EN033.22 Minerva
Ott 2025
F. Minno’s Writings
2. Minerva
33.22 Second part of Minno’s writings:
When Nyhellenia (or: Hellenia),[1] whose given name was Minerva, was well established in the land, and the Greeks loved her almost as much as her own folk,[2] there came a group of princes and priests to the burg and asked Minerva where her ‘erva’ (inheritance) lay.
Hellenia answered: “Mina-erva (my inheritance) I bear in my bosom. What I have inherited is the love of wisdom, justice, and freedom. [034] Were I to lose that, I would be like the meanest of your slaves. For, now, I give advice freely, but, then, I would sell it.”
The lords left and called, mockingly: “Your obedient servants, wise Hellenia!” But their ridicule went amiss, for the folk, who loved her and followed her, took up this name as a title of honor. When they realized that they had missed their mark, the princes and priests began to denigrate her, saying she had bewitched the people. But our folk, and the good Greeks, avowed unremittingly that it was slander.
Once they came and asked: “So if you are not a sorceress, what then is the purpose of the eggs you always have with you?” Minerva answered: “These eggs are the symbol of Frya’s counsels, in which our future, and that of all humankind, lies concealed. Time must hatch them and we must see that they come to no harm.”
The priests replied: “Well said, but what of the hound at your right hand?” Hellenia answered: “Does not the shepherd have a sheepdog to keep his flock together? Like the dog in the service of the shepherd, I am in Frya’s service. I must watch over her flock.”
“That makes sense indeed,” said the priests. “But tell us, [035] what is the meaning of the night owl that sits always upon your head? Is that light-shunning creature perhaps the sign of your clairvoyance?”
“No,” answered Hellenia. “He helps me remember that a certain breed of people wanders the earth, who, just as he, house themselves in temples and caves, gnawing in the dark. Though not as he, to help rid us of mice and other pests, but rather to contrive deceits, to rob other peoples of their knowledge so they can more easily lay hold of them to make them slaves and suck their blood like leeches.”
Once, they came with a crowd of people. Plague had come over the land, and they said: “We are all making offerings to the gods, so that they might ward off the plague. Will you not help us to calm their wrath? Or did you yourself bring the plague over the land with your arts?”
“No,” said Minerva. “But I know no gods who are doers of evil. Therefore, I cannot entreat them to become better. I know only one ‘God’ — that is Wralda’s spirit. And because ‘God’ means ‘good’, he also does no evil.”[3]
“Where, then, does evil come from?” the priests asked.
“All of the evil comes from yourselves and from the stupidity of the people who walk willingly into your trap.”
“If, then, your supreme being is so very good, why does he not prevent evil?” the priests asked.
Hellenia answered: “Frya has put us [036] on the path, and the Bearer — that is time —[4] must do the rest. For all calamities, counsel and help may be found. But Wralda intends that we search for them ourselves, in order that we should become strong and wise. If we refuse, he lets our boils fester, so that we should experience the results of wise and foolish deeds.”
One prince replied: “I would think it better to simply ward off disaster.”
“Of course you would,” Hellenia answered, “because then the people would remain like tame sheep. You and the priests would want to guard them, but also to shear them and lead them to the slaughter. Such, though, is not the will of our supreme being. He wills that we help one another, but also that all should be free and become wise. This we desire as well, which is why our folk elects our leaders, aldermen, counselors, and all chieftains and masters from the wisest of the good people — so that all will do their best to become wise and good. Doing thus, we shall come to know, and to teach the people, that wisdom and wise deeds alone lead to salvation.”
“That is quite a notion,” said the priests. “But if you assert that the plague is a result of our ignorance, then would Nyhellenia be so good as to lend us somewhat of the ‘new light’ of which she is so proud?”
“Yes,” Hellenia said: [037] “Crows and other birds feed only on foul carrion, whereas the plague likes not only foul carrion, but also foul morals, customs, and habits.[5] If you want the plague to go away and never come again, you must rid yourselves of these habits, and see that you all become pure,[6] inside and out.”
“We want to believe that your counsel is good,” said the priests, “but tell us how we are supposed to improve all the people under our rule?”
At this, Hellenia rose from her seat and declared: “The sparrows follow the sower, the folks their good leaders. Therefore, you ought to begin by making yourselves so pure that you may look inward and outward without reddening in shame before your own conscience. But, instead of purifying the people, you have invented foul feasts where they drink so excessively that they end up wallowing in the mud like pigs, for you to satisfy your vile lusts.” The people began to yell and jeer, so that the priests did not dare resume the debate.
Now, one might expect that they would have mobilized the people everywhere to drive us altogether from the land. But no. Instead of raising the alarm, they went to every corner, even to the Near Greeklands, all the way to the Alps, declaring that it had pleased the Most High God [038] to send among them his wise daughter Minerva, also named Nyhellenia, across the sea upon the shell of a whelk to give them good counsel, and that whosoever would hear her should become rich and happy, and eventually should rule the whole kingdom of Earth. They placed statues of her on their altars, or sold them to the simple people. They constantly proclaimed counsels that she had never given, and told of miracles that she had never performed.
Through cunning, they made themselves masters of our laws and customs, and through lies managed to blur and distort them all. They also placed maidens under their care (pretending these were under the care of Festa, our first honorable mother) to watch over the divine light.[7] But that flame they themselves had kindled, and instead of properly educating these young maidens and sending them amongst the people, to nurse the sick and teach the children, they kept them ignorant and dim by the light and did not allow them to come outside. The maidens were also used as counselors, but the counsel they gave only seemed to come from their own lips. In reality, they were no more than the mouthpiece through which the priests promulgated their own desires.
When Nyhellenia died, we wished to choose another mother. Some wanted to go to Texland, [039] to ask one there. But the priests, who had regained power over their people, would not permit it and accused us before their people of impiety.
Notes
- ↑ ‘Nyhellenia’ (NY.HEL.LÉNJA) — in the next sentence shortened in original as HEL.LÉNJA, translated here as Hellenia; the name literally means ‘provide new clarity’. ‘Nehalennia’ is widely depicted on votive stones found mostly in the Dutch Province of Zeeland.
- ↑ ‘Greeks’ (KRÉKALANDER) from KRÉKALANDA — suggested to mean ‘creek-lands’; elsewhere differentiated as ‘near’ (current Italy) and ‘distant’ (current Greece).
- ↑ ‘and because ‘god’ means ‘good’...’ — lit.: ‘but because he is God/good...’
- ↑ ‘the Bearer (KRODER) — that is time’ — Χρόνος (Khronos) was the Old Greek personification of Time (hence the Latinized chrono-) and will have been derived from Fryas Kroder.
- ↑ ‘habits’ (FANGNISA) — lit.: ‘imprisonments’, here understood as ‘psychic imprisonment’, from verb FANGA (to catch, capture, trap).
- ↑ ‘rid yourselves of these habits’ (THA FANGNISA WÉI DVA) — lit.: ‘do away with imprisonments’.
- ↑ Compare the Vestals or Vestal Virgins of Ancient Rome.
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Chapter F: Sandbach 1876