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Herr Tønne af Alsø

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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

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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

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  1. ^ "Balladar". Dokumentasjonsprosjektet. University of Oslo. Retrieved 30 August 2014.
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ 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.