Symbols mean whatever people turn them into. Nothing more. Nothing less.
We’re taking a breather after having beaten the shit outta Surtr, or whatever a Pictish woman from the Orkney islands think the lord of the fire giant would look like, and we take a moment to absorb our surroundings. Blasted into the ashen earth is a “known” Norse symbol. A circle of eight great figures, staves and half-moons and circles, whirling about a central space. It’s the Vegvisir, famously associated to Norse mysticism. And thus, unfortunately, with Scandinavian nationalism and racism.
It’s not alone in that unfortunate modern association. From the Tyr-rune being appropriated by modern neo-nazis, or the sowilo-rune adorning the collars of the legendary SS-troops of the Third Reich, the extreme right have for a long time had a penchant for stealing symbols from Norse culture – more often so than Himalayan solar symbols. It is known that Hitler had a hard-on for Norse culture and pseudo-history, along with sending fervent expeditions to Tibet and the Indus valley to find or manufacture links between the Germanic tribes and the Vedic “noble race”. And in good sheepish tradition, his later-day acolytes scramble in the despots footsteps like maggots after an unfortunate accident.
And quite frankly, it’s tiresome.
My friend is correct; symbols have only the power that we, people, infuse them with. If a symbol becomes associated with racism, then that’s unfortunately the way it is, no matter how many Indian vendors, blessedly ignorant of any European misconceptions, sell shirts adorned with the Sanskrit swastika.
But you know what? Fuck them. Fuck the Nazis, and any other supremacist piece of shit who tries to confiscate historical or cultural symbols for their propaganda. They don’t own the swastika, nor do they own the Vegvisir, the sowilo-, or Tyr-rune. They don’t get to put their stink on it to the point of making the symbols anathema in civil society.
Symbols necessarily change over time, because symbols are just sigils of the human condition, which, as it turns out, is malleable also. But that’s not to say that the very worst of human villainy should be permitted to sully our cultural symbols with their hateful ichor. Granted, the swastika may be toxic for another century or two, but even that should not be permitted to be enfilthen so.
Fun fact!: The Vegvisir has no – zero – zip – historical foundation in our old Norse sources. Its oldest source is a 19th century Icelandic text (the Huld manuscript, on page 26), written during one of northern Europe’s many stints of burgeoning national romanticism. It seems to be based on a… slightly… older design of the Helm of Awe, or Helm of Terror, which came around in the 17th century (a full ~600 years after the full christianization of the Nordics). Which only connection to the old traditions is a mention-in-passing in the poetic Edda by the wyrm Fafnir, who (without illustrations) marvels at the fact that he once had a neat hat.
So I guess they can have the Vegvisir, because as it turns out, there’s no evidence that the symbol had any cultural or historical meaning to begin with…
/Sebastian Lindberg 25/6-2024
WastedWords 