Raven banner

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Raven banner (modern drawing)
Raven banner on the Bayeux Tapestry
Vendelzeit : helmet with raven-shaped nose protection, Stockholm History Museum .
Vendelzeit : raven decoration on a sign, Stockholm History Museum.

The raven banner ( Old Norse : hrafnsmerki ; Middle English : hravenlandeye ) was a banner of perhaps totemic nature, which was used by the Viking chiefs and the Scandinavian lords in the 9th to 11th centuries. It was generally triangular in shape but had a rounded edge that was decorated with leaf or flower motifs. It was similar to the weather vanes on Viking boats.

It is generally believed that the raven was the symbol of Odin , often represented in the company of two of these birds, called Huginn and Muninn . This banner was intended to frighten the enemy by invoking the power of Odin.

The raven symbolism in Scandinavian culture

The raven is an important animal among the Scandinavians as it is the attribute of Odin, the main god of Norse mythology. The two crows Huginn ("thought") and Muninn ("memory") are the messengers of Odin, for whom they fly over the world in search of information. That is why one of Odin's names is Hrafnaguð (" raven god "). In Gylfaginning (around 1220), the medieval Icelandic historiographer Snorri Sturluson explains :

"Hrafnar tveir sitja á öxlum honum ok segja í eyru honum öll tíðendi, þau er þeir sjá eða heyra. Þeir heita svá, Huginn ok Muninn. Þá sendir hann í dagan at fljúga um heim allan, okar afli þeirÞur aftrá verðr hann margra tíðenda víss. Því kalla menn hann Hrafnaguð, svá sem he says:

Huginn ok Muninn
fljúga hverjan dag
jörmungrund yfir;
óumk ek Hugin,
at hann aftr né komi,
þó sjáumk ek meir of Munin. "

"Two crows stand on Odin's shoulders and bring everything they hear and see to his ear. Their names are Huginn and Muninn. At dawn he sends them across the world and they come back for breakfast. So that he can deal with many subjects keeps up to date, he gets his name Rafnagud (the "raven god"). As it says here:

Huginn and Muninn
Fly every day
Across the wide world.
I'm afraid for Hugin
That he won't come back
My fear for Munin is even greater. "

We know from the Encomium Emmae Reginae that King Canute the Great carried a raven banner made of white silk with him at the Battle of Assandun in 1016

literature

  • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle .
  • Edward Murray Conrad Barraclough, The Raven Flag , in: Flag Bulletin . Tape. X, nos. 2-3. Winchester, MA: The Flag Research Center (FRC), 1969.
  • Hans Cappelen, Litt heraldikk hos Snorre In: Heraldisk tidsskrift No. 51, 1985.
  • David Dumville, Michael Lapidge (Eds.), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , Volume 17: The Annals of St. Neots with Vita Prima Sancti Neoti . Woodbridge: DS Brewer. 1985.
  • Jan Oskar Engene, The Raven Banner and America , in: NAVA News , Volume XXIX, No. 5, 1996, pp. 1-2.
  • Angelo Forte, Richard Oram, Frederik Pedersen, Viking empires , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-521-82992-5
  • Jakob Grimm . German mythology , 4 volumes
  • Theodor Hjelmkvist, Naturskildringarna i den norröna diktningen , in: Hans Hildebrand (Ed.), Antikvarisk tidskrift för Sverige , Volume 12, Ivar Hæggströms boktryckeri, Stockholm, 1891 ( online )
  • Bodvarsdottir Hrafnhildur, The Function of the Beasts of Battle in Old English Poetry. PhD Dissertation, 1976, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International. 1989.
  • N. Lukman, The Raven Banner and the Changing Ravens: A Viking Miracle from Carolingian Court Poetry to Saga and Arthurian Romance , in: Classica et Medievalia 19 (1958), pp. 133-151
  • Njal's Saga , transl. George DaSent. London, 1861.
  • Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney , transl. Hermann Pálsson, Paul Edwards (1978), London: Hogarth Press, ISBN 0-7012-0431-1 , republished 1981, Harmondsworth: Penguin, ISBN 0-14-044383 -5
  • Russell G. Poole, Viking Poems on War and Peace: A Study in Skaldic Narrative , Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991
  • Snorri Sturluson . King Harald's saga. , in: Heimskringla . Penguin Classics, 2005.
  • Hallvard Trætteberg, Merke og Fløy, in: Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder , Volume XI, Oslo, 1966, columns 549–555.
  • Rosemary Woolf, The Ideal of Men Dying with their Lord in the Germania and in The Battle of Maldon , in: Anglo-Saxon England Volume 5, 1976.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Gylfaginning in: Norrøne Tekster og Kvad