Fenya and Menya or the two giantesses
There was king in Denmark, King Frodi , who had acquired a grinding quern, the Grotti stone, but this was no ordinary quern. For a start it was huge and no one could turn it, not even his strongest warriors. Also it was said to be magic and would grind out, not just flour from barley, but anything you told it to on the magic words to start and to stop.
King Frodi went on a visit to a King Sven in Sweden, there he saw Sven had two giantesses, Fenya and Menya, large strapping women with jet black hair in plaits. Sven used their great strength to cut down trees.
King Frodi bought them from Sven who was pleased to be rid of them for they ate a lot.
Back in Denmark King Frodi set them to work at the Grotti stone. First he had them grind out warriors complete with weapons. Then he had them grind out food. Then he had them grind out gold, so much gold that it filled all the longhouses.
Well the fame of the Grotti stone spread and a king in Norway, King Bjorn , came to stay with King Frodi and he offered to buy the Grotti stone from Frodi.
At first Frodi refused, though he had all he needed. He had enough gold to last several lifetimes.
Under pressure* he agreed to sell the two giantesses and the Grotti stone to King Bjorn.
King Bjorn was a trading Viking and he wanted the stone to grind salt, for salt was very tradeable, and worth a lot.
King Bjorn got the two giantesses to lift the Grotti stone onto his ship and set sail for the west. After a little while he told the two giantesses to start grinding salt . “Grind , grind” he said.
Well the salt spilled out, more and more, and it piled up. Then it began to fill the ship, but Bjorn was greedy and let Fenya and Menya grind on.
By then the ship had entered the Pentland Firth between Caithness and Orkney.
At last the salt was near the gunwales, the top of the sides of the ship, and Bjorn realised the ship could sink but no matter how loud he shouted “stop” the giantesses kept turning the quern, for “stop “was not the magic word.
King Frodi had played a trick on the greedy King Bjorn, he hadn’t told him the magic word to stop the quern.
And so, just off the northern tip of the island of Stroma, the ship sank to the bottom of the sea , and all drowned but for Fenya and Menya, who still keep grinding salt from the magic quern, and it is they who keep the sea salty.
And even today you can see where they are, for above them the sea swirls round and round in a great whirlpool in the Pentland Firth, called the Swilkie.
notes;
*“under pressure “
It is most likely that King Frodi lost the giantesses and the Grotti stone in a drink fuelled viking betting game, where after some initial rounds of the game for small bets, King Bjorn proposed they both bet their most prized possessions , in his case his ship, and so King Frodi, not to lose face, had to bet the Grotti stone and the giantesses and lost.
further notes:
There being two giantesses increases their power, further, it is likely the two giantesses were twins.
Twins were, and are, thought as having special powers. In this story the giantesses are, via the Grotti stone, providers of nourishment and wealth, they have power behind the scenes. They have magical abilities, for example, they can work unceasingly and even underwater.
This leads me to believe these are deposed goddess figures - deposed by men. Perhaps the secret or sacred words were overheard by men and this overhearing rendered the goddesses powerless.
The men in the tale are acquisitive for power, control and wealth. They gamble and cheat each other.
Sven is the least skilful; he does not see beyond the physical power of the goddesses. Frodi has more knowledge; he brings the goddesses together with the Grotti stone after all, and has control of the magic words, but he still has the weakness of men, the boasting, gambling side. Bjorn has all the weaknesses, greed, ambition, boastfulness added to gambling, but he also has cunning and manipulates his opponent in order to deprive him of the goddesses. Frodi has the last laugh but in essence so do the goddesses, freed from man they continue to provide that essential of life, salt, in the life giving sea.
other notes:
Twin female goddesses are hard to come by in mythology.
Wadjet and Nekbet in ancient Egypt bear a few interesting parallels; they both act together to support the royal family and are instrumental in keeping good relations with Ra the sun god.
In Greek mythology the words "hilaeira" and "phoibe" were also epithets of the moon-goddess Selene, who drove a two-horse biga ( chariot) through the sky.
Impressum
Texte: alastair macleod
Bildmaterialien: alastair macleod ; "mime twins " purchased from dreamstime royalty free photos
Lektorat: alastair macleod
Übersetzung: cover title typeset in classical
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 19.03.2013
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Widmung:
for the women who ground the querns,
a traditional tale from the north, retold