I would say that they approached this marvel, and the
Steeple became apparent first, that is not Archaeology but Geography, if you
approach a church (with steeple) from a bending/winding road you see the
steeple's top then the steeple and so on.
But then upon nearer view, they noticed the tower, which had
not it's "roots/foundations" in the earth and thus seemed suspended from the
steeple, an Architectural Miracle Llama Nom nothing more.
A better explanation for this effect is to visualise the
approach of a Tea Clipper at sea, first you get the flags then the mast/sails,
and then the ship, because if the Earth were flat, then you would see the
ship's "Pointed end" first, but you do not.
Eireks saga víðförla:
I have not read this, but there
must be magic in it, no wonder JRRT had so much of his writing rooted in the
Sagas
I'm puzzling over this description of a wondrous
tower in Eireks saga víðförla:
Sá þeir þá því líkast sem stöpull
væri ok hengi í loptinu ok engir stólpar undir. Þeir nálgast þangat. Þar
sá þeir, at hekk á turn í loptinu á engum stólpum. Sunnan við turninn
stóð stigi.
They saw then what looked (for all the world) like a
pillar / steeple / tower. And it seemed to be suspended in the air
with nothing holding it up. They approach it. Then they saw
that A TOWER WAS HANGING (?ON [IT]) in the air with nothing to support
it. A ladder stood propped against the south side of the
tower.
stöpull, m. (1) steeple, tower; (2) pillar = stólpi stólpi,
m. post, pillar, column
I'm just trying to visualise this
miraculous set-up. I'm assuming that in this case 'stöpull' isn't
synonymous with 'stólpi', since we're explicitly told that there aren't
any of those. But is the 'stöpull' likely to be the same as the
'turn' (perhaps just less specific when seen from a distance), in which
case can 'hekk á' be used in an absolute sense, simply "was hanging [up
there]"? Or does 'hekk á' imply that the 'turn' is dangling down
from a steeple, or that it's just hanging suspended in the air perhaps
balenced on top of a pillar that doesn't reach all the way to the
ground?
Somehow I don't think archeology can help us here, so it
comes down to the grammar. All suggestions (sketches?!)
welcome,