EN061.28 Burgmaids
Ott 2025
L. Era of Minerva
1. At Walhallagara
The War of Kelta and Minerva
61.28 Now we will write about the war of the burgmaids Kelta and Minerva, and how we thereby lost all our southern lands and Britannia to the Gola.
[062] Near the southern mouth of the Rhine and the Scheldt, there are seven islands, named after Frya’s seven watch maidens of the week. In the middle of one island is the burg Walhallagara. On its walls, the following history is written. It starts with:
“Read, learn, and keep watch.”
Five hundred and sixty-three years after Aldland sank, a wise burgmaid had her seat here. Minerva was her name, called by the navigators Nyhellenia. This epithet was well chosen, because the advice she lent (lenade) was new (ny) and bright (hel) — above all other counsel.
Across the Scheldt, at Fleeburg, was the seat of Syrhed. This maid was crafty. Comely was her face and quick was her tongue, but the advice she gave was always veiled in obscure words. Therefore, the navigators called her Kelta (chatter); the land-dwellers took this to be a term of endearment.
Named first in the last will of the deceased mother was Rosamunde, second was Minerva, and Syrhed third in line of sucession. Minerva thought nothing of this, but Syrhed was offended. Like a foreign princess, she desired to be honored, feared, and worshiped. But Minerva wished merely to be admired. Eventually, all navigators would come to pay her their respects, even from the Denmarks and the Flee Lake. This wounded Syrhed, [063] because she wished to be esteemed above Minerva. To advertise her vigilance, she depicted a rooster upon her banner.
Minerva responded by depicting a herding dog and an owl upon hers. “The dog,” she said, “watches over his owner and the flock, and the owl watches over the field to keep it from being devastated by mice. But the rooster has no friendship for anyone, and his lechery and cockiness has often made him the bane even of his nearest kin.”
When Kelta saw that her scheme had failed, she went from bad to worse. Secretly, she invited Magyars to come and teach her sorcery. And when she was done, she threw herself into the arms of the Gola. All these misdeeds, though, did nothing to improve her position. When she realized that the navigators only shunned her more and more, she sought to entice them through fear. Whenever the moon was full and the sea stormy, she would go out, treading the wild swells and shouting at the seafarers that they should all perish if they refused to worship her. She also blinded their eyes so that they mistook land for water and water for land, whereby many a ship was lost [064] with man and mouse.[1]
At the first defense festival that followed,[2] when all her landsmen were armed, she brought out barrels of beer, to which she had added a magic potion. As the folk became altogether drunk, she stood upon the back of her warhorse, leaning her head upon her spear — no scarlet daybreak could have vied with such beauty. When she saw that all eyes were fixed upon her, she opened her lips and proclaimed:
“Sons and daughters of Frya! Well do you know that we have suffered much loss and misery in recent times, since the navigators no longer come to export our paper.[3] But you do not know how it came about. Long have I kept my silence, but I can bear it no longer. Harken, my friends, that you may know where to bite!
“On the other side of the Scheldt, where ships from almost all seas pass by, they nowadays make paper from waterlily leaves.[4] Thus, they no longer use linen and have no more need of us! The making of paper has always been our chief industry, so the mother would have wanted them to teach us the new craft too.
“But Minerva has bewitched all the folk — yes bewitched, my friends — even as all our cattle that died recently. It must be made known, and I will tell you this: If I were not a [065] burgmaid, I know what I would do. I would burn that witch in her nest!”
As soon as she had thus spoken, she hurried to her burg. But the besotted folk was in such a frenzy that they had lost all sense of reason. In a mad fervor they crossed the Sandfal and, as night was falling, they fell upon the burg with equal madness.
But Kelta again failed of her goal. For Minerva, her maidens, and the Lamp were all rescued by the swift navigators.
Notes
- ↑ ‘man and mouse’ — ‘crew and cargo’ (expression).
- ↑ ‘defense festival’ (WÉRFÉSTE) — or: ‘gathering of defenders’, ‘military/defense feast’; from verb WÉRA (to defend).
- ↑ ‘paper’ (SKRIF.FILT) — lit. ‘writing skins’; ‘FILT’ is an obvious cognate of ‘felt’ but likely also referred to prepared animal skin (pelt); the Dutch verb ‘villen' means ‘to skin’ and ‘filt’ could represent the participle form: i.e., skinned/pelted (peeled). Although SKRIF.FILT at some point may thus have referred to vellum/parchment, some lines later it is suggested that the ‘filt’ (paper) was made from linen, before dried leaves became the raw material.
- ↑ ‘water-lily leaves’ (POMPA.BLÉDAR) — Frisian: ‘pompeblêden’; may be related to the Old Frisian word for paper: ‘pompier’.
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Chapter L: Sandbach 1876