Svend Grundtvig

Svend Hersleb Grundtvig (9 September 1824 – 14 July 1883) was a Danish literary historian and ethnographer. He was one of the first systematic collectors of Danish traditional music, and was especially interested in Danish folk songs. He began the large project of editing Danish ballads. He also co-edited Icelandic ballads. He was the son of N. F. S. Grundtvig.

Biography Grundtvig was born in Copenhagen. 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, Saxo Grammaticus 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 he was 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, whose mantle was taken up by other editors. Grundtvig 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 co-edited the Føroya kvæði: Corpus Carminum Færoensium (1876). He died in Frederiksberg.

Teaching He embraced teaching with interest, and in his lively and clear lectures he aimed at the essential; and from now on the field of his studies expanded considerably. Already in the competition lectures he had given a spirited "View of the heroic poetry of ancient Nordic times" (1863); he then published for use in his lectures a "critical manuscript" of Sæmund's Edda (1868, new edition 1874); against Jakob Rudolf Keyser's Norwegian theories he spoke out in a weighty, albeit one-sided, contribution in the treatises: "On the Old Literature of the North, a Review and Objection" (1867), "Is the Old Literature of the North Norwegian? or is it partly Icelandic and partly Nordic?" (1869).

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