Jens Christian Djurhuus

Jens Christian Djurhuus , called Sjóvarbóndin (born August 21, 1773 in Nes (Eysturoy) , Faroe Islands ; † November 29, 1853 in Kollafjørður ) was a Faroese farmer and the first poet to write in Faroese .

The orally transmitted Faroese ballads inspired him to rewrite other ballads according to old legends in the traditional style, which are still very popular among the Faroese . His learned contemporaries saw him as a living skald . Together with Nólsoyar Páll he was the first literary representative of Faroese romanticism .

Family and farm

Jens Christian was the fourth son of Johan Christian Djurhuus (1741-1815) and Maria Hansdatter Rønning (1741 in Norway - 1807). His older siblings were Inger Maria, Hans Hendrik and Annika Hedveg. The latter later married the Danish Faroe explorer Jørgen Landt . It is believed that he went to the Latin school in Tórshavn . But it can also be that he received private lessons. In any case, as an adult he could read and write well and thus established the poetic fame of the Djurhuus dynasty.

In 1797 he married Jóhanna Maria Jensdóttir from Kollafjørður, the daughter of the farmer Jens Didriksen, Við Sjógv in Kollafjørður. Jóhanna Maria had no siblings and was therefore the sole heir to the Við Sjógv farm. In the same year Djurhuus got the farm for lease. Hence the name Sjóvarbóndin - "the farmer við Sjógv" or literally "the farmer by the sea" ( sjóvar is the genitive of sjógv (sea, lake) and bóndin means the farmer). By Faroese standards it was a considerable possession. In 1801 13 people lived here, and Carl Julian von Graba reported in 1828 that 300 sheep were slaughtered here every year. The couple had eight sons and two daughters between 1799 and 1816.

In 1967 Petur Mohr Dam wrote about cultural life on the farm :

"The Roykstova culture at Við Sjógv farm in Kollafjørður with its ballads, stories, sagas, proverbs and discussions about everything that was topical at the time, both at home and abroad, has - like nowhere else in the Faroe Islands - shaped and influenced the people's soul and attitudes. The Roykstova of this yard was the meeting point of the whole village. This is where the old and young met in the winter evenings. In this whole powerful Roykstova life it was the [respective] peasants of the farm who formed the center of the community. "

- Petur Mohr Dam : "Jóhann við Sjógv". In: Úrval no. 2, Tórshavn, 1967

The poet

Jens Christian Djurhuus was the first poet to write in Faroese . Here he took the Faroese ballads as a model, which have been passed down orally since the Middle Ages and were systematically collected for the first time by Jens Christian Svabo (from 1781 ). His most famous ballads ( kvæði ) are Ormurin langi , and the two ballads about Leivur Øssurson and Sigmundur Brestisson . His best known way of ridicule ( táttur ) is Lorvíks Páll . He also translated John Milton's Paradise Lost and called it Púkaljómur (devil's ballad ).

Kristian Djurhuus (one of the descendants) wrote in 1978:

“It is said that he [Jens Christian Djurhuus] only wrote poetry in winter, when people were sitting in the Roykstova and processing wool. The old man sat there in the parlor, reading and writing. When he was done with a few verses and found a melody to go with, he would come to the Roykstova and sing for the people until they could sing along. Then the old man went back and continued to write. And so the winter evenings passed. When Mardi Gras approached, he had the tune done, and he and the people in the yard could dance the Faroese chain dance and sing the tune from beginning to end. At Mardi Gras, they attended traditional dance gatherings and the farmer sang while the servants sang along. And in this way his sages spread among the people. They all learned them by heart. In the following winter the farmer could then start with the next way. "

- Kristian Djurhuus : Ættartavla, við viðmerkingum ("Family Tree with Notes" - unpublished manuscript, 1978)

In fact, Djurhuus' ballads quickly spread throughout the Faroe Islands. This is due to the clear, pure language in which they were written and the ancient style of skaldic poetry . It was the time of national romanticism that also gripped the Nordic countries. Svabo's pioneering work was followed by people like Johan Hendrik Schrøter , who helped the Dane Hans Christian Lyngbye with the publication of the first book in Faroese: Færøiske Quæder om Sigurd Fofnersbane og hans Æt . This brought the Faroe Islands' cultural heritage to the attention of the outside world, and it was interesting for experts that there were people like Jens Christian Djurhuus who did new poetry in the tradition of the ancient skalds . Among those scholars was the young VU Hammershaimb , who visited the Faroe Islands as a student in 1841 and visited Djurhuus in Kollafjørður on August 5th. Even if nothing has been handed down from the meeting, it must have been a great moment for Faroese culture: the founder of a new Faroese literature meets the founder of the New Faroese written language.

Djurhuus' ballad poetry was new for its time. Until then, there were only newer ridiculous verses ( táttur ), in addition to the orally transmitted folk tunes , which were aimed at individual villagers. Djurhuus was the first to take on more serious subjects and to write them for the first time in Faroese. According to Hanus Kamban, his family background may play a role here. The paternal grandparents came from Denmark, the mother from Norway. The mother was never to see her homeland again after she went to the Faroe Islands, and so a deep longing could have awakened the artistic streak in the son. There is also the legend that his mother was a descendant of Håkon Jarl , the father of Jarl Erik, the main character in Ormurin langi . This could explain his strong interest in the old mythical material. However, he can hardly have got his special interest in the Faroese language and traditional dance styles from his parents. Kamban explains this with his youth on the farm in Nes, where he grew up with the Roykstova culture and learned Faroese.

Djurhuus' own ballads are based on historical texts from Icelandic literature of the Middle Ages , namely old sagas such as the Faroese sagas or Heimskringla . Hammershaimb wrote in 1891:

“... during my stay up there [in the Faroe Islands] I was often asked to borrow old Icelandic sagas that could provide material for a ballad poem, and that happened - not infrequently beautiful and good in the old style, see for example the ballad Ormurin langi . "

- VU Hammershaimb : Færøsk Anthologi, 1891

In the same book, Hammershaimb published this song among many others, making it accessible to the scholarly world of the time. It is thanks to the Viking Metal group Týr that Ormurin langi is now known to a wider international public.

Jens Christian Djurhuus' ballads are still the most popular and most sung in the Faroe Islands today.

The human being

In his work on Janus Djurhuus (a great-grandson of Jens Christian Djurhuus), Hanus Kamban writes of contradicting information about the person Djurhuus. So he leads literary scholars who certify a withdrawn nature. He is said to have been a "couch potato". The quotation from Kristian Djurhuus above paints the picture of the “sympathetic patriarch”, while in the Faroe Islands it was said that he was “not doing his job properly”, was a “joker who liked to make fun of others”, or “just like Janus ”(his great-grandson). Kamban notes that it was customary in the Faroe Islands to mistake all people for idleness or crazy who “were interested in something other than the daily drudgery and dragging”.

Descendants

Jens Christian Djurhuus' eldest son Jens Hendrik Djurhuus (* 1799 ) continued the work of his father.

His most famous descendants are probably the two great-grandchildren, the brothers Janus Djurhuus and Hans Andrias Djurhuus .

See also

• Faroese literature

literature

• Hanus Kamban : JHO Djurhuus: En litterær biografi . Odense Universitetsforlag, 2001 - ISBN 87-7838-604-7 (Volume I, p. 25 ff.)