Herr Tønne af Alsø
Appearance
Herr Tønne af Alsø ('Sir Tønne of Alsø') is a Danish ballad (The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad A 62; Danmarks gamle Folkeviser 34). Danmarks gamle Folkeviser records two versions: A (73 stanzas) and B (38); it also appears in Norway and Sweden. Dokumentasjonsprosjektet in Norway notes eight different variants, one dating back to the 1840s.[1]
Summary
[edit]In the summary of The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad,
- While out hunting Sir Tønne meets the daughter of a mountain gnome. She plays runic love spells for him on her golden harp and he is enchanted. But her mother, who is a human being, comes and breaks the spell. She tells Tønne to rescue her niece ... who is kept a prisoner by a king at Uppsala ... Tønne goes there, defeats the king's men and frees the maid.[2]
In the Swedish texts, the king is in Iceland rather than Uppsala, and in some of these Tønne rescues the sister, not the niece, of the mountain gnome's daughter.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ "Balladar". Dokumentasjonsprosjektet. University of Oslo. Retrieved 30 August 2014.
- ^ The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad: A Descriptive Catalogue, ed. by Bengt R. Jonsson, Svale Solheim and Eva Danielson, Skrifter utgivna av svenskt visarkiv, 5 (Stockholm: Svenskt visarkiv, 1978), p. 42.
- ^ The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad: A Descriptive Catalogue, ed. by Bengt R. Jonsson, Svale Solheim and Eva Danielson, Skrifter utgivna av svenskt visarkiv, 5 (Stockholm: Svenskt visarkiv, 1978), p. 42.