Preface
The World Oral Literature Project is an urgent global initiative to document and make acces- sible endangered oral literatures before they disappear without record. The project was established in early 2009 to support scholars and community researchers engaged in the collection and preservation of all forms of oral literature by funding original fieldwork, and by providing training in digital collection and archiving methods.
Through this series of Occasional Papers, the World Oral Literature Project is supporting the publication of research findings and methodo- logical considerations that relate to scholarship on oral literature. Hosted for free on our website for immediate distribution, the series allows researchers to disseminate fieldwork findings and analyses through a streamlined, peer-review process. We welcome expressions of interest from any scholar seeking to publish original and timely work.
It is with great pleasure that we open our series of Occasional Papers with Stephen Leon- ard’s study of Faroese skjaldur. Dr Leonard is an ethnolinguist with a strong commitment to the documentation of the cultures and languages of the North Atlantic, as demonstrated by his careful review of the rhymes, lullabies and short tales that have bound together the people of the Faroe Islands for generations.