[The Tale of Thrymskvida]
 I. Thor and the Ogre
II. Thord of Meerseburg
Stolt Herr Alf Proud Lord Elf
Widrik Werlandsson
 och Lang-Ben-Rese i Bertilaland
Vidrik Verlandsson
and the battle with the Long-leg giant
Audio by Skadi Press
 Skrujmsli Rujma/Skrymners Riim The Lay of Skrymner the First 
Loka þáttur Loki's Tale
Svipdagsmál: The Ballad of Svipdag
"The Grogaldr and Fiölsvinns-mál (i.e., the Charm of Groa and the Song of Allwise), which we have only as separate poems, have been recognised as parts of one original poem by means of the still living Danish ballad of 'Young Svendal," which evidently has sprung out of them by a process of modernization." —Fraser's Magazine, 1861

Sophus Bugge, "Excursus on Svipdagsmál": Partial translation of Ungen Svendal and another ballad (1856)
Hertig Silfverdal, Svenska folk-wisor från forntiden Erik Gustaf Geijer & Arwid August Afzelius (1814)Ungen Svendal in Svend Gundtvig's Danmarks gamle folkeviser: Vol II: Trylleviser, no. 70 (1856) 
Young Swennendal in R.C. Alexander Prior's Ancient Danish Legends, Vol. II. (1860)
Young Swaigder, or The Force of Runes, Translated by George Borrow (1913)
Young Svejdal in Axel Olrik's A Book of Danish Ballads, Translated by E. M. Smith-Dampier (1939)
Audio: Young Sir Svedendal,  Skadi Press 2016




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