Grottasöngr

The Gróttasöngr (or Grottasöngr; Old Icelandic: Grottis vocals) is a Norse poetry. The text is preserved in one of the manuscripts of Snorri Sturluson's Edda Snorra and is counted among the poems of the Poetic Edda. It consists of a prose introduction, which reports the history, and the poem of twenty-two stanzas of varying length.

The fabric has regardless survived as a Scandinavian fairy tale, which was added to her collection " Norske Folkeeventyr " under the title "Why the sea is salty" Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. A modern reception of the substance was "Den nya Grottesången " of the Swedish writer Viktor Rydberg, an anticapitalist poem that attracted considerable attention in Sweden at the beginning of the 20th century.

Content

In the introduction to Snorri, the ancestors of the Danish word Fróði King of the race of Skioldinger before starting with Skjöldr, the eponym of the dynasty. Skjöldrs son and successor as Danish king was Friðleifr, whose son and successor was Fróði. This happened at the time when Augustus was emperor of Rome and reigned on earth the Augustan peace, who was called in Scandinavia Fróðis peace. The North at the time was so peaceful that nobody hurt someone else, even not when he met the murderer of his father or brother, whether it was free or in prison. There were no robbers, and a gold ring was lying on the moor at Jelling without being stolen.

King Fróði visited Sweden and its king Fjölnir. From Fjölnir he purchased two slaves from the race of giants called Fenya and Menja. In Denmark, there were two millstones that were so heavy that they could use not human. Fróði had this mill called " grottos " gifted by a man named Hengikjopt. The special feature of GROTTI was that this mill could produce whatever the operator wanted.

Fróði forced Fenya and Menja for him on the GROTTI gold to grind peace and prosperity. He did not allow them to rest for longer than the time of his song or the call of a cuckoo. While Fróði asleep, the Ries inner retaliated by shooting the mill while singing the actual Gróttasöngr. Fenya and Menja grind a hostile army brought under the leader Mysing, the Fróðis Reich fell. King Fróði and many of his men fell, then sailed the attacker with rich booty and the two giantesses it. This was the end of Fróðis peace.

Mysing took the GROTTI also with him and ordered the giantesses to grind salt for him. When the giantesses around midnight asking if he did not have enough salt, he asked them to continue to grind. The ships sank Mysings, overloaded by the salt, which induce grind the giantesses. A whirlpool, where the water falls through the eye of the rotating millstones, where Fenya and Menja further grind salt formed at the point of ruin. This is the reason why sea water is salty.

Geography

The Pentland Firth is located between the islands of stroma and Swona the eddy current " Swelki ", whose name is derived from the Old Norse word svelgr ( Lake mill) and the associated regional saga with the grottoes. Also the name of the Maelstrom Moskenstraumen in the Lofoten Archipelago transports the idea of ​​the rotating millstone.