So hey, like a year ago I was thinking about translating the Norweigan version of the Song of Roland. I did a little more poking around today, after discovering one of the links I'd found last year died.
(Oh... did I miss the blog's birthday? I think I did. Happy Birthday, Blog!)
One sheet music vendor identified the tune as being from the Faroe Islands. Huh? I thought it was Norweigan. I thought the answer was here, in an awful Google translation of a Norweigan page. It looks like the lyrics were collected sometime in the 1800s and a folklorist (specializing in dance) put the words to Faroese music in 1921. (That page cites a 1985 edition of her work, but it was published in 1921 according to this automatically translated website.)
Except if you look at the music, or even the lyrics, that's a different song. It's about Roland, but it's a different song about Roland. Drawing board, I return to it.
There is this Norweigan book, but at first look, I think it's the Old French chanson translated into Norweigan. Sort of like our Penguin edition.
A list of Norweigan folk song collectors seems like a reasonable place to start looking for their Cecil Sharp or Child. I can confirm that MB Landstad's Norske folkeviser does not contain the Roland I want, just the "Roland and Magnus" ballad. For that matter, none of these three books appear to.
Hm... Leden recorded Inuit music. Lindeman and Sandvik might be promising; not enough details on Olea Crøger to really say, so I should see what books are in her name.
Why? I dunno. I am perfectly content to say this is a folk song, not a medieval ballad. I just want to nail down when it was first recorded.
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