The Hildina Ballad is one among very few surving texts written in Norn. It was recorded by the Scottish minister George Low on the island of Foula, Shetland in 1774, along with the Lord’s Prayer and a wordlist.Steintún, 2016. Low’s original manuscriptLow, 1744. was first published in 1805, in Rev. George Barry’s History of the Orkney Islands.Barry, 1805.
Script
Latin
ISO 639-2
nrn
Status
Unofficial
Debut
1774
Literature
Barry, G. rev. (1805). History of the Orkney Islands. Edinburgh.
Low, G. (1774). The Earl of Orkney and the King of Norway's Daughter: a Ballad. In A Tour Through the Islands of Orkney and Schetland [Manuscript].
Steintún, B. (2016). The Hildina Ballad: A linguistic analysis of the case system [Master thesis]. University of Bergen. Retrieved 18 September 2026 from bora.uib.no
Language
Variant
Orthography
Language
Variant
Orthography
Variant
Orthography
So minyach u ere min heve Orkneyar kingè ro.
Guadnè borè u da kadn
Orkneyan
An gevè Drotnign kedn puster