[6]. A mark was half a pound of silver.
The same representations on ancient coins and tapestry, which exhibit the raven, and the old flags, also show the sign of the cross. The flag on Olaf’s and Regnald’s coins (p. 53) has a figure in the middle resembling the cross. This is still more distinct on the Bayeux tapestry, where William’s chief banner is borne (p. 59), for immediately after the raven follows a flag with the cross. This last, moreover, certainly represents the identical consecrated banner with the figure of a cross, which the Pope sent to William on the occasion of his expedition against England.
The sign of the cross must by degrees have naturally superseded the raven, not only among the descendants of the Danes and Norwegians in England, but also, though perhaps somewhat later, in the north itself. If we may not assume that the present “Danebrog,” with its white cross on a red ground, became the Danish national flag immediately after the introduction of Christianity, it is at least certain that the Danish kings, in the first two centuries after that event, bore flags with crosses as their personal banners, or marks; and particularly in the twelfth century, when the crusades against the heathen Wends began. An old Saga, or legend, relates, that during one of the crusades of King Waldemar the Victorious in Livonia, in 1219, the “Danebrog” fell from heaven among the Danish army. This much, however, is certain—that it is not till after these crusades that the “Danebrog” appears as the established national flag of the Danes; and ever since that time, for more than six centuries, it has continued to wave unchanged in the Danish fleets and armies. It is remarkable that, as the flag of the fleet, and of all fortified places, and as the royal flag, it is split; and it can scarcely be doubted that this form must have originated from the fringes and tongues, or points, with which the old Danish and Scandinavian flags were ornamented in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The Scandinavian people is the only one which from remote antiquity has uninterruptedly borne this split flag; and it is possible that Sweden, as well as Norway, obtained theirs, which is of comparatively late origin, by imitating the old Danebrog.
[[++]] Flags and Ensigns
Other European countries also derived from the crusades flags with crosses as their national banners; as, for instance, England the St. George’s banner, which was white with a red cross; and Scotland a blue flag divided by a white St. Andrew’s cross. About the same time the different kingdoms began to adopt a fixed national coat of arms. Thus Denmark assumed that still in use,—three blue leopards, or lions, on a golden shield, strewed with red hearts; which was originally the family arms of the royal house. It has, however, undergone a few slight changes. With regard to this subject, it is remarkable that three leopards were also borne by the Norman dukes, who were of Norwegian descent, and who, after the conquest, introduced the leopards, or lions, into the arms of England. Generally the lion was not, nor is indeed at present, found on coats of arms in England and France, whereas it appears very frequently in those of the north. Sweden has, besides others, the Gothic lion; the Norwegian national coat of arms is a lion with a halberd; and Denmark has, besides the proper national arms, the Cymbric lion, and the two Sleswick lions. But the lion is so peculiarly Scandinavian that it does not even cross the Eider; Holstein, which is German, has an entirely different coat of arms—a nettle-leaf. There is also this similarity between the Danish and English lions, that they are represented standing, whilst those on the other national arms are depicted springing. Would it, therefore, be quite groundless to trace, even in the armorial bearings of England, one of the many proofs of the influence which the Northmen, and the Scandinavian elements, still continued to exert there at the time when the national arms were adopted, and when the foundations of an entirely new and superior social system had already been laid?
Section VII.
Danish-Norwegian Names of Places.
On the extremity of the tongue of land which borders on the north the entrance of the Humber, there formerly stood a castle called Ravnsöre (raven’s point—in old Scandinavian, Hrafnseyri), and afterwards Ravnsere. Öre is, as is well known, the old Scandinavian name for the sandy point of a promontory. Ravn (or Raven) may possibly have been either the name of the man who first conquered the surrounding district and built the castle; or, what is certainly far more probable, the Northmen, on erecting this important castle on one of their first landing places on the greatest river in north England, named it after the bird sacred to Odin, which fluttered in their banner, and prognosticated to them victory in the fight. In that case it was a singular coincidence that Harald Haardraade’s son Olaf should, after the battle of Stamford Bridge, have embarked at Ravnsöre for the Orkneys and Norway with the feeble remnant of the Norwegian army. The very place which had before so often seen multitudes of Northmen, intoxicated with victory, land with Odin’s raven-flag, now beheld the flight-like departure of their successors, after they had combated in vain under that celebrated banner “Landöde” (the land-ravager), which had accompanied Harald Haardraade in his expeditions to the East, against the Saracens and other enemies of Christianity. It was one of the many proofs that “White Christ” was not yet for the Northmen, at least in battle, what Odin had been previously.