Fenja and Menja- Norse GiantGiant
Also known as: Fenja and Menja
Description
Two enslaved giantesses who turned the magic mill Grotti for King Fróði, grinding gold and peace. When denied rest, they ground out vengeance instead, summoning a sea-king's fleet to destroy the master who had worked them without mercy.
Mythology & Lore
The Grottasöngr
King Friðfróði of Denmark possessed the magic mill Grotti, a millstone so massive that no ordinary being could turn it. It could grind out whatever was asked of it, but Fróði needed labourers of supernatural strength. He found them in Fenja and Menja, two giantesses brought from Jötunheimr.
Fróði set them to grinding gold, peace, and prosperity. The age that followed was called Fróði's Peace, a golden era in which no one stole or harmed another throughout Denmark. But Fróði was a cruel master. He allowed the giantesses to rest only for the span of a cuckoo's silence. Essentially no rest at all.
The Song of Vengeance
In the Grottasöngr, Fenja and Menja sing as they grind, and their song shifts from compliance to defiance. They recall their own past: they had fought in the wars of the giants, tearing up mountains and hurling boulders. They were not born to be slaves. As their anger builds, they warn Fróði that they hear the sound of war approaching, but the king sleeps on.
The giantesses turn the mill to a new purpose, grinding out a hostile army against their master. That very night, the sea-king Mýsingr arrived with his fleet, attacked Fróði's hall, and killed the Danish king.
Mýsingr and the Salt
After Fróði's death, Mýsingr seized the mill and the giantesses as spoils. He set Fenja and Menja to grinding salt aboard his ships. When they asked whether he had had enough, the sea-king demanded they continue. They ground with such ferocity that the ships broke apart and sank. Where the sea poured through the millstone's eye, a great whirlpool formed, and the ocean became salt. The giantesses and the mill were lost beneath the waves.