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FAROE ISLANDS – Cover from Tórshavn, Faroe Islands

Official cover with stamp from the 2008 stamps issue ‘Ferns’ and 2010 ‘Butterflies’ posted on March 4, 2013.

(Special thanks to Posta Stamps Faroe Islands)

Technical Details

Ferns

Date of Issue: September 22, 2008
Values: ten stamps of 8kr

Designer: Edward Fuglø

Printer: LM Group, Canada
Process: offset lithography

Size: 29,5 x 45,0 mm - Sheet size: 165,5 x 118,0 mm

Values: 10 x 8kr

Perforation: self-adhesive

Paper:

Watermark:

Sheet: miniature sheet with ten stamps

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

The 5th of May 2013 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of the world famous Danish theologian and philosopher, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard. As Kierkegaard also had a great influence on the Faroese people and their religious convictions, we are celebrating this 200th anniversary in a joint issue with Post Danmark.

Søren Kierkegaard experienced both the Church and the Moravian Brethren during his childhood. Despite becoming an opponent of churches and congregations later in life, Kierkegaard played a key role in Faroese church history, serving as a source of inspiration to Victor Danielsen’s clash with the Church of the Faroe Islands.

Søren Kierkegaard strongly opposed many of the predominant ideas of his time, yet it was also an era characterised by its break with inherited beliefs in areas ranging from politics and religion to science and philosophy.

A revolutionary political spirit spread across Europe and in 1849 Denmark became a constitutional monarchy. The Danish constitution did not fall from the heavens, but was a result of the ideal from the 1700s that every person is born equal and free. The Church, faith, God and the bible were under fire; Ludwig Feuerbach’s proclamation in 1841 that God is a product of man’s ideas paved the way for the intellectual youth of Germany, and George Elliot was quick to translate Feuerbach to English.

In 1844, Arthur Schopenhauer wrote that the world is driven by an increasingly insatiable desire, which is what makes man an unhappy and suffering creature. The growing trend of European individualisation had been clearly established.

Some years later, Danes could read the young writer Frederik Dreier’s socialist ideas and confrontation with religious conservatism, in which priests were lambasted by Dreier’s sharp pen; Drier’s critique was followed shortly by a sarcastic thrashing of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark and the state-authorised clergy by Kierkegaard.

A review of Kierkegaard’s works is a journey through European intellectual history – a journey that also points towards the future emergence of modern existentialism. One of Kierkegaard’s core ideas is that man is a loner, an individual that must break from the ignorant and anonymous rabble. He had nothing but contempt for epigones, people who imitate others’ words and deeds.

When Kierkegaard died in November 1855 at the age of 42, worn down by controversy and mentally demanding work, he had made his message heard beyond Denmark that it is futile to hide behind a mask of biblical or state authorised faith, fine titles and bishops robes, because man’s relationship with God is a matter between the individual and God. Kierkegaard, the once avid churchgoer, had become a fierce opponent of all forms of religious congregations.

The last half of the 1800s saw sweeping social changes in the Faroe Islands. Free trade and the fishing industry replaced monopoly trade and a peasant and class society, but the National Church remained virtually unchallenged by other religious institutions and beliefs. There were some challenges, however. In 1865, the Plymouth Brethren sent William Sloan from the Shetland Islands to do missionary work in the Faroe Islands. Sloan’s preaching was simple and straightforward: No salvation without a personal belief in Jesus Christ. A few years before the turn of the twentieth century, the Danish Inner Mission arrived in the Faroe Islands. The aim of the Inner Mission was to bring Christianity back to the modern secular society by reforming the Church. Thus the ground was laid for Faroese cultural criticism and a deeper critique of the Church of the Faroe Islands.

It was not until long after Kierkegaard’s death that he first caused a stir in the Faroe Islands. And when it finally happened, it was not as a philosopher, but as a critic of the Church. Kierkegaard’s criticism was disseminated by Victor Danielsen, who attended the teacher training college in Thorshavn from 1911-1914; in the autumn of 1913, Danielsen experienced a deep spiritual crisis in his search for God.

Victor Danielsen sought spiritual guidance from Inner Mission, but quickly realised that the Church could not possibly be reformed; instead, it must be rejected because the Church and priests lived a lie, in which their living did not come from the spirit, but from a state-paid salary.

During the years 1914-1916, Victor Danielsen wrote many letters to the editor in the Faroese newspapers, harshly attacking the Church and its culture, which in his view was a road to perdition. He saw the Church as rotting in a misguided perception of the existence of Christian culture. Victor Danielsen had a sharp and focused pen. Kierkegaard’s "Church Storm" emerged clearly in Danielsen’s letters to the editor, which were often a direct copy both in form and content of Kierkegaard’s work.

Victor Danielsen also accepted the consequences of his conclusions and refused to work as a teacher, as he would not teach in accordance with the Church’s Lutheran doctrine. Danielsen could not accept infant baptism, which he viewed as unbiblical and therefore not applicable. In 1916 he was baptised and became active as a spiritual leader of the Plymouth Brethren, living a very productive life as a bible translator, song and hymn writer, and author.

Ólavur Rasmussen

Technical Details

Issue Date: 04.03.2013

Designer: N. Chr. Kierkegaard

Engraver: Bertil Skov Jørgensen

Printer: Posten Frimärken, Sweden

Process: Offset/Intaglio

Colours: 4 Colours

Size: 25,50 x 22,72 or 65,88 x 22,72 mm

Size of the sheetlet: 125 x 90 mm

Values: 35.00 kr

Postal use: large letters inland 251 - 500 gr

The Faroese boat

The traditional Faroese rowing boat is a clinker-built boat. Clinker building is the old Nordic method of building boats with overlapping wooden planks. Using this construction, Norsemen built their boats over one thousand years ago, and with them the Vikings sailed and left their mark on settled as well as yet unexplored lands in the North Atlantic.

The Faroese rowing boat has its origins in the smaller boats of the Vikings. The Faroese boat has the characteristic features of the Nordic clinker-built boat; it is pointed at both ends and of a light construction. The shape of the boat’s hull is similar to that on a Viking longship. The boat is regarded by many as the best example of Faroese craftsmanship there is, and the boat is considered one of the most attractive and flawless boats in the world. Natural conditions in the turbulent North Atlantic Ocean, where the Faroe Islands are situated, place great demands on the boat’s sea worthiness, and the Faroese boat builders have for centuries and with great ingenuity and expertise been able to develop a boat suitable for Faroese waters. The boat is extremely sea-worthy, easy to row and sails well using a sail. Although the boats are made from thin boards, the construction as a whole is very strong and well-suited to the fjords and sea around the Faroe Islands. It’s relatively light in weight, and in difficult conditions, with high waves, can be lifted up onto the beach by just a few men. The boat handles easily in the water and is easy to row in stormy waters. What makes it best suited to the sea surrounding the Faroe Islands, however, is the technology involved in rowing the boat; the long, narrow oars, the rowlock and the collar, which stops the oar from slipping; these items work together to hold the oar in place, and make them ideal for use in rough seas.

The Faroese boat can be found in a number of sizes. The Seksæringur, or tolvmannafar, can be rowed by 12 people, and is about 28 foot long; Tíggjumannafar, rowed by 10 people, is about 26 foot long; Áttamannafar, rowed by 8 people, is 24 foot; Seksmannafar, rowed by 6 people, is 22 foot; Fýramannafar, rowed by 4 people, is 20 foot; Tristur, rowed by 3 people, 18 foot; Tríbekkur, rowed by 2 people, but with 3 seats, 17 foot.

The boat, including the oars, rowlocks, floorboards and bailer, would take the boat builder between a week and 14 days to build, depending on the size of the boat. The finished boat would be treated with tar everywhere except on the thwarts, or crosswise struts. The bailer, a container used to bail water out of the boat, is carved from a piece of wood, usually driftwood. The bailer is the most important item of the boat’s equipment. Faroese oars are different from oars used on other boats.  Characteristic are the long, slender blade and the oar loom’s rectangular cross-section, which prevents the oar from slicing the water during rowing. There is a slight incline in the blade from the loom, so the oar catches well in the water to drive it forward.  It was at one time common for the collar that holds the oar fast in the rowlock to be cut from the fins of a pilot whale. These days, however, it is made from a piece of rope.The Faroese rowlock is made from oak, and its special appearance has compelled folk to name it after a human head; the ‘nose’ sticks forwards, the hole is for the eyes, and the top piece is the neck.

Key to a working boat is the bung, the drain plug. There is an old Faroese expression that says you shouldn’t make the bung before the boat is finished. The bunghole is drilled into the stern on the port side and the bung is put into the boat from inside.

In the old days, a loose oar was used to steer the boat, but this was switched to a fixed rudder hooked onto the stern, which functioned better.

In earlier times, the Faroese boat had a sail; this was a square sail set in the shape of a diamond, narrow at the top and broad at the bottom, as the mast was placed in the middle of the boat, but from about 1850 boats changed to two sails, a lugsail at the front thwart, and a smaller mizzen sail across the stern.

The Faroese boat is first and foremost a light rowing boat that can be propelled across the water with light, slender oars under the worst conditions imaginable.  The oars have always been the primary means of propulsion, in all kinds of weather. The sail was secondary, and was only used when the wind was favourable.

There are not many communities in the world that have their history, their fate and their entire existence so closely connected to the sea as the Faroese people, and the boat has been fundamental to life on the Faroe Islands, whether used for fishing or as a mode of transport between the islands.

Andras Sólstein

Technical Details

Issue Date: 25.02.2013

Designer: Edward Fuglø

Printer: Beijing Stamp Printing House, China

Process: Offset

Colours: 4 Colours

Size: 25,50 x 22,72 or 65,88 x 22,72 mm

Size of the sheetlet: 125 x 90 mm

Values: 12.50 kr

Postal use: small letters, inland, 0 - 50 gr

Sepac 2013 - baby animals

Here in the North Atlantic, spring, of obvious reasons, arrives a little later than on the European continent. So no wonder that we look forward to springtime and are quite aware of its arrival. Even though February 22nd, from days of old has been considered as the first day of spring, we have to go further ahead on the calendar, before the signs start to show. By St. Gregor's Day on March 12th the Oyster Catcher, the Faroese national bird, return to the islands, and at Spring Equinox, on March 21st, we really feel that spring has arrived.

It is about one month later that the greatest and most valued signs of spring appears. Everybody, grown ups and children, are looking forward to the event. We observe the meadows wistfully, especially where we know that the first tends to show up. There is a certain impatience about this waiting, and if it occurs sooner than expected, it may even be mentioned on the radio.

And then suddenly it is there - the first lamb. A tiny little lump of wool with large eyes and ears – and like most baby animals, the cutest little thing you'll ever see.

Seeing the first lamb has a strange effect on people. We tell others about it, what color it is and where we saw it. People passing, stop to see the little creature and the sight can bring a smile to even the most weather-beaten face.

Later, more lambs will appear, and it is a real pleasure to see them play and romp in the meadow. They jump around, gore and climb on the boulders which are everywhere in the Faroe Islands. The Faroese do not breed sheep for their wool, and therefore the little lambs come in all colours. White, black, gray and brown are the most common - and often multicoloured, depending on origin.

It happens that the mother sheep, for some reason, does not want to stay with her lamb, and leaves it. These lambs are taken to the owner's house and fed up with milk. You often see these so-called "heimalomb" (lambs that are raised at home) outside the houses in the early summer months. Some of them become so domesticated that they most of all resemble a puppy. They are obviously the children's favourites, and it is not always without certain amount of battle and crying, if such a lamb is chosen to slaughter in the autumn.

The lambs stay with their mother over the summer. They suckle for some months and otherwise follow the mother to summer grazing in the mountains. Sheep are territorial animals and stay mostly within certain preferred areas. This property is inherited from the mother to the lambs, which since will to prefer the same grazing areas.

The Faroese sheep is categorized as "primitive" race, since they are not bred as the so-called race-sheep. They are more robust and agile and are doing quite well on their own, even in inaccessible mountain areas where cultivated sheep breeds would quickly succumb. The wool is thick and not so curly and has a layer of rough, water repellent outer hair, which makes it suitable for knitting of the so-called Faroese sweaters, designed for outdoor use in all weather. The fine inner wool is used for finer processes, and in recent decades a very refined design culture has emerged for clothing knitted by Faroese wool.

The lambs grow large during the summer, and go in the outback until slaughter time in October. The fact that the sheep are driven directly from the outback to slaughter, makes the meat of a very special quality, which is not found in sheep on cultivated pastures. The wild herbs, which are a part of the diet, give the meat a very fine taste, and the fact that the lambs move around in the mountains gives a very solid and lean meat.

But all the talk about wool and meat are not the first thing in our mind, when we are all longing for spring, small lively hairballs and bleating of baby lambs.

The most powerful sign of springtime.

Anker Eli Petersen

Technical Details

Issue Date: 25.02.2013

Designer: Marita Gullklett

Printer: Cartor Security Printing, France

Process: Offset

Colours: 4 Colours

Size: 63 x 23,52 mm

Values: 12.50 kr

Postal use: small letters and medium letters 0-50 gr to Europe