Jóannes Patursson (May 6, 1866 – August 2, 1946) was a Faroese nationalist leader and poet. He served as a member of the Parliament of Denmark and the Parliament of the Faroe Islands. Background Jóannes was born in 1866 as the eldest son of a wealthy farmer in Kirkjubøur. He was the great-grandson of the Faroese national hero Nólsoyar Páll (originally, Poul Poulsen Nolsøe). His brother Sverri Patursson was an important writer and his sister Susanna Helena Patursson the first feminist of the Faroe Islands. The so-called King's Farm of Kirkjubøur dates back to the 11th century, was the seat of the Faroese bishop until the 1536 Reformation and became — and still remains today — the greatest Royal Danish fief of the Faroese when King Christian III of Denmark confiscated the clerical properties. On the traditional farmstead he grew up in an environment where Faroese folklore was especially cultivated. Here people had gathered for centuries for the daily Kvøldseta, the evening get-together, where old tales would be told, Faroese ballads would be sung and the Faroese dance was popular. All this happened at a time when the Faroese language was only just being committed to writing due to this oral tradition. National movement Jóannes was sent to Norway for an apprenticeship in farming. At home in Tórshavn, the Faroese capital near the Patursson farm, Danish was at the time the overwhelmingly dominant language. Still it was a time of national awakening. Already in 1856 the Danish trading monopoly had been lifted from the Faroe Islands and the islanders were experiencing a fast development from a medieval agricultural society to a modern nation of fishermen. In 1888, the Faroese national movement was "officially" created at the Christmas Meeting, Jóannes Patursson being one of the main actors. Especially for this occasion he wrote a battle hymn, Nú er tann stundin komin til handa (Now is the hour come for acting). Allegedly, the 22-year-old Patursson was too timid to present his hymn at the meeting, so his older compatriot Rasmus Effersøe was selected. Although Nú er tann stundin komin til handa does not reach the quality of Patursson's later poetry, it became a symbol of the struggle of the Faroese language and culture which, for example, was later to be Janus Djurhuus' "linguistic baptism". Political career In 1901, at the age of 35, Patursson was elected to the Løgting (Faroese parliament) for