''The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad: A Descriptive Catalogue'' (TSB) is the designation for a cataloguing system for Scandinavian ballads.
It is also the title of the underlying reference book: ''The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad: A Descriptive Catalogue'', edited by Bengt R. Jonsson,
Svale Solheim
Svale Solheim (15 February 1903 – 20 December 1971) was a Norwegian folklorist. He was born in Naustdal. He graduated from the University of Oslo in 1934. He worked at the institution ''Norsk Folkeminnesamling'' from 1952 to 1956, and was app ...
and Eva Danielson, in collaboration with Mortan Nolsøe and W. Edson Richmond, published in 1978 in two places: as volume 5 of the series Skrifter utgivna av svenskt visarkiv (Stockholm: Svenskt visarkiv), and as volume 59 of series B of Oslo's Instituttet for sammenkignende kulturforskning (The
Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture ( no, Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning) is a humanities research institute based in Oslo, Norway.
It was established in 1922 by Fredrik Stang. An independent institute, its task ...
) (Oslo, Bergen, and Tromsø:
Universitetsforlaget
Universitetsforlaget AS (English: "The University Press"), also known in English as Scandinavian University Press, is a Norwegian academic publishing company, which publishes non-fiction literature and journals mainly oriented to Scandinavia. U ...
; ).
It attempts to classify all specimens of traditional ballads known in one or more of the Scandinavian languages (
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
,
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
,
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
,
Icelandic,
Faeroese, and the extinct
Norn
Norn may refer to:
*Norn language, an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken in Northern Isles of Scotland
*Norns, beings from Norse mythology
*Norn Iron, the local pronunciation of Northern Ireland
*Norn iron works, an old industrial co ...
).
Structure and scope
Cognate ballads are assigned the same "TSB No." such as "A 38" (A 38: "
The Two Sisters"), "A 50" (A 50: "
Harpans kraft"), or "A65" (A 65: "
Elvehøj
''Elvehøj'' (''Elf Hill'') is the Danish name of a Scandinavian ballad (''Danmarks gamle folkeviser'' no. 46), known in Swedish as ''Älvefärd'' (''Sveriges medeltida ballader'' no. 31), type A 65 ('knight released from elves at dawn') in '' ...
— Knight released from elves at dawn").
It is somewhat analogous to the
Aarne–Thompson classification system or
motif-index for folktale studies, except that each ballad can only have one TSB No., whereas any given folktale can exhibit several motifs.
The TSB divides its list of types into six groups (with some subgroups), as below. The division essentially follows the one by
A. I. Arwidsson, and
Svend Grundtvig
Svend Hersleb Grundtvig (9 September 1824, Copenhagen – 14 July 1883, Frederiksberg) was a Danish literary historian and ethnographer. He was one of the first systematic collectors of Danish traditional music, and he was especially interested ...
's original division in ''
Danmarks gamle folkeviser'' (DgF); however, many of the ballads Grundtvig placed in group C have been reclassified. The number of ballad types in each group in the second printed edition of TSB from 1978 is given within parentheses. Since then, more types have been added to group F.
Each ballad type is given a short description, including a summary of the differences of the variants of the ballad and how they differ, and comprises a list of appearances in various Nordic ballad collections.
Almost all of the ballad types given in the Danish (DgF), Faroese (
CCF), Icelandic (
IFkv), or Swedish (
SMB) ballad type listings also have a specific TSB type listing. (The exceptions are a few texts, which now are known to be of rather recent origin, or are otherwise found to be deficient.)
Norsk visearkiv
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
*Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
*Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including the ...
, which is responsible for the corresponding Norwegian ballad project, has decided to employ the TSB classification directly. Many Scandinavian ballad types are also easily recognised in ballad collections from other languages. E.g., the aforementioned type TSB A 38 corresponds to
Child 10.
See also
*
Danmarks gamle Folkeviser
*
Sveriges Medeltida Ballader
*
List of folk song collections
This is a list of folk song collections including pioneer and notable work in collecting folk songs.
Many such collections were made in the 19th century. The earlier ones are often considered to be parts of the National Romanticist interests in fo ...
Footnotes
Citations
References
* / .
*
External links
*
The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad' (PDF)
Listing of the publications from
Svenskt VisarkivSwedish medieval balladsOral ballads as national litteratureExample entry
for type A 38, "Den talende strængeleg/De två systrarna – The Two Sisters" (in Swedish, with the entry itself in English)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad
Scandinavian folklore
Ballads