Dietrich in the Faroes: Echoes of the German Dietrichepik in the Faroese Oral Tradition

Dietrich of Bern, Tíðrik, appears in four different Faroese ballads: Dvørgamoy V (CCF. nr. 9), Tíðriks kongs rima (CCF. nr. 97), Tíðriks kappar (CCF. nr. 174) and Larvin Dvørgakongur (CCF. nr. 212). Each of these ballads narrates, in poetic form, one of the various adventures of the hero, such as the series of duels in the Rose Garden, or the fight against the dwarf Laurin, which are well-witnessed in the Middle High German poems belonging to the so-called adventiurehafte Dietrichepik. Since these adventurous episodes are also present in the Old Norse Þiðreks saga and in other Scandinavian (Danish or Swedish) ballads, the reception process of the German epic has usually been considered linear with the Middle High German poems as starting point and the Faroese ballads as ultimate reflex of this epic. According to this theory, the path of the Dietrich epic towards the Faroes would have been the following: Germany > (North Germany) > Denmark / Sweden > Faroe Islands. This can be true for some ballads, but not for all of them, as demonstrated by de Boor 1920, who in a detailed analysis of the Faroese Dvørgamoy ballads has shown that some elements seem to have been taken directly from the German poems, without any other Scandinavian mediation. In this study, I characterize the heroic figure of Tíðrek as it is presented in the Faroese oral tradition on the basis of all the recorded texts (a systematic study of the Dietrich matter in the Faroese tradition has up to now never been conducted), trying to identify, in all the ballads and not only in the Dvørgamoy ballads, which elements could speak for a direct contact with the Middle High German epic.