Norwegian Emigrant Songs and Ballads

<div>Norwegian Emigrant Songs and Ballads was first published in 1936. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.This book presenting the English and Norwegian texts of more than fifty emigrant songs and ballads forms a unique contribution to folk literature and social history. Here is collected for the first time a group of songs born of the European folk movement to America during the nineteenth century.Many of the ballads are human stories of gripping interest. They cover a wide range of emotions from pathos and nostalgia to anger and satire. Some are gay and humorous skits. The most popular of the ballads is the rollicking Oleana. Some of the others are: Farewell to the Spinning Wheel Sigrid's Song Let Us Away and over the Sea El Dorado A Pestilence is Loose in the Mountains Brothers the Day of Norway's Freedom and A Song Concerning the Emigration to America.A general historical sketch precedes the ballads and each song in turn is placed in its special setting by a brief preface. Music harmonized for the piano is provided for a dozen of the ballads.</div>