Observations placeholder
Poetic Edda - Song of Grotti
Identifier
000804
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
This poem from the Edda is possibly the origin of our expression, 'to keep your nose to the grindstone', meaning to keep on working.
The poem has a double meaning, other than the symbolic one I have provided.
A description of the experience
The Poetic Edda
from Song of Grotti
Now there have come to the king's dwellings
two prescient women, Fenia and Menia
the mighty girls were with Frodi
Fridleif's son, to have at his pleasure
They were led to the grindstone
and they ordered the grey stones to grind into motion;
he promised neither of them rest nor pleasure
until he had heard the slave girls' song
They kept up the noise of the never silent mill
'Let's set down the grinder, let's stop the millstones!'
He ordered the girls to keep grinding
They sang and they turned the fast revolving stone
so that Frodi's household mostly fell asleep;
then said Menia, who'd come to the milling
'Wealth let's grind for Frodi, grind out happiness,
grind many possessions on the wonderful stone!
Let him sit on his wealth, let him sleep on a quilt,
let him wake to happiness! That is well ground out
Here no one shall bring harm to another,
nor plot evil, nor conspire against someone's life,
nor shall he strike with a sharp sword,
though he should find, trussed up, his brother's slayer'