Page 246 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

with the ownership of a fabled mill, or quern, which, in its time, ground
out gold and peace and plenty. In many of the traditions, two giant
maidens (Fenja and Menja) were indentured to turn this great
contraption, which could not be budged by any human strength.
Something went wrong, and the two giantesses were forced to work day
and night with no rest:

Forth to the mill bench they were brought,
To set the grey stone in motion;
He gave them no rest nor peace,
Attentive to the creak of the mill.

Their song was a howl,
Shattering silence;
‘Lower the bin and lighten the stones!’
Yet he would have them grind more.
12

Rebellious and angry, Fenja and Menja waited until everyone was asleep
and then began to turn the mill in a mad whirl until its great props,
though cased in iron, burst asunder. Immediately afterwards, in a
13
confusing episode, the mill was stolen by a sea king named Mysinger and
loaded aboard his ship together with the giantesses. Mysinger ordered
the pair to grind again, but this time they ground out salt. At midnight
they asked him whether he was not weary of salt; he bade them grind
longer. They had ground but a little longer when down sank the ship:

The huge props flew off the bin,
The iron rivets burst,
The shaft tree shivered,
14
The bin shot down.

When it reached the bottom of the sea, the mill continued to turn, but it
ground out rock and sand, creating a vast whirlpool, the Maelstrom.
15
Such images, Santillana and von Dechend assert, signify precession of
the equinoxes. The axis and ‘iron props’ of the mill stand for:
16
a system of coordinates in the celestial sphere and represent the frame of a world
age. Actually the frame defines a world age. Because the polar axis and the colures
form an invisible whole, the entire frame is thrown out of kilter if one part is
moved. When that happens a new Pole star with appropriate colures of its own
must replace the obsolete apparatus.
17
Furthermore, the engulfing whirlpool:

12 Grottasongr, ‘The Song of the Mill’, in The Masks of Odin, p. 198.
13 Ibid., p. 201.
14 Grottasongr, cited in Hamlet’s Mill, p. 89-90.
Ibid., p. 2.
15
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., p. 232.

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