Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/224

198 passed over, and what leisure he could snatch from school-work was devoted to the gathering of folklore. In Lundgaard, near Gjellerup, lived an old woman, Sidsel Jensdatter, an excellent singer of ballads; and in her little hut the busy schoolmaster spent many a winter evening, to the great wonderment of his neighbours. Her stock of ballads, taken down in 1867, became the real foundation of Kristensen's collections. In the following winter, he went much further afield, setting out after school-hours, trudging along flooded roads and pathless moors, seldom reaching home again before one o'clock in the morning. But his exertions were rewarded by the discovery of new and excellent stores of old song and tradition.

So rich was this part of Jutland in ballad-literature, that within three years Kristensen had collected enough to make him think of publishing. An attempt to do this, in small parts of about 50 pages each, proved a failure, and he appealed to Grundtvig for assistance. The latter was able to obtain a grant from the "Society for the Promotion of Danish Literature," and with this help a volume of nearly 400 pages, containing 133 ballads, was finally issued from the press in 1871. Of the contents of this and succeeding volumes I shall speak in a later section of this paper. Of equal value were Grundtvig's services in obtaining pecuniary assistance which enabled Kristensen to go still further afield, and prosecute his collecting on a larger scale. In the winters of 1873 and 1874 respectively his expenses were covered by grants from Government of 100 and 200 dalers.

For ten years Kristensen remained in Gjellerup, where he had two schools to attend to, entailing a walk of nearly four miles every day. During this period he published another two volumes, one of ballads in 1874, and one of general folklore in 1876, For the former of these he received support from a Jutland Society, the other was undertaken by a publisher, who lost on it, and would not repeat the experiment.