
Nólsoyar Páll (originally, Poul Poulsen Nolsøe) (11 October 1766 – 1808 or 1809) is a
Faroese national hero. He was a
seaman
Seaman may refer to:
* Sailor, a member of a marine watercraft's crew
* Seaman (rank), a military rank in some navies
* Seaman (name) (including a list of people with the name)
* ''Seaman'' (video game), a 1999 simulation video game for the Seg ...
, trader,
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
, farmer and boat builder who tried to develop direct trade between the Faroes and the rest of Europe and introduced
vaccination
Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating ...
to the islands. He went missing in the winter of 1808–1809 sailing home from England.
Life
Poul Poulsen was born in
Nólsoy
Nólsoy (, previously also ''Nölsoy''; ; ) is an island and village in central Faroe Islands, 4km east of the capital Tórshavn in Streymoy.
Description
Nólsoy is the lowest of the Faroes; the highest point is Eggjarklettur (372 m) on the moun ...
, the fourth of seven children. He and his brothers all took the additional name ''Nolsøe'' for the island where they were born.
[John Frederick West, ''Faroe: The Emergence of a Nation'', London: Hurst, 1972, ]
p. 49
After his father's death in 1786 he fulfilled his ambition of going to sea, and travelled widely; he supposedly served in both the British and the French Navy, captained a US merchant vessel,
[West]
p. 50
and also sailed on pirate ships in China. In 1798 he married a woman from his home island, Sigga Maria Tummasdóttir, and was based in Copenhagen for a couple of years, then returned to the Faroes in 1800. His wife died, and in 1801 he remarried to Maren or Marin Malene Ziska, the daughter of a wealthy crown tenant near
Klaksvík
Klaksvík () is the second largest town of the Faroe Islands behind Tórshavn. The town is located on Borðoy, which is one of the northernmost islands (the Norðoyar). It is the administrative centre of Klaksvík municipality.
History
The fir ...
on
Borðoy
Borðoy (, ) is an island in the north-east of the Faroe Islands. Its name means 'headland island'. There are eight settlements: Klaksvík (the second largest town in the Faroes), Norðoyri, Ánir, Árnafjørður, Strond, Norðtoftir, Depil and ...
, and took over another crown tenancy nearby.
[ Jak. Jakobsen, "Nolsøe, Poul Poulsen", '']Dansk biografisk leksikon
''Dansk Biografisk Leksikon'' (usually abbreviated DBL; title of first edition written ''Dansk biografisk Lexikon'') is a Danish biographical dictionary that has been published in three editions. The first edition, ''Dansk biografisk Lexikon, til ...
'', online at Projekt Runeberg, pp. 308–09
p. 308
[Krenn]
p. 75
He was so successful farming there that the
Danish Royal Society for the Advancement of Agriculture awarded him a silver medal,
[ although he died before he could receive it.][Jakobsen]
p. 309
His innovations in shipbuilding, a longer and more sharply rising keel
The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element of a watercraft, important for stability. On some sailboats, it may have a fluid dynamics, hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose as well. The keel laying, laying of the keel is often ...
and a less square sail closer to the lateen
A lateen (from French ''latine'', meaning "Latin") or latin-rig is a triangular sail set on a long Yard (sailing) , yard mounted at an angle on the mast (sailing) , mast, and running in a fore-and-aft direction. The Settee (sail), settee can be ...
, were rapidly adopted. He also designed an improved spinning wheel.
Denied a loan to buy a ship to demonstrate the possibilities of fishing from larger ships, he, his brother-in-law Per Larsen, Jacob Jacobsen and Poul's brothers bought a wrecked ship at auction and rebuilt her at Vágur
Vágur, meaning ''bay'' (), is a town and municipality on the island of Suðuroy, part of the Faroe Islands.
It is situated on the east coast of the island on the Vágsfjørður fjord, and was founded in the fourteenth century. Expansion has mea ...
. Launched on 6 August 1804 and christened (The Free Trial), this schooner
A schooner ( ) is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel defined by its Rig (sailing), rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more Mast (sailing), masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than t ...
was the first seagoing ship built in the Faroe Islands,[ and the first Faroese-owned vessel since the early ]Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
.
Since 1805 was a bad year for fishing, he instead took loads of coal from Suðuroy across the Atlantic to Bergen
Bergen (, ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, second-largest city in Norway after the capital Oslo.
By May 20 ...
and Copenhagen, trying to open up direct trading, but was prevented from importing goods to the Faroes by the Danish Royal Trade Monopoly authorities. Instead, by vaccinating members of his crew successively using material inherited from the ship's previous crew, he succeeded in bringing the first smallpox vaccine
The smallpox vaccine is used to prevent smallpox infection caused by the variola virus. It is the first vaccine to have been developed against a contagious disease. In 1796, British physician Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with th ...
back to the Faroes,[ and with the help of one of his brothers spread vaccination through the islands. The following year, after again attempting to trade directly, he was convicted and fined on two charges of contravention of the trading laws, but cleared of smuggling goods back to the Faroes, having sold them to a Swedish ship in the ]Kattegat
The Kattegat (; ; ) is a sea area bounded by the peninsula of Jutland in the west, the Danish straits islands of Denmark and the Baltic Sea to the south and the Swedish provinces of Bohuslän, Västergötland, Halland and Scania in Swede ...
. He reacted by counter-suing the Tórshavn district sheriff, Joen Christiansen Øre, for large-scale smuggling; the Monopoly officials appear to have been conducting personal trading on the side. However, he seems to have dropped the lawsuit.[West]
p. 58
In 1807, after a year's effort to overcome refusals by the local government in the Faroes and by the Monopoly, he sailed to Copenhagen on as one of a deputation of five presenting a popularly supported proposal for a three-year experimental lifting of the trade restrictions. They had to illegally sell 2,600 knitted sweaters and other merchandise to a Norwegian merchant to finance the voyage, but Crown Prince Frederick, who was governing as regent for his father, and others in Copenhagen were sympathetic, and trade would have been opened up if war with the United Kingdom had not begun.
After the battle in 1807, the British Navy began a six-year blockade
A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force.
A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are ...
of Denmark as part of the ongoing Napoleonic wars, cutting off the Monopoly barley
Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...
trade which had supplied 80% of the Faroes Islanders' grain needs. To stave off famine, Nólsoyar Páll obtained a pass from the British, and brought a load of barley back with him in October 1807. The following summer, after two British ships in succession had plundered the Faroes of all Danish government property, he sailed back to Denmark at the request of the Tórshavn commandant to try to obtain more grain, but was seized by a British warship and irreparably damaged. Taken to London, he and his crew obtained the Privy Council's sympathy and a replacement ship, the ''North Star''; in this ship they sailed soon after 17 November 1808 with what was to have been the first of several grain shipments, but were lost at sea, presumably in the heavy storms of November and December that year, near Sumba.[Wylie, p. 213, note 3.] The famine was not averted until 1810, when an arrangement was made with the British. The depth of the hatred between Nólsoyar Páll and the Tórshavn commandant is demonstrated by the latter expressing his satisfaction the next April at Páll's having not returned, even though he had asked him to sail for help. This led to suspicion, which still persists, that the commandant had arranged Páll's death, perhaps by commissioning a Norwegian privateer (the ''Odin'') to sink Páll's ship south of the Faroes.
Poetry
Nólsoyar Páll was a talented poet known for satirical ballads. He and his youngest brother Jákup often collaborated on poems; the first mature work which can be unequivocally ascribed to Páll is "," about the case of a law-man who refused to recognise the baby he had fathered on his housekeeper: he is portrayed as a heron, the housekeeper as a duck, the judge he tried to buy, a cuckoo, and the unwanted child, a red knot.[ "" is about an unlucky suitor, and mocks the parochialism then very prevalent in the islands. "" mocks the fashion for women to wear a ]fringe
Fringe may refer to:
Arts and music
* "The Fringe", or Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival
* Adelaide Fringe, the world's second-largest annual arts festival
* Fringe theatre, a name for alternative theatre
* Purple fri ...
.[ "" memorialises the cowardice of the commandant of the Tórshavn garrison, who surrendered without a fight to a British gunboat. A rather rushed work, it has been claimed for another poet, but the tone of the mockery and characteristics such as Nólsoy vocabulary indicate it is by Nólsoyar Páll.
His best known work is "" (Ballad of the Birds), a 229-stanza work in which birds of prey symbolise the Danish authorities, and the poet himself warns the smaller birds in the guise of an ]oystercatcher
The oystercatchers are a group of waders forming the family (biology), family Haematopodidae, which has a single genus, ''Haematopus''. They are found on coasts worldwide apart from the polar regions and some tropical regions of Africa and Sout ...
, which was later chosen to be the national bird of the Faroe Islands.[ The ballad said in poetic form what could not have been said in plain speech; it sold many copies.
]
Influence
Nólsoyar Páll almost succeeded in opening the Faroes to direct trading over half a century early,[ although most of his inspiration was posthumous. His ideas, and the training he provided to Faroese in ocean-going sailing began the development of deep-sea fishing, which later brought the islands prosperity; Klaksvík, where he lived and hauled up for the winter, has become one of the fishing ports.][West]
p. 67
He was an exemplary patriot and has become a national hero.[ In his poem "" (The Return of Nólsoyar Páll), Janus Djurhuus wrote of his voyage home, drawn by Beinisvørð, symbolising the independent islands.Beinisvørð]
at Faroestamps.fo, 6 October 2006, Retrieved 25 September 2011.
In fiction
* Johannes Helms. Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1893. novel
* Steinbjørn B. Jacobsen. ''Nólsoyar Páll''. Tórshavn: Fannir, 2000. drama
References
Sources
* Rolf Guttesen: Poul P. Nolsöe - Skúmisleiv og Tjóðarhetja. Forlagið Glyvursnes 496 sider, Tórshavn 2019
* Jakob Jakobsen
Jakob Jakobsen (22 February 1864 — 15 August 1918) was a Faroe Islanders, Faroese linguist and scholar. The first Faroe Islander to earn a doctoral degree, his thesis on the Norn language of Shetland was a major contribution to its historical ...
. ''Poul Nolsöe, lívssøga og irkingar''. 12 parts. Tórshavn: Jakobsen, 1908–12. Repr. ed. Chr. Aigens, 1966.
* Ernst Krenn. ''Der Föroyische Dichter Páll Nólsoy und sein Vogellied''. Illinois Studies in Languages and Literature vol. 23, no. 4. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1939.
External links
"Heimferð Nólsoyar Páls" - "The Return of Nólsoyar Poul"
poem by Janus Djurhuus and 2004 postage stamp featuring it at Faroeartstamps.fo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nolsoyar Pall
1766 births
1809 deaths
People from Tórshavn Municipality
18th-century Faroese poets
Faroese-language poets
19th-century Faroese poets
Faroese male poets
18th-century Faroese people
19th-century Faroese people
19th-century male writers
18th-century male writers
19th-century Danish farmers
18th-century Danish farmers