Posted @ 13:11:10 on 15 August 2008
I haven't posted anything in a while... not that I haven't been doing things, I just haven't found the words to describe my thoughts at the moment... Perhaps it is because I am working with water, and have mercury in pisces... that makes for a very reticent writer! Anyway, I am just back from Copenhagen and trying to get my London Legs back. Today I posted some of my Copenhagen pictures on facebook, and have been really enjoying the input of one of my Danish friends. I have always thought that if you can travel to a place in the company of someone who lives there, you get a unique insight into how the place really is under the pristine facade of the tourist guide books. On one of my walk-abouts I took a photo of a fountain that I was really struck by, but at the time we didn't know who the lady in the fountain was. All I could see was this muscular, feisty looking woman driving her oxen through the water, amidst the spray and foam. The drama of it was so spectacular, I was compelled to bring a photo of her home. Today I posted the picture of the mystery lady, and my friend gave me this description. In her own words (since mine are so lacking at the moment): This is the Goddess Gefion that is using her oxes to plough Sjælland (Zeeland in English) out of Sweden. The woman is busy and has a lot of ambition - obvious isn't it? ;-} She is whipping her own sons - I don't remember their ages - but I think they were at least teenagers when this story took place. "The story goes that".... ages ago (antiquity I think) the Goddess Gefion was allowed to have as much land as she could plough with 4 oxes in one day and one night. She magically transformed her 4 sons to 4 huge strong oxes and let them plough with so much power that they ripped the land into the ocean. The land was given the Danish name Sjælland (Zeeland). In Sweden a huge hole was left - it became the lake Vänern (sorry don't know English name this time) which lines still looks a lot like Zeelands coastline. Water in the fountain symbolic of both sweat and the ocean.