Ingierd Gunnarsdotter (1601–1686) was a Swedish peasant wife and

ballad 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 ...

singer from Lyrestad parish in

Västergötland Västergötland (), also known as West Gothland or the Latinized version Westrogothia in older literature, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish), situated in the southwest of Sweden. Väs ...

. She is known as the source of information of 57

folksong 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 b ...

s, some of which are known and preserved only through her, and which were documented by the official Erich Sparrman on the order of the royal Swedish National Heritage Board in 1678. According to Sparrman, she knew many more, about 300, but as she was old and weak and not willing to cooperate, he was only able to have a very limited number of them.

Sources

* Sven-Bertil Jansson, Den levande balladen, Prisma. 1999. (Utgiven av Svenskt visarkiv.) * Leif Jonsson, Ann-Marie Nilsson & Greger Andersson : Musiken i Sverige. Från forntid till stormaktstidens slut 1720 (1994)

Sources

Further reading