DASS, PETTER [SSNE 6705]

Surname

DASS, DUNDAS, DON DASS, PETTERSEN

First name

PETTER, PETER

Nationality

SCOT

Region

BERGEN

Religion

LUTHERAN

Text source

Petter Dass (1647-1707), a famous baroque poet and priest, was vicar in Alstahaug, Helgeland in North-Norway from 1689 until his death. His father, Peter Peterson (or Pettersen) [SSNE 6706], arrived with his sister Maria [SSNE 6707] in Bergen in Norway by a ship from Dundee around 1630. Peter senior became a merchant of Bergen in April 1635 under the name Peiter Pittersen. He married and had five children, one of whom was Petter Dass. Like his father, Petter Dass traded extensively between Bergen and the north of Norway, and it is said that he was so popular that after his death, Norwegian fishing boats flew black flags for 100 years. One of his sisters, Pernille Pedersdatter Dass [SSNE 6729], lived in Trondheim on farm 159 (farm Peder Ritbahr) with her husband Peter Albertsen.

 

Sources:

Norsk Biografisk Leksikon, V, pp.278-282; Herr Petter 350 År: Et festskrift fra Universitetet i Tromsø (Tromsø, 1997); For his poetry in English see Petter Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland (Lund Press, Minnesota, 1954); For his sister see Henry Berg, 'Trondheim før Cicignon: Gater og Gårder før reguleringen 1681' (Trondheim, 1951), p.239; Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), p.115. An article on him with Poetry translated into Scots by John Simpson is found in Northern Studies 22 (1985), pp.52-64. 

Service record

DENMARK-NORWAY, BERGEN, NORWAY

Arrived 1647-01-01

Departed 1707-12-31

Capacity PRIEST, POET, MERCHANT, MUSICIAN, purpose ECCLESIASTICAL