Svend Grundtvig by Christensen & Zahrtmann

Svend Hersleb Grundtvig (9 September 1824,

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...

– 14 July 1883,

Frederiksberg Frederiksberg () is a part of the Capital Region of Denmark. It is formally an independent municipality, Frederiksberg Municipality, separate from Copenhagen Municipality, but both are a part of the City of Copenhagen. It occupies an area of ...

) was a Danish

literary historian The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment (concept), enlightenment, or Education, instruction to the reader/listener/observer, as well as the devel ...

and

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

. He was one of the first systematic collectors of

Danish traditional music 350px, ''Rebild Spillemandslaug'', a Evald_Thomsen.html"_;"title="guild_of_traditional_musicians_founded_by_Evald_Thomsen">guild_of_traditional_musicians_founded_by_Evald_Thomsen. Danish_traditional_music_(Danish_language.html" "title="Evald_Thom ...

, and he was especially interested in Danish

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...

s. He began the large project of editing Danish

ballads A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or '' ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

. He also co-edited Icelandic

. He was the son of N. F. S. Grundtvig.

Biography

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 Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period ...

Saxo Grammaticus Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1150 – c. 1220), also known as Saxo cognomine Longus, was a Danish historian, theologian and author. He is thought to have been a clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, the main advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark ...

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. When 19, after his father accompanied him on a study tour to England, Grundtvig published Danish translations of English and Scottish ballads before devoting his life to the collection and study of Danish folk tales and ballads. In a manifesto in 1844, he encouraged Danish men and women to record national ballads still in popular usage. He was the first editor of the multi-volume ''

Danmarks gamle Folkeviser ''Danmarks gamle Folkeviser'' is a collection of (in principle) all known texts and recordings of the old Danish popular ballads. It drew both on early modern manuscripts, such as Karen Brahes Folio, and much more recent folk-song collecting activi ...

'', whose mantle was taken up by other editors. 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 Jørgen is a Danish, Norwegian, and Faroese masculine given name cognate to George People with the given name Jørgen * Jørgen Aall (1771–1833), Norwegian ship-owner and politician * Jørgen Andersen (1886–1973), Norwegian gymnast * Jørgen ...

co-edited the '' Føroya kvæði: Corpus Carminum Færoensium'' (1876). 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). In 1876, he published ''Danske folkeæventyr'', the first of three volumes of Danish folk tales."Svend Grundtvigs eventyr og den mundtlige tradition"
, ''Dansk Folkemindesamling''. Retrieved 27 November 2011.

Own works

Grundtvig's published works, all in Danish, include: * ''Engelske og skotske folkeviser'', 1842–1846 * ''Gamle danske minder i Folkemunde'', 1854–61 **

I Know What I Have Learned I know what I have learned is a Danish fairy tale, collected by Svend Grundtvig in ''Gamle Danske Minder i Folkemunde''. Andrew Lang included it in '' The Pink Fairy Book''. Synopsis A man's three daughters were all married to troll A trol ...

* ''Danske Kæmpeviser'', 1867 * ''Danske Folkeæventyr'', 1876–83 * ''Danmarks Folkeviser i Udvalg'', 1882

References

Literature

*Grundtvig, Sven, Jesse Grant Cramer (translator): ''Danish Fairy Tales''. Boston: The Four Seas Company, 1912, 118 p. *Grundtvig, Sven, Gustav Hein (translator): ''Danish Fairy Tales''. New York, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1914, 219 p.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Grundtvig, Svend 1824 births 1883 deaths Danish literary historians Danish folk-song collectors Danish ethnographers Danish folklorists Collectors of fairy tales 19th-century musicologists