The bird is raven, quite popular symbol in medieval Scandinavia attested for i think all countries and symbolising at first Odin's ravens and then genrally death. It was mostly used by Danes, notably by Cnut the Great. It was never attested as universal symbol though, so using it as one for Scandinavia, let alone everything that was Germanic once is something one would expect from someone birdbrained enough to make such map.
Yeah there were so many Germanic symbols it's goofy to try and make one universal. It would make way more sense for it to be a little club or inverted hammer, like the amulets that Germanic pagans wore from between the 5th and 9th centuries. My understanding is they did that in response to Christians wearing crucifixes, so it was a conscious adoption of a religious/ethnic symbol in response to another one.
My understanding is they did that in response to Christians wearing crucifixes, so it was a conscious adoption of a religious/ethnic symbol in response to another one.
Yes that was exactly the case, a lot of what we know about old Germanic religion and culture might be either fabrication or late versions already being under the influence of christianity. The contacts with mediterranean cultures were much earlier, even the famous runes were derived from northern Italic script, most likely Etruscan, somewhere around I century BCE/CE.
Funnily enough the first symbol that was really used by all Germanic people is the christian cross, under that they unified into states, and that's also what is on every Scandinavian flag today.
There was simply no symbol that would be even close to universal even for Scandinavia, let alone entire body of Germanic people (at least before they all converted to catholicism), because there was no point in history when they thought about all of themselves as one people. Same with Slavic, Romance etc. Language groups are not unified people. All tries to invent such symbols are only tied to XIX century+ pan-something movement and those are way too fashy to be comfortable with (and have no chance in hell as history proven already).
deleted by creator
The bird is raven, quite popular symbol in medieval Scandinavia attested for i think all countries and symbolising at first Odin's ravens and then genrally death. It was mostly used by Danes, notably by Cnut the Great. It was never attested as universal symbol though, so using it as one for Scandinavia, let alone everything that was Germanic once is something one would expect from someone birdbrained enough to make such map.
Yeah there were so many Germanic symbols it's goofy to try and make one universal. It would make way more sense for it to be a little club or inverted hammer, like the amulets that Germanic pagans wore from between the 5th and 9th centuries. My understanding is they did that in response to Christians wearing crucifixes, so it was a conscious adoption of a religious/ethnic symbol in response to another one.
Yes that was exactly the case, a lot of what we know about old Germanic religion and culture might be either fabrication or late versions already being under the influence of christianity. The contacts with mediterranean cultures were much earlier, even the famous runes were derived from northern Italic script, most likely Etruscan, somewhere around I century BCE/CE.
Funnily enough the first symbol that was really used by all Germanic people is the christian cross, under that they unified into states, and that's also what is on every Scandinavian flag today.
I think the reason he's using that symbol specifically is because it's the one used in Crusader Kings to represent the Asatru religion
Possibly, but i don't feel the real CK vibes, or at least not CK3 where cultures and languages have some meaning.
deleted by creator
There was simply no symbol that would be even close to universal even for Scandinavia, let alone entire body of Germanic people (at least before they all converted to catholicism), because there was no point in history when they thought about all of themselves as one people. Same with Slavic, Romance etc. Language groups are not unified people. All tries to invent such symbols are only tied to XIX century+ pan-something movement and those are way too fashy to be comfortable with (and have no chance in hell as history proven already).
deleted by creator