Spring in the Ancient Mountains

by | - uploaded on April 18, 2023, 4:49 am

At the edge of a mountain valley a flower grows; next to the flower is a slab of stone with a phrase carved into it in Old East Norse, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr%C3%B8mde_mik_en_dr%C3%B8m_i_nat ᛐᚱᚬᛘᛐᛅ᛬ᛘᛁᚴ᛬ᛅᚿ᛬ᛐᚱᚬᛘ᛬ᛁ᛬ᚿᛆᛐ᛬ᚢᛘ᛬ᛋᛁᛚᚴᛁ᛬ᚬᚴ᛬ᛅᚱᛚᛁᚴ᛬ᛒᛅᛚ᛬, transliterated "Drømde mik en drøm i nat um silki ok ærlik pæl" and in English "I dreamt a dream last night of silk and fine fur", a phrase which—accompanied by musical notation—terminates the 13th-century legal document known as the Codex Runicus, a written copy of the Skånske lov (which was actually written on parchment rather than carved into stone.) The laws pertained to Scania, a region of Denmark or Sweden (depending on the century.) To hear modern renderings of the tune see the Wikipedia article above.

Although fierce warrior-merchant-explorers, traveling in longships, figure largely in modern imagination of the Vikings, modern economic analysis has determined that the majority of labor necessary to produce a longship was that of the shepherds and cloth manufacturing, likely women's work, for the sophisticated techniques necessary to create woolen sails. A hand spindle, for spinning cleaned and carded wool fibers into thread, leans against the end of the monolith in this image.

The monolith slab was created with the Inkscape 3D Box tool.