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Know_files/FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS.pdf - D Ank Unlimited

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Graham Hancock – <strong>FINGERPRINTS</strong> <strong>OF</strong> <strong>THE</strong> <strong>GODS</strong><br />

with the ownership of a fabled mill, or quern, which, in its time, ground<br />

out gold and peace and plenty. In many of the traditions, two giant<br />

maidens (Fenja and Menja) were indentured to turn this great<br />

contraption, which could not be budged by any human strength.<br />

Something went wrong, and the two giantesses were forced to work day<br />

and night with no rest:<br />

Forth to the mill bench they were brought,<br />

To set the grey stone in motion;<br />

He gave them no rest nor peace,<br />

Attentive to the creak of the mill.<br />

Their song was a howl,<br />

Shattering silence;<br />

‘Lower the bin and lighten the stones!’<br />

Yet he would have them grind more. 12<br />

Rebellious and angry, Fenja and Menja waited until everyone was asleep<br />

and then began to turn the mill in a mad whirl until its great props,<br />

though cased in iron, burst asunder. 13 Immediately afterwards, in a<br />

confusing episode, the mill was stolen by a sea king named Mysinger and<br />

loaded aboard his ship together with the giantesses. Mysinger ordered<br />

the pair to grind again, but this time they ground out salt. At midnight<br />

they asked him whether he was not weary of salt; he bade them grind<br />

longer. They had ground but a little longer when down sank the ship:<br />

The huge props flew off the bin,<br />

The iron rivets burst,<br />

The shaft tree shivered,<br />

The bin shot down. 14<br />

When it reached the bottom of the sea, the mill continued to turn, but it<br />

ground out rock and sand, creating a vast whirlpool, the Maelstrom. 15<br />

Such images, Santillana and von Dechend assert, signify precession of<br />

the equinoxes. 16 The axis and ‘iron props’ of the mill stand for:<br />

a system of coordinates in the celestial sphere and represent the frame of a world<br />

age. Actually the frame defines a world age. Because the polar axis and the colures<br />

form an invisible whole, the entire frame is thrown out of kilter if one part is<br />

moved. When that happens a new Pole star with appropriate colures of its own<br />

must replace the obsolete apparatus. 17<br />

Furthermore, the engulfing whirlpool:<br />

12<br />

Grottasongr, ‘The Song of the Mill’, in The Masks of Odin, p. 198.<br />

13<br />

Ibid., p. 201.<br />

14<br />

Grottasongr, cited in Hamlet’s Mill, p. 89-90.<br />

15 Ibid., p. 2.<br />

16 Ibid.<br />

17 Ibid., p. 232.<br />

244

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