Tradition and tales on the Faroe Islands

Traditions are certain actions, tales and customs that are handed down through generations in a continuous movement of gradual change. Traditions and tales are interpreted and given new functions in new contexts and are constantly influenced by new currents in global culture. When talking about a common Faroese tradition, it is important to make it clear that tradition is always a changing story, told with many voices and in interaction with time and environment.

Legends and fairy tales

In the Faroe Islands, as in many other places, many legends and tales associated with events, people and places have been preserved. The oral tradition deals with both real people with special stories and characteristics attached to them and supernatural beings such as hidden people, trolls, nixes and seal women. Tales like these, together with definite folk tales, have been documented in writing since the 18th century, first by visitors with an interest in the subject and later by the Faroese themselves.

Much of this tradition is reproduced in popular ballads but has also been published in books and reused in literature in various ways after Faroese had its own written language in 1846. In recent years, together with material from the Færeyingasaga, they have become the subject of artistic expressions of various kinds, for example many statues and sculptures with motifs from traditional tales are placed around the islands. Among these is the statue Seyðamaðurin á Sondum in Sandavágur, which was unveiled in 2021. This is another way of telling stories and keeping the tradition alive, but the renewed interest is also linked to a growing tourist industry and the desire to create interesting destinations with stories about the place and things to photograph.

These two motives sometimes collide. General agreement is not always reached on which stories should be told, or on how a certain tale is best represented. Hans Pauli Olsen’s interpretation of the legend of the seal woman at Mikladalur thus triggered a rather heated discussion about whether it was really appropriate for the seal woman, who was a victim of sexual violence and oppression, to turn her face and chest towards the village and the tourists. Wasn’t this a way of objectifying the female body and repeating the abuse in the tale? Some felt that it would have been more appropriate to have her turn her back on the village to commemorate that she actually managed to escape from her abuser, the farmer from Mikladalur. But that motif would hardly have been as popular as a destination. It is also still being debated whether Sigmundur Brestisson, who allegedly Christianised the Faroe Islands, was actually the great hero that the Færeyingasaga makes him out to be. Wasn’t Tróndur í Gøtu, the so-called pagan scoundrel, and the rest of the Faroese in fact both free and Christian when Sigmundur Brestisson placed the islands under the Norwegian king and thereby founded the islands’ further destiny as subjects? Today, Tróndur is seen by many as a symbol of the Faroese desire for freedom and independence, and he has been given his own statue in Norðragøta.

Traditional tales can be used in different ways, and there are many ways to relate to them, depending on the message you are trying to convey. It is therefore unlikely that people will stop telling tales. They are also used in school, where legends and fairy tales form part of the curriculum.

The seal women in Mikladalur

A legend says that seals are actually people who have had an accident or committed suicide at sea, and that on the Twelfth Night they come ashore to shed off their sealskin and dance.

One night, a young farmer’s son from Mikladalur took the sealskin from a beautiful woman. Without her skin, she could not join the other seals back into the sea, so she had to follow him home. He locked the skin in a chest, married the woman and had several children with her. One day he went fishing and left the key to the chest at home. The seal woman found the key, unlocked the chest, put on the skin and disappeared back into the sea.

Some time later, she came to her husband in a dream, the night before the men of the village were to go seal hunting. She begged him to spare her mate and their two seal pups. But he ignored her plea, killed both the mate and cubs and cooked them for dinner. But as he and the men were eating, the seal woman entered in the guise of a troll and cursed them all. She swore that so many of the village’s inhabitants would fall from the cliffs or drown in the sea that the dead could reach around the entire island before the revenge was complete.

It thus became a misfortune for Mikladalur that they defied the seal woman.

Traditions

In older times, certain villages celebrated certain holidays, and this is reflected in the attention given to the holidays today. They had Christmas, New Year’s, Epiphany, Candlemas or Shrovetide villages, and guests from other villages came to celebrate and dance in the respective villages during the various holidays.

In Vágur on Suðuroy, much effort is still spent on making New Year’s Eve a special occasion. A large torchlight procession culminates with a bonfire and the burning of an old boat. In Sumba, also on Suðuroy, they put more effort into Shrovetide, where the all residents of the village meet to hit the cat out of the barrel.

Shrovetide is celebrated in most places by both adults and children, and in many workplaces it is also a day of celebration – however, in some places, the party is held on the Friday before Shrovetide. On Shrovetide itself, the children dress up and go like grýla from house to house and knock on the door to get candy in their bags.

The Faroese chain dance and accompanying ballads are perceived by many as an important part of Faroese tradition. Despite great competition from other dances, it is still performed on various occasions. The Faroese national bird tjaldur (the oystercatcher) arrives at the Faroe Islands around Grækarismessa on March 12. Its arrival, which also marks the beginning of spring and the light, is celebrated with local parades, music and speeches. Although the weather is often bad, scouts faithfully line up to march through their hometown.

Flag Day on the 25th April of marks the recognition of the Faroese flag, Merkið, by British authorities during World War II. On this day, the scouts are joined by members of the local sports clubs, who march with the flag to brass music to the place where the speech is to be given to the many assembled residents. In the speech, depending on temperament and political conviction, the flag can be emphasised as a national symbol of independence or as a unifying emblem. The focus of the speech is therefore often awaited with much anticipation.

Easter week and Easter have long been a quiet church holiday, sometimes with musical events. Good Friday is the most closed day of all in the Faroe Islands, but since the beginning of the 2020s attempts have been made to make it an evening where you can go out on the town like any other Friday evening. On the second day of Easter, the children go out to ‘roll Easter eggs’ in suitable grassy places: They let decorated hard-boiled eggs roll down the hills until the shell cracks. The tradition is believed to have Danish origins.

The summer is characterised by village gatherings, stevnur, with sports events, where the most important thing is rowing races with Faroesetype boats. To this should be added other sports events, art exhibitions, cultural events and entertainment, especially for children. Ólavsøka is the biggest and last summer festival celebrated in Tórshavn on 28‑29 July. Faroese from all over the country and many who live abroad travel to Tórshavn to take part in the festivities. For many, it is a tradition to have an open house, so that friends and acquaintances can come to visit and enjoy food and good company between the other items on the programme. Many gather in the centre of Tórshavn when, on the morning of 29 July, the members of the Løgting walk in procession from the Løgting House to the service in the cathedral and back again all dressed up, many in national costume, and the event is broadcast live on television. At midnight on 29 July, thousands of people again flock to the centre of Tórshavn, Vaglið, for community singing which ends with chain dancing. Since 2012, the LGBT movement has kicked off ólavsøka with a large and festive Pride Parade with thousands of participants on 27 July.

In addition to the various village gatherings, there have been several outdoor music festivals in the past 20 years, which for many people are equally important, and which have both spawned new traditions and forced the traditional village gatherings to rethink their programme.

Late summer and autumn are often marked by traditions associated with sheep farming and hunting for birds and long-finned pilot whales. These activities often take place together with family and friends and are an opportunity to pass on knowledge about traditional ways of obtaining and preparing food.

Chain dance

The chain dance in the Faroe Islands is believed to have developed from the medieval chain dances which were widespread in Europe. In 1616, an Icelandic traveller described the dance as ‘Faroese’, so already at that time it stood out from other dances, even though it was clearly associated with a common Nordic ballad tradition from the 1300s-1400s. The hallmark of the Faroese chain dance is that it is danced to the chanting of ballads in either Faroese or Danish. There are no musical instruments involved and the dance is very much about storytelling. The ballads can either be old Faroese ballads by unknown poets or Danish folk songs, which became very popular and in some villages completely supplanted the Faroese ballads. In the 19th century, several new ballads were composed based on traditional models by known poets.

The dance is led by a lead singer called skipari, who remembers the lyrics and adapts the melody and beat to the dance. He or she begins each verse in the place which is best suited for the simple dance rhythm, which is two steps to the left and one to the right. The other dancers support the lead singer by chanting the rest of the verse and chorus. The ballad melodies are perceived as musical frameworks that are varied and paraphrased, and they are extremely diverse, depending on which villages the performers come from. It is important for the good dance experience that the leader is allowed to lead the dance and thereby control the mood.

The dancers move in a closed circle, which swing around in various wobbles within the circle. The participants gradually all pass each other face to face and show with knowing glances, smiles and gestures their participation in the story. The good dance experience is a fusion of story, melody and movement and a shared engagement in the actions and passages of the ballad. For an outsider, it might therefore be difficult to get an adequate impression of the dance, as the dancers are facing each other and have their back turned to the outside world.

The chain dance was in retreat at the end of the 1800s, when it received competition from international ballroom dances with instrumental accompaniment, at the same time as it faced opposition from religious revivalist movements. The founding of dancing clubs, first in Tórshavn in 1952 and later in several other villages, has made it possible to hold on to the tradition.

Efforts are made to teach the children to dance, and since 1997, the chain dance has been a mandatory activity in primary school; many schools dance with the children during the traditional dance season from Christmas to Shrovetide. Several dancing clubs organise children’s dances in the winter, and every year a dancing gathering for children is held with several hundred participants from all over the country.

Today, there are 17 dancing clubs represented in the umbrella organisation Sláið Ring. Members of the clubs are often engaged to contribute to official visits or as part of programmes for tourists. These shows are often spiced up with old singing games called dansispøl to get a more varied choreography.

In 2020, the chain dance was included in the Faroese inventory of intangible cultural heritage, prepared in connection with the implementation of the UNESCO convention from 2003.

Føroysk klæðir – the national costume

With its many sheep, the Faroe Islands have from ancient times been a woolproducing country, both for its own use and for export. Cattle hides and sheepskins have been used for shoes, and the sheepskin has also been used by the fishermen for the protective suit called sjóstúka. The wool has been spun into yarn, woven into wadmal or knitted into various garments, which were of great importance until a few decades ago. Recent years have seen renewed interest in the knitting craft.

Faroese klæðir is today very popular as a full dress and is used on special solemn occasions, e.g. when presenting diplomas, and this applies to both men and women. At ólavsøka 28‑29 July, the Faroese folk costume is widely seen in the streets of Tórshavn.

The folk costume has its origins in the old commoner’s dress, which in its time was also influenced by European fashion trends. It got its current form and composition around the turn of the century in 1900, which is a result of the development of national consciousness; before this, Danish bourgeois party clothes were used. The old traditional finery called stakkur, where skirt and top are made in one piece, had gone out of fashion. The stakkur was worn with silver ornaments (stakkastás) in the form of needles, silver chains, brooches etc., which now no longer had any practical use. At the beginning of the 1900s, the women did not use any silver ornaments on what became the folk costume. The scarf hung loosely down the front, and the silver ornaments that had previously been used with the stakkur, found a new place here. The stakkur has since been revived as a variation of the female folk costume, where the silver ornaments are also used.

Today, the women’s costume consists of an ankle-length skirt, and a shirt, on which the silver ornaments are attached to a vest. Over the shoulders, most have a woven scarf topped with a möttul or mantle. In the earlier commoners’ dress, the striped women’s skirt could have many different colours, but in the national costume, the stripes tend to be limited to red or blue on a black background.

The man’s hat was made of the same fabric as the women’s skirt. Young men wore red hats and older men blue. The blue hat was also used for funerals. The men’s costume consists of kneelength wadmal trousers with silver buttons, long socks and buckled shoes. On top of a shirt, there is an embroidered waistcoat which comes in different colours, e.g. red or black. Most also wear ties, but you also see men with bow ties. A patterned knitted open sweater, often blue, or a kot – a brown wadmel coat – is used as outerwear. When dressing up, the men use a sjóstúka, which is longer than the wadmel coat kot. The name is the same as the fishermen’s sea coat, but the new form of sjóstúka is inspired by the French garment juste au corps, which after a phonetic adaptation became sjóstúka in Faroese. The special hat stavnhetta also belonged to this.

Unlike in Norway, there are no rules for how a folk costume should look. Specially skilled seamstresses make the costumes, and most stick to the traditional main lines, albeit with careful experiments in the stripes of the skirts, scarves and the design of individual parts. The costume is thus not stagnant and a personal touch can be added.

Further reading

• Association activities and volunteering on the Faroe Islands
• Building style on the Faroe Islands
• Churches on the Faroe Islands
• Crafts and design on the Faroe Islands
• Eating and dining on the Faroe Islands
• Film on the Faroe Islands
• G! Festival
• Gøtu Fornminnisfelag (Museum Association)
• Languages and dialects on the Faroe Islands
• Literature on the Faroe Islands
• Media on the Faroe Islands
• Museums of cultural history and heritage on the Faroe Islands
• Music on the Faroe Islands
• Religion and religious communities on the Faroe Islands
• Sports on the Faroe Islands
• Theater on the Faroe Islands
• Visual arts on the Faroe Islands

Read more about Culture on the Faroe Islands