Ingierd Gunnarsdotter (1601–1686) was a Swedish peasant wife and ballad singer from Lyrestad parish in Västergötland.

She is known as the source of information of 57 folksongs, some of which are known and preserved only through her, and which were documented by the official Erich Sparrman on the order of the royal Swedish National Heritage Board in 1678. According to Sparrman, she knew many more, about 300, but as she was old and weak and not willing to cooperate, he was only able to have a very limited number of them.

Ingierd Gunnarsdotter

Sources

Sven-Bertil Jansson, Den levande balladen, Prisma. 1999. (Utgiven av Svenskt visarkiv.) Leif Jonsson, Ann-Marie Nilsson & Greger Andersson : Musiken i Sverige. Från forntid till stormaktstidens slut 1720 (1994)

Ingierd Gunnarsdotter

Further reading

1601 births

1686 deaths

Swedish folk singers

People from the Swedish Empire

17th-century Swedish women singers

17th-century women farmers

17th-century Swedish farmers

Ingierd Gunnarsdotter