View source for Grottasöngr

{{Short description|Old Norse poem}}
{{Italic title}}
[[Image:Fenja och Menja vid kvarnen Grotte (xylograph).JPG|thumb|Fenja and Menja at the mill. Illustration by [[Carl Larsson]] and Gunnar Forssell.]]
'''''Grottasǫngr''''' (or '''''Gróttasǫngr'''''; [[Old Norse]]: 'The Mill's Songs',{{Sfn|Orchard|1997|p=63}} or 'Song of Grótti') is an [[Old Norse poetry|Old Norse poem]], sometimes counted among the poems of the ''[[Poetic Edda]]'' as it appears in manuscripts that are later than the ''[[Codex Regius]]''. The tradition is also preserved in one of the manuscripts of [[Snorri Sturluson]]'s ''[[Prose Edda]]'' along with some explanation of its context.

The myth has also survived independently in modified forms in [[northern European]] [[folklore]]. ''Gróttasǫngr'' had social and political impact in Sweden during the 20th century as it was modernized in the form of ''Den nya Grottesången'' by [[Viktor Rydberg]], which described conditions in factories using the mill of ''Grottasǫngr'' as a literary backdrop. 

==''Poetic Edda''==
Though not originally included in the ''[[Codex Regius]]'', ''Gróttasǫngr'' is included in many later editions of the ''[[Poetic Edda]]''.<ref>1907 edition of the ''Nordisk familjebok''. Viewable online via [[Project Runeberg]] at https://runeberg.org/nfbf/0715.html</ref> ''Gróttasǫngr'' is the work song of two young slave girls bought in Sweden by the Danish King Frodi (cf. ''Fróði'' in the ''Prose Edda''). The girls are brought to a magic grindstone to grind out wealth for the king and sing for his household.

The girls ask for rest from the grinding but are commanded to continue. Undaunted in their benevolence, the girls proceed to grind and sing, wishing wealth and happiness for the King. The King, however, is still not pleased and continues to order the girls to grind without interruption.

King Frodi is ignorant of their lineage and the girls reveal that they are descended from [[Jötunn|mountain-risar]]. The girls recount their past deeds, including moving a flat-topped mountain and revealing that they had actually created the grinding stone they are now chained to. They tell him that they had advanced against an army in Sweden and fought "bearlike warriors",<ref name=LARRINGTONPOETIC>Larrington, Carolyne. ''The Poetic Edda: A new translation by Carolyne Larrington'' (1996) {{ISBN|0-19-283946-2}}</ref> had "broken shields",<ref name=LARRINGTONPOETIC/> supported troops, and overthrown one prince while supporting another. They recount that they had become well known warriors.
[[Image:Menia and Fenia.jpg|thumb|''Menia and Fenia'' by [[W. J. Wiegand]]]]
The girls then reflect that they have now become cold and dirty slaves, relentlessly worked, and living a life of dull grinding. The girls sing that they are tired, and call to King Frodi to wake up so that he may hear them. They announce that an army is approaching, that Frodi will lose the wealth they've ground for him, that he will also lose the magic grindstone, and that the army will burn the settlement and overthrow Frodi's throne in [[Lejre]]. They are grinding this army into existence via the magic stone. They then comment that they are "not yet warmed by the blood of slaughtered men".<ref name=LARRINGTONPOETIC/>

The girls continue to grind even harder and the shafts of the mill-frame snap. They then sing a prophecy of vengeance mentioning [[Hrólfr Kraki]], [[Yrsa]], [[Fróði]] and [[Halfdan]]:
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|non|Mölum enn framar.
Mun Yrsu sonr,
niðr Halfdanar,
hefna Fróða;
sá mun hennar
heitinn verða
burr ok bróðir,
vitum báðar þat.}}
|
Let us grind on!
Yrsa's son,
Hálfdan's kinsman,
will avenge Fródi:
he will of her
be called
son and brother:
we both know that.<ref name=THORPE>{{cite web |url= http://www.northvegr.org/lore/poetic2/042.php | website= Northvegr Foundation |title= Gróttasǫngr: The Lay of Grótti, or The Mill_Song |access-date= 2007-10-31 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071121221718/http://www.northvegr.org/lore/poetic2/042.php |archive-date=2007-11-21 }}</ref>}}

Now filled with a great rage, the girls grind even harder until finally the grinding mechanism collapses and the magical stone splits in two. With the impending army soon to arrive, one of the girls finishes the song with:
<poem style="margin-left:2em">
Frodi, we have ground to the point where we must stop,
now the ladies have had a full stint of milling!<ref name=LARRINGTONPOETIC/>
</poem>

==''Prose Edda''==
Snorri relates in the ''[[Prose Edda]]'' that [[Skjöldr]] ruled the country that we today call Denmark. Skjöldr had a son named [[Friðleifr]] who succeeded him on the throne. Friðleifr had a son who was named [[Fróði]] who became king after Friðleifr, and this was at the time when [[Caesar Augustus]] proclaimed peace on earth and Christ was born. The same peace ruled in Scandinavia, but there it was called ''[[Fróði's Peace|Fróði's peace]]''. The North was so peaceful that no man hurt another, even if he met his father's or his brother's killer, free or tied. No man was a robber and a golden ring could rest on the moor of [[Jelling]] for a long time.

King Fróði visited Sweden and its king [[Fjölnir]], and from Fjölnir he bought two enslaved [[Jötunn|gýgjar]] named '''Fenja''' and '''[[Menja]]''' who were big and strong. In Denmark, there was a pair of magical [[mill stone]]s; the man who ground with them could ask them to produce anything he wished. However, they were so big that no man was strong enough to use them. This mill was called "Grótti" and it had been given to Fróði by Hengikjopt.

Fróði had Fenja and Menja tied to the mill and asked them to grind gold, peace and happiness for himself. Then he gave them neither rest nor sleep longer than the time of a song or the silence of the cuckoo. In revenge Fenja and Menja started to sing a song named the "song of Grótti" (the poem itself) and before they ended it, they had produced a host led by a [[sea-king]] named Mysing. Mysing attacked Fróði during the night, killed him, and left with rich booty. This was the end of the Fróði peace.

Mysing took Grótti as well as Fenja and Menja and asked them to grind salt. At midnight, they asked Mysing if he did not have salt enough, but he asked them to grind more. They only ground for a short while before the ships sank. A giant whirlpool (''maelstrom'' from ''mal'' "mill" and ''ström'' "stream") was formed as the sea started rushing through the center of the mill stone. Then the sea begun turning salt.

==Post-Christianisation folklore==
Modified forms of the tale are found as stories such as ''[[Why the Sea Is Salt]]'', collected by [[Peter Christen Asbjørnsen]] and [[Jørgen Moe]] in their ''[[Norske Folkeeventyr]]''.

In [[Orcadians|Orcadian]] and [[Shetland|Shetlandic]] folklore, the {{lang|non|gýgjar}} are renamed 'Grotti Finnie' and 'Grotti Minnie' who are two witches that create a whirlpool in the [[Pentland Firth]], named the Swelkie.<ref name="Marwick">{{cite book |last1=Marwick |first1=Ernest W. |title=The folklore of Orkney and Shetland |date=1975 |publisher=B.T. Batsford |location=London |isbn=0713429992 |page=32}}</ref>

==Modern cultural references==
[[Viktor Rydberg]]'s apprehension of unregulated capitalism at the dawn of the industrial age is most fully expressed in his acclaimed poem ''Den nya Grottesången'' (''The New Grotti Song'') in which he delivered a fierce attack on the miserable working conditions in factories of the era, using the mill of ''Grottasöngr'' as his literary backdrop.<ref>{{harvp|Kunitz|Colby|1967|p=810}}</ref>

Grottasǫngr appears as part of [[Johannes V. Jensen]]'s novel ''[[The Fall of the King]]''.<ref>{{Cite Q | Q62388510 }}</ref>
The author edited his prose text into a prose poem that was included in his first poetry collection published in 1906.
Jensen later reflected on the Grottasǫngr in his book ''Kvinden i Sagatiden''.<ref>{{Cite Q | Q62388417 }}</ref>

[[The Raven Tower]] by [[Ann Leckie]] also draws inspiration from the Grottasǫngr in the character of the Strength and Patience of the Hill.<ref>{{cite podcast |url=https://skiffyandfanty.com/podcasts/360annleckie/ |title=360. ANN LECKIE (A.K.A. SINGULARITRIX) — THE RAVEN TOWER (AN INTERVIEW)
 |website= The Skiffy and Fanty Show|date=16 January 2020 |access-date=16 January 2020 }}
</ref>

Verses of the poem were used for the song ''Grótti'' by [[France|French]] [[neofolk]] group [[Skáld (band)|Skáld]] in 2020.<ref>{{Citation |title=Grótti |date=2020-10-09 |url=https://open.spotify.com/track/1S5t8hop6LjcNecjLjRZuS |language=en |access-date=2022-06-26}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

===Bibliography===
*{{cite book |editor1-last=Kunitz |editor1-first=Stanley J. |editor2-first=Vineta |editor2-last=Colby |year=1967 |title=European Authors 1000–1900 |url=https://archive.org/details/europeanauthors100kuni |url-access=registration |location=New York, NY |publisher=H.&nbsp;W. Wilson Co. |chapter=Rydberg, (Abraham) Viktor |isbn=9780824200138 }}
* {{Cite book|last=Orchard|first=Andy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uIujQgAACAAJ|title=Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend|date=1997|publisher=Cassell|isbn=978-0-304-34520-5|language=en|author-link=Andy Orchard}}
*  Tolley, Clive (ed. and trans.), ''Gróttasǫngr: The Song of Grotti''. Viking Society for Northern Research, 2008.

===External links===
{{commons category|Fenja and Menja}}
*[http://heimskringla.no/wiki/Gr%C3%B3ttas%C3%B6ngr Gróttasǫngr] in Old Norse
*[http://wayback.vefsafn.is/wayback/20070508154602/http://www.heimskringla.no/svensk/dikt/grottesangen.php Den nya Grottesången] in Swedish from «Kulturformidlingen norrøne tekster og kvad» Norway.

{{Norse mythology}}
{{Poetic Edda}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grottasongr}}
[[Category:Eddic poetry]]