Cañon City record., 1907-09-12


swastika which the maiden of today Is
using to ornament a summer shirt
waist 1t was with his mighty hammer,
Miollner, that Thor is tabled to have
crushed the head of the Midgard SER
pent, destroyed the giants, restored to
life the dead goats which drew his
car, and consecrated the pyre of Bal
dur the beautiful. And so it was that
the great religious emblem of all the
Scandinavian peoples. Longfellow. de-
scribing in his verse how the newly
converted King Olaf kept Yuletide at
Drontheim, says:
Ger his drinking horn the sign
He made of the cross divine.
AS he drank, and muttered his
prayers;
But the Berserks evermore
Made the sign of the hammer Of Thor
Over theirs.
And when the wave of Christianity
rolled over western Europe, Yuletide
and the hammer of Thor and many
another pagan idea became assimil-
ated with the new religion and appear
ed in gentler guise. The swastika is
embroidered in the inter of Thomas
a Beckett, and is often introduced in
religious decoration in the middle
ages.
BELLS were often marked with the
fylfot, or cross of Thor" says s. Bar
ing Gould, especially where the Morse
settled"
friH nf he
alteration paid the swastika is to be
seen in the Boston museum of Fine
Arts. This is a huge painting on silk,
used as a temple decoration in Japan
600 years ago. 1t pictures the Buddha
enthroned, surrounded by hosts of
adoring saints and deities, and above
him, on either side, an angelic form.
But between these and directly above
his head, in the center of concentric
circles cushioned on a cloud, Is a
splendid swastika. Glittering in silver
white against the dull brown tones of
the background, it seems the motif
of the whole picture, and dominates
the figures below as might the cross Of
Constantine when first it filled the
sight.
1t is one of the signs by which Bud
dha is to be recognized when he comes
upon earth; and Sir Edwin Arnold in
THE Light of Asia" makes Asita. the
aged saint who examined the Sakla
Buddha at his birth, find his baby foot
sole ..
the soft-curled tendrils of the
swastika.
And SO the tiny images show the
gigantic statues of Buddha show in
many case the swastika upon his
feet, while in others 1t appears in the
center of his forehead.
Mr.. Wilson of the National museum
at Washington discovered 1t embroid-
cred on the silk robes of attache
Chung of the Chinese legation at Wash
ington and was told that it was an
ancient Chinese device signifying
many years" or long life" and in
general an emblem Of good fortune.
Major General Gordon found it on
the breech chasing of a Chinese can
non captured at the Taku forts.
Rev F. x. Chalfant, missionary at
Shantung, writes in Science that "it is
among the mystic Chinese characters,
is called wan and is favorite with
the Chinese"
And not only in the orient but in
the most remote corners of Europe
is the swastika to be found. 1t is
among the remains of the early lake
villages of the Swiss The Firms and
the Lapps know it. 1t is on early Gre
clan pottery and vases. Germanic mus
Gums show 1t as an ornament on early
bronze centuries and the Scandina-
vians stamped 1t deep in their weap-
ons of war. 1t began before history.
The puzzle of the archoeologists,
however, is its appearance in this
country many hundreds and perhaps
thousands Of years ago. 1t has been
discovered carved on shells in pre-
historic burial mounds in Tennessee,
silhoutted on copper plates in Ohio