Quest for the Mead of Poetry: Menstrual Symbolism in Icelandic Folk and Fairy Tales

Quest for the Mead of Poetry is a translation and interpretation of seven Icelandic tales. In search for the meaning of a dream in which she was given a silver necklace by a poet, the author happened upon the key to hidden layers of her ancestral heritage. That key was Brísingamen, a legendary necklace that belonged to Freyja, goddess of love and fertility. Freyja's necklace, she discovered, conceals in its name the union of the Sun and the Moon as seen in an eclipse, her red embers bleeding from under his coal black disk in a flaming necklace. It was a revelation that led her to understand that the tabooed menstrual flow of her ancestresses found expression in symbolic language. Hallfridur J. Ragnheidardottir is a poet and a dreamworker with M.A. in Icelandic literature. In her master's thesis she explored her mythological heritage through the lens of Jungian psychology. It was the beginning of an adventurous journey in search of her own music. In this book, she gives voice to her passion for myth, dreams, tarot and poetry. From 1970 her life has been divided between New York and Reykjavik, where she and her husband have now settled. Their son, daughter-in-law and two grandsons live in New York, keeping alive the connection between the two cities.