There are times in my life when I wish I had taken more languages than Spanish. After two years in high school and four years in college, I can manage to get my way around a conversation in which I point a Senor or Senora to the correct bathroom. I can also say “there is a cat in my pants,” but I have only had to use that in one situation and it does not bear repeating right now. Needless to say, I could use a Scary German Guy to help with the copy of Das Buch von Feuer und Vernunft Band Drei Betty had lead me to.
So, while Mom was busy with both storytimes today, I managed to translate some of the text. Mostly it was about a bunch of Old World Norse/Germanic gods like Odin and Thor and their adventures. It all made little sense to me as to why Betty would want me to read this. Until I got to the part about the Snotra and Logi.
What stopped me was this image:
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| Sorry for how dark it is, but I couldn't use the flash in the library. |
I will explain why I stopped in a moment. Here is the story of Snotra and Logi in my own words, because the original is all flowery and hard to understand:
"Snotra was a small time god, a clever and beautiful girl who loved humanity. She tricked Odin out of the location of the world tree, Yggdrasil, the place where Odin had gained his wisdom. Using Yggdrasil, she passed knowledge on to the trees of Earth so it could be closer to humans. Then she taught the humans to harvest the knowledge from the trees and bind it in books with language.
Logi was a fire giant. Odin commanded him to regain the stolen knowledge by burning the books. Logi agreed because he was angered by Snotra's interference with the trees, which were used by the humans in worship of him during fire rituals.
Snotra knew this would damage not only the Earth but the future of humanity, so she set a trap for Logi. Finding a place full of clay, Snotra dug a large pit and covered it with leaves. Tracking her down, Logi stepped into the trap and fell in. Snotra dumped the clay she had dug on top of him. Raging, Logi's fire cooked the clay into a brick prison cell where he was trapped.
Snotra then helped the people of the land use the brick to create structures and the woods to create books before vanishing. The people of the land, known as Binders, blended with other cultures who came and remained ever vigilant to the continued imprisonment of Logi.
A variation of the tale is also told that Snotra was bound to the land by Viking settlers far before the Europeans arrived, and this was the reason for her vanishing. Believers in this theory are known as the Cult (or Kult, in the German) of Snotra and carry her mark. They are looking for a way to free Snotra from this binding.”
Sounds kinda cool, huh? How books were made, why burning them is bad, all the fun creation Prometheus tales that were lost a long time ago. I cross reference the story with our Norse fiction and found reference to both Snotra and Logi, but nothing like this tale. I even checked online and came up with nothing. But I was hooked. Because this was real. Or someone thought this was.
Look back up at that symbol. It’s the symbol of Snotra, the combination of the runes “Mannaz” for “wisdom” and “Berkana” for “growth and new beginnings.” Particularly, this rune and its parts are what the Cult of Snotra used to identify themselves.
They are also the symbols that were carved into Ava’s chest when she was murdered.