Kvæði are the Faroese ballads: 236 surviving texts, roughly 70,000 stanzas, sung with no instrument at all while the room holds hands in an unbroken ring. A lead singer carries the story; everyone returns on the refrain. The room is tarred black boarding under a turf roof, lit at candle level.

This system takes the second surface of that tradition — the collected manuscript, Sandoyarbók copied by hand between 1821 and 1831 — and rules it across the dark timber. Stanza blocks, a returning refrain band, leaf numbers in the margin, and the red-black-and-silver of the national dress.